{"id":95326,"date":"2025-10-07T15:16:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=95326"},"modified":"2025-10-07T15:16:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:16:59","slug":"onanugas-selective-amnesia-jonathans-tenure-was-not-this-season-of-hardship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=95326","title":{"rendered":"Onanuga\u2019s selective amnesia: Jonathan\u2019s tenure was not this season of hardship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former President Goodluck Jonathan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Babandi Ibrahim Gumel<\/strong>, PhD<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s tenure was not a golden age. It had its well-documented failures. But to claim that the Tinubu administration represents an improvement is to measure with a broken ruler.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the wake of Professor Jerry Gana\u2019s political prognostication, Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu, rushed to the ramparts to fire a salvo of condemnation against the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan.<\/p>\n

His central thesis that the Tinubu administration is a marked improvement, is not just a defence of his principal; it is a profound misreading of recent Nigerian history and a staggering dismissal of the current, unprecedented suffering of millions of Nigerians.<\/p>\n

A clear-eyed comparison of the first year of Jonathan\u2019s elected term with the first year of Tinubu\u2019s reveals that the current administration has plunged the nation into a depth of economic misery and insecurity that Jonathan\u2019s era, for all its faults, never approached.<\/p>\n

To critique the Jonathan administration is fair game. It was a government hampered by inertia and, most memorably, the insurgency of Boko Haram, which it initially underestimated.<\/p>\n

However, to suggest, as Onanuga does, that it was a darker period for the average Nigerian than the present requires a willful blindness to the stark realities of 2025.<\/p>\n

Economic Management: Stability Versus Shock Therapy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s first elected term (2011-2015), the Nigerian economy was one of the fastest growing in the world. While the benefits of this growth were unevenly distributed\u2014a legitimate criticism\u2014the fundamental building blocks of daily life were not catastrophically dismantled.<\/p>\n

The Jonathan administration managed the economy within a framework of relative price stability. Fuel prices were stable and subsidised, ensuring that the cost of transportation and goods, while high, was not prohibitive. The Naira, though under pressure, traded at a predictable rate, allowing businesses to plan.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with the Tinubu administration\u2019s economic reforms. The abrupt removal of the fuel subsidy and the flotation of the Naira were not mere policy adjustments; they were seismic shocks that have shattered the Nigerian economy. The result is not the \u201cvibrancy\u201d Onanuga imagines, but an inflationary tsunami.<\/p>\n

Inflation<\/strong>: Under Jonathan, inflation was a concern, but it hovered around the 8-12% range. Today, it has skyrocketed to over 33%, a 28-year high, with food inflation at a staggering 40%. Though prices of food commodities are coming down but are mere seasonal trend that will lapse in the next two month. The price of a bag of rice, a staple, has more than tripled since May 2023.<\/p>\n

Currency Value<\/strong>: The Naira, which traded at about \u20a6180\/$1 under Jonathan, now languishes at over \u20a61,500\/$1. This collapse has decimated purchasing power, crippled businesses that rely on imports, and sent the cost of living into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n

Poverty<\/strong>: While poverty was significant under Jonathan, the World Bank now projects that the number of poor Nigerians will hit 100 million under Tinubu\u2019s policies. This is not an improvement; it is a national emergency.<\/p>\n

Onanuga celebrates these policies as \u201cnecessary,\u201d but what good is a necessary medicine if the patient is killed by the side effects? The Tinubu administration\u2019s reforms have been harsh, theoretical, and implemented with a stunning lack of mitigating social safety nets, plunging millions into hunger and despair.<\/p>\n

Insecurity: A Contained Fire Versus a National Conflagration<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is true that the Jonathan administration grappled with the terrifying rise of Boko Haram, culminating in the tragic Chibok girls\u2019 abduction\u2014a failure for which it was rightly criticised. However, the security landscape today is vastly more complex and widespread.<\/p>\n

Under Tinubu, the Boko Haram\/ISWAP threat persists in the North-East. But now, it is compounded by a metastasizing banditry crisis in the North-West that has made vast swathes of farmland no-go areas, directly contributing to the food crisis.<\/p>\n

In the North-Central, farmer-herder clashes have become more deadly.<\/p>\n

In the South-East, the sit-at-home crisis and separatist violence continue to cripple economic activity. Kidnapping for ransom has become a nationwide industry, terrorising citizens on highways and in their homes from Abuja to Kaduna, and from Lagos to Owerri.<\/p>\n

The Jonathan administration faced a formidable, but largely regionalised, insurgency. The Tinubu administration presides over a nationwide free-for-all, where insecurity is not an exception but a daily reality for citizens across all geo-political zones.<\/p>\n

To claim superiority on security is to ignore the fact that the fire, though fought in one room under Jonathan, has now spread to consume the entire house.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: A Defence That Rings Hollow<\/strong><\/p>\n

Onanuga\u2019s statement is a predictable piece of political defence. However, in his attempt to shield his principal from criticism, he has insulted the intelligence of Nigerians who live the daily reality of this administration\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

They feel the pang of hunger, they struggle to buy fuel, they watch their life savings evaporate with the Naira\u2019s value, and they live in fear of kidnappers and terrorists.<\/p>\n

Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s tenure was not a golden age. It had its well-documented failures. But to claim that the Tinubu administration represents an improvement is to measure with a broken ruler.<\/p>\n

The current hardship, triggered directly by harsh and poorly sequenced economic policies, is unprecedented in its scale and intensity.<\/p>\n

Nigerians are not nostalgic for Jonathan; they are desperate for relief from a present that is demonstrably and quantifiably worse. No amount of political spin froAyBayo Onanuga can change that painful, self-evident truth.<\/p>\n

\u25cf Gumel is the State Chairman of the PDP in Jigawa State, and he writes from Dutse.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Babandi Ibrahim Gumel, PhD \u201cPresident Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s tenure was not a golden age. It had its well-documented failures. But to claim that the Tinubu administration represents an improvement is to measure with a broken ruler.\u201d In the wake of Professor Jerry Gana\u2019s political prognostication, Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu, rushed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":64322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[147,5339,56],"class_list":["post-95326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-opinion","tag-jonathan","tag-onanuga","tag-tinubu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}