By Rekpene Bassey
History often turns on moments that, at the time, seem deceptively simple. On March 31, 2015, then-President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan placed a phone call to Muhammadu Buhari, conceding defeat even before Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had officially announced the results.
It was a short call, but its echoes still reverberate through the fragile corridors of Nigerian democracy.
That gesture was hailed across the globe. Jonathan’s words calmed a nation bracing for turmoil, silenced the drums of post-election violence, and reassured investors that Africa’s most populous country would not slide into chaos.
Yet nearly a decade later, that act is being reinterpreted. Was it statesmanship? Was it weakness? Or was it the ultimate expression of patriotism?
The question resurfaces with fresh urgency as rumours abound that Jonathan may once again be tempted to “throw his hat into the ring” for the presidency. The speculation alone has unsettled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s camp, suggesting that Jonathan’s shadow still looms large in Nigeria’s power calculus. But to understand the man, one must revisit the meaning of that concession.
What, indeed, was Jonathan expected to do in 2015? Should he have plunged Nigeria into civil strife? Should he have rejected the will of the people, contesting results until blood filled the streets?
By calling Buhari, he embodied the ancient Roman maxim: pacta sunt servanda – agreements must be kept. The democratic covenant, however fragile, was upheld.
In Nigeria’s political lexicon, strength and weakness have long been inverted. The so-called “strong leader” is often defined as the one who disregards institutions, bends the law to his will, and dares the people to resist.
The “weak leader,” by contrast, is the one who honours rules even at personal cost. Yet in the classical sense, this inversion is absurd. For Aristotle, strength lay not in caprice but in self-restraint; for Marcus Aurelius, actual power was mastery over one’s own impulses, not domination over others.
Consider the American parallel. In January 2021, Donald Trump refused to concede his electoral defeat, encouraging a mob that stormed the Capitol. That spectacle nearly shattered the world’s oldest modern democracy. Nigeria, by contrast, was spared its own version of January 6 because Jonathan chose dignity over defiance.
Still, Nigerians had clamoured for a “strong man” in 2015. A retired general, Buhari was marketed as the one who would “crush” Boko Haram, restore discipline, and end corruption. He was hailed as the antithesis of Jonathan’s supposed softness. Dura lex, sed lex – the law is harsh, but it is the law. Buhari, however, mistook harshness for law.
What did Nigerians receive from their strong man? Boko Haram remained resilient, metastasising into splinter factions. Insurgency, once confined to the northeast, spread to the heartland.
“Bandits,” a sanitised euphemism, terrorised villages. Herder militias spread blood and fire across the Middle Belt. Abuja itself, the symbolic fortress of the federation, was breached.
In 2022, terrorists stormed Kuje prison, freeing hundreds, including insurgents. What is more? On March 28 2022, an Abuja-Kaduna-bound train was attacked in Katari in Kaduna State, so much for strength.
During this era, censorship replaced transparency. Buhari’s government urged media houses to mute coverage of Boko Haram, as though silence could extinguish terror. This was strength masquerading as denial.
The emperor had no clothes, but the nation was told not to stare. Plato warned in The Republic that tyranny often arises from the desire for excessive order; Nigeria was learning that lesson anew.
The reality was harsher still: local government areas in Borno remained under insurgent control, as legislators themselves admitted in the National Assembly. Terror crept into Niger State, mere kilometres from Abuja. And through it all, the promise of a strong man delivering salvation proved a mirage.
Now, another “strong man” occupies Aso Rock. His rise, critics allege, was not through persuasion but through vi et armis – force and manipulation. He is said to have “snatched, grabbed, and run” with the mandate. Nigerians, weary and sceptical, ask: are we truly better off today than in 2015, under the so-called weak President?
Weakness, in truth, does not lie in conceding defeat. The weakness lies in manipulating the rules, bending institutions, and sacrificing processes for personal gain. Strength lies in obedience to the law, even when it hurts. Strength is self-abnegation for the sake of the whole.
This is where Jonathan’s action deserves fresh appraisal. By conceding, he placed Nigeria above itself. He embodied salus populi suprema lex esto – the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law. That is statesmanship. That is patriotism.
Critics may say Jonathan lacked the will to fight, that he exited the stage too easily. Yet what they call weakness was in fact an act of preservation. He avoided what Thomas Hobbes described as the “war of all against all,” where the absence of order leaves life “nasty, brutish, and short.”
In hindsight, Jonathan’s concession was not cowardice but courage. It was the refusal to plunge a fragile nation into the abyss. It was a recognition that no ambition, however lofty, was worth rivers of blood. In a land where leaders cling to power until death pries it from their grip, his choice remains exceptional.
Nigeria’s tragedy since 2015 is that in seeking “strength,” it has endured repression, insecurity, and division. Jonathan’s supposed weakness preserved the republic. Buhari’s supposed strength frayed it. And Tinubu’s rise under disputed circumstances suggests the cycle endures.
So was Jonathan a statesman, a weakling, or a patriot? The answer, paradoxically, is all three, depending on the lens. But if patriotism means putting country above self, if statesmanship means preserving the polity even at personal cost, then Jonathan was more of both than his critics care to admit. His weakness was, in fact, his strength.
And therein lies the irony of Nigeria’s political imagination: in elevating strongmen, it embraces fragility; in dismissing peacemakers, it overlooks salvation. History, however, will not forget that in 2015, one man chose peace over power. And that, in the final measure, is the truest mark of a patriot.
*Rekpene Bassey is the President of the African Council on Narcotics (ACON), and also a Security and Drug Prevention Expert.
