President Jonathan Ridiculed for Walking on Red Carpet amidst Mud

 

Last week, President Goodluck Jonathan attended a foundation laying ceremony of Eagle Heights University in Omadino, Warri South local government area of Delta State. The university was established by the head of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.
The ceremony was attended by the state Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, Pastor Oritsejafor, his spouse and other officials. Jonathan pledged support for private Nigerian universities which, along with the public educational institutions, ensure that all Nigerians who yearn education are accommodated properly.
This might have been viewed as a positive and welcome development, but the highly-publicized event has prompted some negative response from foreign media.




Reacting to President Jonathan's visit to Delta State, Ghana-based journalist Stephen Kwabena Effah has published an article entitled Nigeria's President Jonathan Walks On Red Carpet In Mud—What's The Sense In That? He talks of the trait peculiar, it seems, exclusively to African leaders: the habit of turning any symbolic ceremony into a pompous event.
This is done, the author says, to divert attention of Africans from real problems in their countries.Specifically, he ridicules the fact that a red carpet — a sure sign of ceremonial and formal occasions — was rolled out in the mud to mark the route taken by Jonathan, state Governor and other officials, and a luxurious sofa was awaiting them on a platform mounted, too, in the mud.
The author wonders whether it was truly necessary to waste money, time and efforts on such a lush event when all the paperwork had been done and the project already announced. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to hold a short symbolic ceremony? Effah queries, adding that photographs of Nigeria's Jonathan and his entourage walking on a red carpet amidst the mud have surprised many social media users.
This is, Effah observes, yet another manifestation of the so-called "oxymoronic insanity of Africa's leaders". In "other parts of the world," the author of the article notes, similar developmental projects are usually announced and completed within a short period of time and without much ado. The case is exactly opposite on the continent of Africa, where presidents turn water- or electrification-related projects, school construction and even "toilet installation" into pageantries, even as some of the projects are often abandoned midway. Moreover, significant sums of money, and productive hours are spent and wasted on organisation of such commissioning fanfare ceremonies alone, just, Effah concludes, for politicians to "impress gullible electorate with their rhetoric".
To add fuel to the fire, Effah says it's no surprise that our continent is lagging behind the developing world because the leaders are only interested in their titles. He reminds that top African officials on a yearly basis spend thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money to attend various conferences and be immortalized in the photos while sleeping as serious issues are being discussed. To prove his point, the journalist included the photo of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and his aides taking a nap at one of the conferences during proceedings.

It is high time that African leaders stopped being "full of themselves", Effah maintains, and began actually developing their respective countries - starting with being represented by local authorities at sod cutting and commissioning of projects.
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