Does Jonathan Goodluck Believe in Fatalism!

The word GOODLUCK has something fatalistic about it. It connotes a favorable phenomenon that suddenly occurs in ones life with which one’s prior actions were not of any apparent causality.

In the African worldview, names are existentially woven into the very concept of life itself. It is held as a conventional wisdom that one’s cosmic turnout is somewhat a proven manifestation of the names which one bears. Thus Africans are known to chose their names carefully since the rise and fall of humans might have some mythic bearings in the sort of names they bear.

Could this be true of the vice president of Nigeria. One wonders if he does sustain a belief in fatalism. His name, at least, leans to a notion in fortuity, in a sort of zodiac astrology (stars) that proscribes human existential glories through certain inanimate celestial objects hanging in the distant galaxical space. Fatalism within the ambiance of this write-up, implies that very concept that posits that there is a predetermined metaphysical necessity in the universe which compels everything to function within its construct. In other words, what will be will be, and what will not be will not be. Therefore human actions has little or no effect in uttering any significant change

The unpopular rise of Mr. Vice President to his present political echelon seemed like the dramatic sequence of a well written fatalistic play. It seems there is a perfect consistency in the chain of events that tend to propel him from minor to major actor in his political career. One wonders if perhaps he perceives himself as a child of fate whose destiny has been predetermined from birth. In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare wrote through the mouth of Malvolio:

I am not so confident if Jonathan Goodluck is among the category of those born great. I do not consider him as achieving greatness either. But I can conjecture that he is within the class of humans who feel they should only seat and wait for greatness to be thrust upon them. Prior to December, 2005, the name he was quite unknown as far as the Nigerian political scenery is concerned. The event that led to his rise to the position of governorship in Bayelsa State seemed to reflect a certain superstition that is often ingrained in his name–Goodluck.

This seemingly ‘predestined’ drama of rise to the height began when the acting governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was ousted out of office on corruption indictment. The news made international headlines. As the saying goes, one man’s sadness might turn another man’s happiness. Mr. Jonathan, being the deputy governor, was unequivocally elevated to the position of governorship. He never went through the rigors and huddles of election as would a normal gubernatorial aspirant. Thus his name, Goodluck appears to have a piece of luck attacked to ti.

At present, the Nigerian political news is replete with the controversy over Umaru Yar’adua’s health condition and weather he could still return to Nigerian as the functioning president. In the event that Yar’adua could not survive his terrible medical condition to act as the Nigerian president, Jonathan Goodluck would be ones more, automatically, elevated to the major historic height. As in the case with his unchallenged rise to governorship, he could become the constitutional Nigerian president. Are these sequence of events coincidental or does his personal fate has something to do with it?

Having sequentially and unexpectedly been handpicked and place in honorable positions, I have no doubt that Mr. Jonathan’ instinct to rise up and be a go-getter had been affected tremendously. This of a strong negating factors of why he is not the perfect personality to stir the presidential wheel of the Nigerian nation should Umaru Yar‘adua fails to return. As the Deputy governor of Bayelsa State, he was favorably handpicked without the rigor of public probing. Similarly, as the vice president of Nigeria, he was also fated the same way, perhaps unprepared, without the rigor of public scrutiny. He remains a vague character in the minds of the Nigerian people. The fact that Yar’adua handpicked him was obviously based on the deceptive amelioration of the northern political oligarchs to the South-Easters than from a true national inclusiveness. Yar’adua with his northern political caliphates could not have chosen a more aggressive personality to second him in office. They considered Jonathan as dumb, inactive, easily manipulated and politically infantile.

A man as described above, whose emergence to power seems more like a sudden act of fate than of valiant human willpower and fearless moral determination would not be the best candidate for the Nigerian presidency. He is timid and incoherent. It is believed that he is confused about day to day running of Nigerian affair just as the generality of the Nigerian citizens are. So many Nigerians wonder if he can even give an intelligent report on Yar’adua’s supposedly medical disappearance. He seems uncertain of his role in the position he had found himself in. Even in the absence of the president, he seems unable to fight for the right to his political function. A man of this configuration who might have the superstitious prompt that fate would only lead him to the next level can hardly be a good leader to the Nigerian people. It is not a question of which region should produce the next president. It is a question of who is the best from the region whose turn it is to produce the president. And this led to the conclusion that vice president Jonathan Goodluck is a man who just seat down and wait for good luck (fate) to happen and take him to the next level.