by Rasheed Onoja
Even though its an English word that had existed in the dictionary for ages, as far as Nigeria’s political history is concerned, the word ‘clueless’ was invented by a certain enfant terrible and renowned propagandist, Lai Mohammed against former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The online based Free Dictionary defines “clueless” as ” totally uninformed about what is going on; not having even a clue from which to infer what is occurring”
In the days of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Lai Mohammed and his party used all foul means to bring that government down. They employed all manners of tactics to deceive and hoodwink Nigerians into believing that Jonathan was the cause of all their problems. It got to a point that Jonathan was so hated in a section of social media that people blamed him for their inability to impregnate their wives. It was that bad.
It is interesting to note that Nigerians are now shouting Bring Back our Jonathan since it is now obvious even for the blind to see that the present ruling party was only prepared to win election and not to govern.
The APC as the then opposition party was always on the neck of Jonathan in their desperate bid to get to power at all cost.
In their desperation to bring down Jonathan, they invented clueless for him. While naive Nigerians were getting excited, some of us asked a couple of questions and demanded to know the real meaning of cluelessness.
What do you call clueless? Is it the signing by Jonathan, the Freedom of Information bill into law which empowered investigative reporters with the enabling law to shine the torchlight more effectively on government agencies?
What is cluelessness? Is it the fact Jonathan revived the automobile industry and made it possible for Nigeria to join the league of car producing countries?
How do we define cluelessness? That under Jonathan’s watch, Nigeria achieved a lot in sports with multi-awards to show? Or is it the series of conscious efforts made by Jonathan, through which Nigeria became the largest economy in Africa?
Or is it the fact that Jonathan’s magnanimity allowed him to create a positive political environment that allowed opposition to thrive? Could this be what made him clueless? He also repositioned the conduct of elections in the country and removed do-or-die politics from our political lexicon. He also showed rare patriotism and spirit of sportsmanship by letting go, calling his closest challenger to congratulate him when it became obvious that he was losing the last elections.
Those were the same questions I asked a couple of guys who bought into the APC propaganda and thought Jonathan was indeed clueless.
Is it the fact that we did not experience this level of desperate fuel queues during Jonathan’s time that made him clueless?
Few months into office, President Muhammadu Buhari and his co-travelers have now redefined cluelessness. In fact, they have taken cluelessness to a new height.
Where do we start from? Is it the myriads of problems the country is going through which the President doesn’t seem to have solutions to? Is it the needless but incessant foreign trips?
Is it the fact that the President is blowing hot and cold on the issue of a national airline carrier?
Is it the lack of clear cut economy policies and blueprint for national rebirth?
Is it the fact that both the President and his party men have been trying to deny some of the obvious promises they made to the electorate during electioneering? Or that they have been speaking with discordant tunes on whether they made certain promises to Nigerians or not.
What else can one call cluelessness if not the embarrassing and scandalous manner with which the whole budget process has been handled or to use the appropriate word, mishandled.
If the above symptoms of incompetence are not also signs of cluelessness, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu’s famous “I can’t do magic” rant has to be a case study in cluelessness.
Both incompetence and cluelessness are infectious ailments indeed. Even a hitherto respected Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina appeared on Channels Television recently and made a mess of that office with illogical thoughts, unreasonable conclusions, unintelligent arguments and arrogant posturing. In fact, he even said Nigerians had no business holding government responsible for blackout and instead, should call vandals to order.
If that shocking abdication of responsibility from Adesina is not cluelessness, what then is cluelessness?
The theme of this gospel is therefore that Lai Mohammed was too much in a haste to invent that word for the wrong man. He should have waited for a few months to invent it for the rightful owner of the title. Jonathan is obviously not the clueless one. We all know the man who is now showing us cluelessness in its raw state.
Rasheed Onoja is a political commentator who lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
