{"id":4953,"date":"2015-05-15T21:10:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T21:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4953"},"modified":"2015-05-15T21:10:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T21:10:17","slug":"before-the-cock-crows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4953","title":{"rendered":"Before the cock crows"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Femi Adesina\"jonathan\"<\/a>:<\/p>\n

President Goodluck Jonathan lamented at a thanksgiving service in Abuja last Sunday that a number of friends and associates abandoned him after he lost the presidential election held on March 28. But if it were abandonment alone, it would have been bearable. Some others threw in betrayal for good measure. Hear the President: \u201cSome people come to me and say: \u2018is this person not your friend? Was it not through your government he benefited? But look at what he is saying.\u2019 Then I know that worse treatment will come\u2026 I know that more of my so-called friends will disappear.\u201d I am glad that the President was not really griping or bellyaching. He was merely recounting what happened, and his mien showed that he has taken it with equanimity. Well, life is a school, and studying does not end when you obtain a Ph.D, or even professorship. The world is one vast, unending school. As Jonathan spoke, I remembered the words Jesus Christ spoke to his disciples, particularly to Peter, shortly before he was arrested: \u201cBefore the cock crows, thou shall deny me thrice.\u201d And it happened. Jesus was led to the house of the high priest after his arrest. Peter followed afar off, and after some time, he joined those who sat round the fire. A maid looked at him, and declared: \u201cThis man was also with him.\u201d Peter denied, saying: \u201cI know him not.\u201d After a little while, another person saw him, and said, \u201cthou are also of them.\u201d Peter said: \u201cMan, I am not.\u201d And about an hour later, another person said: \u201cOf a truth, this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.\u201d Peter not only denied, but he began to ask Ogun, Sango, and Amadioha to strike him dead, if he ever knew Jesus Christ. And at exactly that moment, the cock crowed. Did the cock also crow on Sunday as Jonathan spoke about his betrayal and abandonment? Well, it need not happen. If it happened to Jesus, it can happen to any man, since a servant is never greater than his master. But what Jonathan has seen so far is the first denial. Many more will still come, before cockcrow. Like the lyrics of that 1967 song by Cat Stevens says, \u2018The first cut is the deepest.\u2019 Rod Stewart made the song more popular in 1977, when he remixed it, singing: I would have given you all of my heart But there\u2019s someone who\u2019s torn it apart And she\u2019s taken just all that I had But if you want I\u2019ll try to love again Baby I\u2019ll try to love again but I know The first cut is the deepest\u2026 I\u2019m glad that Jonathan knows it. The first cut is the deepest, but many more will still come. Loneliness is ahead. Lonesomeness is yet to come. And solitariness, with nobody around except Madam Patience, attending to her husband patiently. Gone will be the army of courtiers and fawning hangers-on. However, I don\u2019t agree with the charge of the President to the Ministers who served under his administration. He had asked them to be ready for persecution. Why? For serving the country? Anyone who serves his\/her country, and did it with clean hands and heart need not fear persecution. The Good Book says: \u201che that has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.\u201d (Job 17:9). So, if any Minister has served well, truly and faithfully, such should not fear any persecution. But for those who served themselves rather than the country, well, they need to fear. Not only persecution should come, there should also be prosecution. That is the way to bring enduring change to our country. Do the crime, do the time also. President Jonathan should not make it seem that the crime would be that they served in government, no, it is never a crime to serve your country. What they would answer for is if they had served themselves and their pockets, rather than the country. He that has clean hands should not fear any persecution. \u201cBetrayal is the only truth that sticks,\u201d wrote Arthur Miller. It is a truth President Jonathan began to learn, even right from Palm Sunday, a day after the presidential election, when the chapel at Aso Rock was full \u2013 of empty seats. A lot of those who used to throng the place every Sunday, seeking favour and patronage, had probably seen the direction of the wind, and had \u2018zapped.\u2019 They knew power was going to change hands, and did not bother to show up. Failure truly is an orphan. But you know what? Jonathan is in good position to write a book on betrayal. Throughout his tenure in office, he had been \u201cin perils of robbers, in perils by my (his) own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.\u201d Maybe it is because of the nature of his ascension to power, but Jonathan was encircled, embattled, beleaguered, in his years in office, till he was finally undone at the election. I wonder why he didn\u2019t see the handwriting on the wall. Could he have ever won that election with the political map heavily skewed against him and his party, the PDP? No. Governor Rotimi Amaechi said it late last year, and I wrote a piece on it early this year. Said the Rivers State helmsman: \u201cThe current map in the country does not favour President Jonathan\u2019s re-election bid, unlike what happened in 2011, when he had the support of the majority of the country, and there was unity in PDP. The electoral map appears to have changed.\u201d But Jonathan and those not telling him the truth did not believe. They threw incumbency at it. They threw money at it \u2013 in all major currencies of the world. They threw the country\u2019s security apparatus at it. Everything. But they never reckoned with betrayal, even right within PDP. They never reckoned with the giant-sized grudges in many parts of the country. Even some serving PDP governors had grudges against their own parties, and either worked covertly for the All Progressives Congress (APC), or simply refused to lift a finger to help their own party. And on March 28, the cock crowed. However, the betrayal was reciprocal. There were many governors, and chieftains of PDP, who virtually laid all on the altar for Jonathan. They threw in everything to support him. But when came time for the President to reciprocate, with certain gestures here and there, he threw such people to the wolves. He left them, in the words of John Keats, the poet, \u201calone and palely loitering.\u201d So, the betrayal was cyclical, it was mutual. No wonder the cock crowed. But what has happened is only the first crowing of the cock. As the President has foretold, many more will come, again and again. Just on Wednesday, federal and state lawmakers from the President\u2019s own very constituency in Bayelsa State decamped to the APC. What a blow to a man who wielded immense power and influence only two months ago. But thankfully, Jonathan had anticipated it all. If you ask me, President Jonathan has no cause for regret. Rather, he should be filled with thanksgiving. He will retire to Otuoke in one piece. He got to Aso Rock with his wife by his side, they are leaving together, contrary to the dire predictions of some futurologists. He walked in there on his own feet, and he\u2019s not leaving in a body bag. Beyond all, he once had no shoes, now he can start a shoe factory if he wants. No regrets, Mr President, even if the cock crows repeatedly.<\/p>\n

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By Femi Adesina: President Goodluck Jonathan lamented at a thanksgiving service in Abuja last Sunday that a number of friends and associates abandoned him after he lost the presidential election held on March 28. But if it were abandonment alone, it would have been bearable. Some others threw in betrayal for good measure. Hear the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-4953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-president-goodluck-jonathan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/jonathan1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1hT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4954,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions\/4954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}