•A presidential boo is not pretty, no matter what. That is why the government must be sensitive to citizens’ feelings
No matter a president’s dip in popularity, university students booing the president of a country, and symbol of that country’s democratic order, is not a pretty sight. The one at the receiving end looks diminished. The booing students look uncouth.
That unfortunately was the situation at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, State of Osun, on December 1. The president had gone to the Awolowo Hall, on the OAU campus, for a partisan endorsement at a “Yoruba Unity Summit”, with a battery of traditional rulers, some leaders of thoughts, and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) partisans in tow.
But the booing did not arise from the students’ rejection of the move per se. It rather emanated from the suffocating security arrangement, which grounded the campus community, simply because the president was in town.
It turned out that the examinations were on; and students heading for examination halls found themselves stranded — no thanks to intra-campus shuttles that had been disabled, to reinforce the security cordon around the president. That was the initial ire.
By the time the dust settled, the students had vented their anger in anti-Jonathan boos and rude protest songs. Efforts by Ayodele Fayose, the Governor of Ekiti State, to show some familiarity with the irate students proved a tragic presumption, as he was roundly shouted down and insulted. Though presidential handlers, in a comical attempt at damage control, had circulated pictures of some student leaders posing with the president, suggesting the president suffered no embarrassment, it is clear only the spin doctors believed their own spin.
The genesis of the crisis was the all-too-glaring unconscionable security arrangement, whenever the president or his spouse is in any place. Lagos, Ibadan, Ife, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna — the result is the same: a hideous gridlock. Must a president’s or his spouse’s visit lead to that unbearable level of citizen discomfort, frustration and disorientation?
Yet, the president is supposed to be No. 1 elected official in a democracy. The OAU protest should show the president’s security handlers how archaic their methods have become; and how very embarrassing and disappointing it can be to their boss. The president himself must ponder why his supposed security must cause citizens so much pain.
But the awkward security arrangement also helped to expose other things, most of them unpalatable to the presidential camp. To sell an unpopular president, the university campus is the least auspicious of places. That explains why the initial ire quickly morphed into a hostile demonstration against Jonathan’s education policies. If the organisers had thought more clearly, they should have picked an alternative venue. The university authorities, knowing the combustible mix of their angry student population, should have advised the organisers against it.
Then, the myth was exploded, of a cloistered crowd, no matter how well appointed or influential, purporting to endorse a candidate, terribly flawed in the streets. While the crowd of Ekiti and Osun Oba, politicians sympathetic to the Jonathan cause — hardly a crime by any stretch — and other partisans were doing their “endorsement”, and telling Jonathan what he wanted to hear, students out in the streets were bawling out the exact opposite! Which of the two contrasting voices belonged to the people?
It is even more shocking that some otherwise revered Yoruba elders were part of that gathering. It is shocking not because they showed their partisan preference — in a democracy, that is their right under the law. But rather because they purportedly pledged what is apparently out of their power, for a candidate, considered as terribly flawed by not a few in their region; and under whose charge the country appears to be falling into pieces.
The Jonathan Ife storm taught a telling lesson: no government brings on a people pain and expects anything but a hostile feedback, no matter how its self-serving officials try to deodorise the rot. If President Jonathan can take that away, he would have saved his government from future embarrassments.
