I attended a course a couple of years ago, called Flawless Consulting. The fancy sounding name aside, it was basically a training course for management consultants. One of the lessons from that course was, “If you don’t know the answer to the question or if you don’t have a good answer, then change the question.” And being a management consultant for a few years now, I can say with certainty that it takes skill and experience to change a question asked, without the one asking the question even realizing it.

On that basis, I have to duff my hat to the strategists and advisers who work for President Goodluck Jonathan. With skill that would make any management consultant green with envy, they have succeeded in changing the question to what are 2 questions of national importance. And we, the “clients” are so busy arguing about the answers, we’ve not even noticed that the questions have changed. I’ll start with the 2nd, as it is more recent.

On Thursday, I, like millions of Nigerians, woke up to the news that the CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS) had been “suspended” by President Jonathan. It was one of those moments where you’re stunned but yet not surprised at the same time. Like SLS admitted in an interview on Wednesday, it’s been a long time coming and he was surprised it took them so long. From the moment SLS went public with the missing (or unaccounted for or whatever qualification you decide to use) NNPC funds running into about $20billion, his days as CBN Governor were numbered. He was even directed by the President to resign, but he refused. So while his “suspension” didn’t really come as a surprise, it was still stunning that the President decided to relieve a respected and by most accounts, an effective CBN Governor of his post, just 4 months before his tenure was due to elapse. A tenure that was never going to be extended anyway. The reason given for this bizarre decision was that “his tenure as CBN Governor has been characterized by various acts of financial recklessness”. I won’t even bother to address that point because anyone with half a brain knows that SLS’s “suspension” was about his decision to blow the whistle on the missing NNPC funds and his refusal to resign when directed to by the President.

In at least 2 of the interviews SLS granted lately, he confirmed that he would challenge the suspension in Court, not because he wants the job back (which he doesn’t), but because he believed that a Court should decide whether or not the President has the power to suspend/remove a CBN Governor for any reason. According to SLS, if the President (any President) can suspend the CBN Governor on a whim, and let’s not kid ourselves, this is a whim, then the Apex Bank loses its independence. It goes without saying that the bank’s independence is essential to fulfilling its mandate. So SLS’s logic here makes pretty good sense to me.

However, now that the legality (or otherwise) of SLS’s suspension has been raised, the President’s flawless consultants have jumped on that bandwagon and have seen this as a good opportunity to change the original question. “Why was he really suspended” is slowly giving way to “Does the President have the power to remove him”. It makes perfect sense. If I was one of the President’s strategists, my advice would be to do exactly that. Let me break that down.

Let’s say SLS takes this to court and it ends up at the Supreme Court, which would issue a final judgement. Let’s say the Supreme Court decides that the President does have the power to suspend a CBN Governor, so SLS’s suspension is therefore constitutional. The President and his advisers would see this as vindication of their position (i.e. the President was constitutionally empowered to suspend SLS), thereby relegating what should have been the original question to the background. So if I was advising the President, what would I say? I would completely ignore the question of why he was removed and make sure that the question of the President’s power or lack of it, to suspend the Governor is the main issue. Because if that’s the focus – as it clearly is now – a favourable judgement on that one issue, renders the original question almost irrelevant.

But the original question is the more important question. Why was he really removed? Again, let’s not kid ourselves, this is a removal.  To say he’s been suspended is cloaking his removal in semantics.

Was it really financial recklessness or was it a combination of his decision to go public with the NNPC missing funds, his refusal to resign when directed to by the President and the President’s allegation that SLS had given copies of his letter to former President Obasanjo and Governor Amaechi? We all know the answers to these questions and I suspect the President’s advisers do too. But that’s the point. The answers – the real answers – can never be admitted to. So when you don’t know the answer to a question or you don’t have a good answer (or in this case, a defensible answer), what do you do? Change the question. That’s precisely what the President’s strategists are doing.

The second issue is President Jonathan’s eligibility to run for re-election. As far as I’m aware, there is at least one case in Court, purporting to prevent the President from running for re-election in 2015, as he has already served 2 terms. I use the word purporting because I see this as another example of changing the question.

Anyone who’s ever read Nigeria’s Constitution knows very well that Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is well within his rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, to run for re-election, if he so chooses. His first term started in May 2011 and will end in May 2015. If he decides to run and he wins, his 2^nd term will start in May 2015 and end in May 2019. From February 2010 until May 2010, he was Acting President due to the illness of President Yar’Adua . Following the death of President Yar’Adua, he was sworn in as President on 6^th May 2010. This means that between May 2010 and May 2011, he was serving out the remainder of President Yara’Adua’s term. He was elected in his own right in April 2011. Consequently, as the Constitution allows a maximum of 2 terms, President Jonathan is free to run for re-election. I have a Law Degree, but I think I figured that out by common sense. So I don’t understand how or why any Judge would even entertain a case asking for something so simple to be interpreted.

As the President moves towards making what I believe is an inevitable decision, i.e. to run for re-election, the questions start. What have you done in your first term to deserve a second term? You claim to be the toughest President against corruption, but do the facts stack up to that claim? What have you done to curb the Boko Haram madness? Are Nigerians better off today than they were the day you took the Oath of Office? You reportedly made certain promises that you would only serve one term, so why are we even talking about re-election? I’ll let the readers of this article answer those questions themselves. But I suspect most answers would be pretty similar.

Since these questions have no easy or comfortable answers, what would I do as a strategist? Of course, I would change the question! Cue the red herring. The new question becomes, “Constitutionally, is President Jonathan eligible to run for a second term, even though he was already President before the 2011 election?” When the judgement does come down on this farcical question, it will confirm that the President is indeed eligible to run. Again, that will be claimed as a “victory” by his strategists. “Victory”because since they’ve changed the question, the farce would be incomplete without the pretence that the President’s eligibility was the issue in the first place.

The views expressed above are solely that of the writer and not of Omojuwa.com or its associates.