Letter to GEJ: If (did)God Chose You, President Jonathan(?) By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

Dear President Jonathan,

It’s not my intention to communicate with you this soon, but you keep forcing my hands. You keep making the issue about you. Since my last letter to you, I have felt that expanding the discussion and widening the focus would be more beneficial to our people. Which one be “God chose me”, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan?

I guess you’re a little bit confused. God did not choose you, President

Jonathan. The PDP chose you after you shared our commonwealth with their delegates. Remember?

I know our intractable existential problems have exacerbated our anxiety, fragmented our vision and consumed our faculties. The situation leaves the best of us in a hapless default to faith.

It has been part of the political culture to insult the citizens of Nigeria while at the same time invoking the divine audacity to demand respect. What is worse is the ease with which people in authority embarrass God. By saying that God chose you, President Jonathan, you are killing God softly.

Mr. President, let me remind you of how you won the election. It may require shaking up the dust off your medulla oblongata. Remember how you won 110% of the votes in Rivers State? If you want to give credit to anyone for you being where you are, give the credit to Gov. Amaechi of Rivers state, Gov. Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State, Chief Tony Anineh, and other PDP party men and women who brought out state money to ‘smoothen’ your electoral path. These are the people who chose you. These are the mafia chiefs who inflated the mandate of the people.

If God had chosen you, God will make certain demands of you. He will say to you, give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and unto God what belongs to God. God will tell you to declare your assets for that is the law of the land.

If God chose you, God will tell you that it is unconscionable for you and your National Assembly members to spend the outrageous 25 percent of Nigeria’s resources to maintain your lavish lifestyle while the sheep placed under your care starve.

If God chose you, God will tell you that it is unacceptable to confess his name while you go to bed with rogues in PDP. Rouges like Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Speaker Bankole, Atiku Abubakar, Bode George etc. ***** Eyes wide open****

If God chose you, God would have told you not to splash the blood of his innocent children just to force a draconic oil subsidy removal down their throats.

I’m aware that it is traditional to abuse the citizens of that country. You insult them, abuse them, neglect them and live your life as if it has nothing to do with them.

I guess I know why now. Your being there had nothing to do with them. It was God that put you there. Really?

In this world, some people get to where they are by fraud. Some get there by deceit. Some get there by hard work. God did not have anything to do with it. If God put people where they are, then, obviously God placed James Ibori where he was.

It follows, therefore, that it was God that looked at the convict, James Ibori and put him in charge of Delta State for eight years. After his non-performance the first four years, God insisted that he must return to repeat the same. God watched with great delight as he stole billions of naira that belonged to the people. Why did God do that, Mr. President? Is it because God loved to punish the people of Delta State?

Don’t you think that’ll be cruelty. And God is not cruel. Or is He?

Why did God choose you? Why did God foster you on us? Perhaps, God wanted to use you to punish us?

You were right. You are not the best- you and your team. But by saying so you suggest that you are anywhere near good. It is like Zamfara state saying that their numbers were not the best in the 2012 JAMB enrollment when they should have been saying that they were among the worst. It sounds more sincere. And I recommend that you consider the word ‘worst’ when next you want a word to associate yourself with. That, my friend, is what I call being humble.

If God knew you were not the best and God knew you will not get over yourself and do your best, why will God put you there? Why will God give you a task that is way beyond your skill set?

The other day, you went to Sokoto to open a model school for kids who saw the world as a place stacked up against them. They were kids brought up to believe that God meant for them to pick up crumbs from the table of the privileged ones – many of whom looted the commonwealth to attain their exalted heights. I hope you, Mr. President and your teachers are going to teach them in that school that God did not choose them to be beggars. I hope that’s the plan.

So why are you presenting a different narrative for us. If God chose you, he will not let you double the price of petrol and all services and goods by 100% overnight.

If God chose you, He would have given you the wisdom to find an alternative way to solve the problem of corruption rather than exert collective punishment on the people of Nigeria for your incompetence.

If God chose you, He would have demanded that you hold your subordinates accountable for the right to a decent life for the Nigerian people. Accountability is transformational. And it starts with you.

I know you will say the same fallacies your pastors reinforce- that God works with sinners. But those are sinners who are reformed -sinners who have acknowledged and confessed their manifold sins.

If God chose you, He would have asked you to confess your sins. And repent from all unrighteousness. He would have demanded that you and your ‘chosen’ team stop siphoning billions of naira in security votes while millions of his children die due to poor healthcare, bad roads, lack of clean water, crushing insecurity.

Mr. President, nothing weakens the superiority of one’s argument over another as the compulsion to summon God to one’s side and set Him up to accept the blame for our incompetence.

May that not be your legacy! 

By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo