Redefining political persecution and national cleansing

In his controversial remarks at a farewell and thanksgiving service held in his honour in Abuja, President Goodluck Jonathan, among other dubieties, prepared the minds of his ministers and aides for what he felt certain would be their lot soon after he vacates the presidency. Prejudging President-elect Muhammadu Buhari’s modus operandi, Dr Jonathan insinuated that his successor would needlessly execute policies and inaugurate inquiries both designed to afflict officials of the last government. Addressing his loyalists on the implications of conceding defeat to Gen Buhari, the president had said: “If you take certain decisions, it might be good for the generality of the people, but it might affect people differently. So for ministers and aides who served with me, I sympathise with them, they will be persecuted. And they must be ready for that persecution.”

The president obviously conflates a panel of inquiry into clear or suspicious wrongdoings with persecution. He regards Gen Buhari’s suggestion to investigate a few individuals and government agencies, particularly the NNPC, with hefty insufferableness. There will, however, be a number of inquiries, though the president-elect has said he will not be bogged down probing his predecessor. No matter what warnings have been given by the outgoing president, some of his aides and ministers, especially in agencies where humongous sums of money were illegally taken for the purpose of funding Dr Jonathan’s reelection, will be probed. Indeed, contrary to the president’s apprehension, the suspicion in many circles is that Gen Buhari will struggle not to probe agencies and ministries where a lot of stealing took place. But because the scale of stealing would probably be huge, he will have no choice but to probe, even at the risk of categorising the process as a deliberate and calculated persecution of opponents or something more sinister.


Importantly, as is typically Dr Jonathan, he often engages in insouciant, definitional imprecision. But persecution involves harassing and punishing someone who has done no wrong, or because of his political, religious and cultural beliefs and persuasion. Inquiries, on the other hand, implies an effort to serve justice after wrongdoings had been investigated and blames apportioned where necessary. If there is a thin line between the two, it exists either only in the minds of those crying wolf where there is none or where indiscrete and selective probes are ordered to punish a target, prove a point, or stigmatise the opposition. Gen Buhari will likely conduct himself above suspicion, given his antecedents and his recent philosophical convictions.

In any case, persecution or no persecution, the public will leave their elected leaders in no doubt what is expected of them. Gen Buhari was not elected to sympathise with those who under Dr Jonathan, or perhaps earlier, undermined the peace, security and financial wellbeing of the nation. The president-elect probably understands that, and being a hard man himself, will very likely refuse to be incommoded by the feelings and sentiments, or even the persecution complex, of his predecessors and opponents. He knows why he has been elected to preside over the affairs of Nigeria in this most dangerous and inauspicious of times. He will discharge that responsibility with considerable aplomb and defiance, even if it kills him.