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Tag: Jonathan

  • ‘Jonathan’s govt has failed’

    ‘Jonathan’s govt has failed’

    The Special Adviser to Lagos State Government on Information and Strategy, Alhaji Lateef Raji, has advised President Goodluck Jonathan to resign because his government has failed Nigerians.

    Raji, who spoke at the All Progressives Congress (APC) rally in Oshodi, said a government that cannot protect lives and property, that lack capacity to contain oil thieves and a regime that has legitimised corruption has no business to remain in office.

    The Special Adviser reiterated that Dr. Jonathan has no business to remain in government because, under his watch, Nigeria is losing 400,000 barrel of crude oil per day to oil thieves. He also said the President has failed to rescue the Chibok girls almost 300 days after they were abducted and the ill-equipped soldiers being killed on daily basis by the Boko Haram insurgents.

    According to him, General Muhammadu Buhari procured more arms for the military when he was Head of State between 1984 and 1985 than Jonathan, who has been in power in the past six years.

    Raji faulted the claim of the Lagos State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Mr Jimi Agbaje, that the state spends three per cent of its budget on education annually. He said In 2014, the state spent 15 per cent on education and this year, we are spending 16 per cent on education as approved by the State House of Assembly.

    Raji told the party supporters that PDP and Jonathan do not deserve the votes  of Lagosians because they did nothing for the state.  According to him former Minister of Works, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe didn’t construct a single road in Ikorodu, his constituency, for the years he spent in office.

    He said members of the PDP now dole out money to police to arrest Okada riders operating in the streets to create the impression that it was Lagos State Government that was behind it. Further investigation, he said, has shown that the opposition have recruited fake KAI officials to arrest people indiscriminately and asked people to be vigilant.

    Former Vice Chairman of Oshodi/Isolo Local Government, Mr Kayode Tinubu was confident that APC will win in Lagos State based on its antecedent.

    Tinubu said the party has performed from local government to state level. “We have tested candidates that are marketable. We have never suffered any defeat since the beginning of this dispensation so APC will win in February. The visibility of PDP is minute because most of their leaders have joined APC.”

  • ‘North Central is for Jonathan’

    Governor of Niger State Babangida Aliyu and his Benue State counterpart, Gov Gabriel Suswam, have said that the North Central region will vote the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and President Goodluck Jonathan in the general elections.

    The governors made the declaration during the  flag off of campaign for Senator Gyang Pwajok, the Plateau State governorship candidate of the party.

    Aliyu, who is the Chairman of the Northern Governor’s Forum said: “We will vote PDP and President Jonathan in this election because we will not want desperate politicians to take over the affairs of the country and truncate the ongoing transformation of a President Jonathan.

    “From the campaign so far, the opposition party have not convinced Nigerians that they are bringing any meaningful change better than we we currently enjoy under President Jonathan.

    “The PDP has done a lot in transforming the country and would continue to do so”

    Gov Suswam in his own remarks said: “The people of a north Central will ensure total victory for the ruling party, so we are here to inform People of  plateau state to come out en-mass come February 14 to vote for President Goodluck Jonathan”

    Senate President, David Mark, who chair the occasion expressed assurance that the ruling party will win the election transparently because president Jonathan has so far demonstrated quality leadership to people of the country.

    “We in the North central are like a family and we would deliver our President as he has the interest of the country at heart and would continue transforming the nation if re elected”

    Senator Mark, who cautioned youths against playing politics of violence, said: “Youths of the North Central should do us a favor by resisting all forms of violence during the election. We want to make this election the most peaceful and credible in the country. So make sure you get your Permanent Voters Card  (PVC) so that you won’t be disenfranchise at the Polls”

    Senator Pwajok, called on people of the state to work for victory of the PDP in the forthcoming elections.

  • Jonathan’s N10 change

    When the Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, announced the reduction of the pump price of premium motor spirit (PMS) from N97 per litre to N87 per litre effective from Sunday midnight, it seemed that our N10 billion investment in her globetrotting had not vanished into thin air after all. The incumbent President of OPEC gave us the vaguely validating feeling that we also belonged to the global village.

    All over the world, pump price of crude had been in free fall, as a result of the battle of wits between OPEC and the Unites States over fracking. Oil price has more than halved in the past months, tumbling from $100 to less than $50. This was our invitation to the party.

    Now the return of N10 on a N10 billion investment is a woeful loss. N10 can buy no more than a sachet of pure water or a HB pencil or a match box – even though a pickpocket caught in Onitsha, the land of the authentic Azikiwe, would be lucky to escape being lynched for filching N10!.

    She mandated the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency and the Directorate of Petroleum Resources, to ensure compliance nationwide from the stroke of midnight forward. She closed by saying that she hoped that “everybody will benefit” from the reduction.

    The reduction should naturally translate to a potential saving of hundreds of naira. Nigerians buy many litres of petrol daily for their cars and their generators. But Madueke made a grave assumption.

    She assumed that the official pump price regime obtained across the country. But majority of the population buy at higher rates in practically all the states. People are forced to buy at whatever rate they are offered, notwithstanding the difference between it and the official pump price. In the city where I live, a litre of petrol could spike to N160. It’s sold at N97 only in NNPC filling stations. So in a way, the official fuel pump price applies to a few.

    The twin agencies responsible for petroleum price monitoring coexist with a plethora of parallel price regimes. They could not ensure that fuel is dispensed at N97 per litre. They would certainly not to be able to make the N10 reduction a common experience at the present level of their activeness.

    More to the point, the context of the announcement says a few things about the motivation of the heralds.

    Alison-Madueke made the declaration after dinner time on a Sunday. No, nothing in the book casts a certain time for such pronouncements. Yet, there was something tangibly awkward about the scheduling. It had to be enacted on a weekend and past dinnertime, when the largest audience possible would be hooked on the news. The court astrologers marked it down to the most apt minute!

    Then the venue. She published her tidings from the grounds of the State House. Nigeria’s seat of power has not always been the launching pad for a new fuel price regime. The choice and use of the President’s official address for this purpose indicates a clear intention to associate authorship of the reduction with the President. (HINT: What I offer you is not quite the result of the slump of crude price in the global market: It originated from the bosom of the man in residence. This is a gift from the President, an early Valentine gift from a presidential candidate standing for re-election to his people.)

    Credit to whom it is due, the President’s camp got the stagecraft right. The reduction would have had little impact if the minister had broken the news in her office, as is in a normal press conference. But this was an extraordinary press conference. And who could fail to imagine the quantity of ballots that may be given as payback to the President if the public is led to believe that the good news sprung from the sheer magnanimity of Goodluck Jonathan!

    The results of Jonathan’s transformational leadership often escape his faculty of recall, which is why he is often seen on live TV begging a rally to vote for him because he suspects that his main challenger cannot memorize a phone number.  With this development, Jonathan, the one whose aides once claimed brought Facebook to Nigeria, may now begin to add that he is the leader who gave us the law of gravity.

    People often joke that what goes up never gets to come down in Nigeria.  The price of goods rise and keep rising. But has he not performed the unprecedented feat of pulling down the price of petrol from a higher altitude?

    He and his team will put this N10 change under a magnifying glass and describe it exaggeratedly. They will have this branded as a product of never-before-heard alchemy.

    But the more discerning know nobody did us any favor. We were entitled to the reduction. And that reduction should have happened as matter of cause and effect. In reality, we should have started buying a litre of fuel with less money at about the same time other humans elsewhere began to enjoy cheaper fuel.

    And that brings us to question of why we were made to lag behind the rest of humanity in this lower fuel price season. Did our President think that we didn’t deserve to share in this global behind?  Was he so reluctant that he was left alone, the only leader who would not approve a decrease?

    Even when President Jonathan came around to “doing it”, he grudged to exercise himself in not-my-will tokenism.  He approved only N10 reduction. By his own measure of proportion, even the theft of a sum of money that could have purchased a Peugeot car doesn’t make a thief. So he settled for the most contemptible amount that appealed to him.

    On a personal level, the announcement caused me grievous embarrassment.  At first, the impression I got was that the government was just out to mock. How could you purport to be responding to the global price and serve the people such deplorable trifle?

    For one, the margin of reduction does not bear close resemblance to the degree of the fall of crude price. Ten naira does not, in any way, represent the remotest approximation of the percentage that should have been shaved off the fuel pump price if the price adjustment was truly meant to reflect the prevailing market trend.

    The gesture presents itself as a patronizing appeasement, a concession granted to force silence. It is a callous and conceited reply to the query: Why are Nigerians barred from tasting cheaper fuel even when other people have begun to take it for granted?

    It was a pacifier shoved into the mouth of a protesting child.

    You asked for a decrease in fuel pump price: here is it. Will you now keep quiet or research another reason to keep blackmailing the Presidency?

    The other time, the Jonathan administration ambushed us with a fuel price hike on the dawn of a new year. And the whole country erupted into spontaneous anger. The timing and the scale of the increment melted the divisive identities of the people and united them as clusters of families across the states of the federation. The very air that hung over Nigeria became so agitated with fury and voices.

    The matter was subsequently resolved in the interest of public peace and motion. The whole country had ground to a halt.

    But the resolution did not touch the fundamental issues. Three years after, our refineries still run below capacity. We still import finished petroleum products. The fuel subsidy cabal still thrives.

  • 2015: Jonathan seeks Emir of Kano’s blessing

    2015: Jonathan seeks Emir of Kano’s blessing

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday met with the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Lamido Sanusi, in his palace to seek for his blessings on the 2015 elections.

    As part of his nationwide campaign tour, Jonathan who was in Kano for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally, also expressed condolences on the passing on of the former Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero and congratulated the new emir for his installation as the royal father.

    He informed Sanusi, who was former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, that he was in his palace to formally introduce himself, Vice President Namadi Sambo and other PDP candidates in the forthcoming elections.

    He said: “I am here to seek your royal blessing and to reassure the people of Kano that PDP is totally committed to developing the country.”

    Recalling his administration’s success in wiping out Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), he also said that the country has virtually eliminated polio and would soon be officially declared polio-free by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

    Noting the important position of Kano State in commerce and industry, he said that his administration would work with the people of the state to enhance agriculture value chain and give more priority to processing and export.

    The President assured the Emir that his government was committed to improving the welfare of Kano people and Nigerians in general.

    He said: “When you talk of Kano, you talk of the Aliko Dangotes. We will work with the incoming government in Kano to produce young Aliko Dangotes, enhance commerce and create jobs,”

    In his remark, Sanusi expressed appreciation to the President for the visit and hoped that his campaign would go on smoothly.

    He urged politicians to conduct their businesses in peace and avoid bloodshed, stressing that democracy is all about choice.

     

  • Fashola to Jonathan: Stop Indiscriminate pasting of posters

    Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), on Monday decried indiscriminate posting of President Goodluck Jonathan’s posters on major high ways in the state without paying for advert spaces to advertising firms.

    Fashola, who spoke while addressing thousands of supporters at a party campaign held at Oworoshoki axis of the state, said supporters of the President are allegedly removing adverts on Lagos roads and replacing them with the President’s campaign posters and banners.

    “Mr. President and his supporters have taken over those advertising spots. They will come and tell you that it is federal highways, but that is not the point. If you build the highway, the adverts on it belong to the local government anywhere in Nigeria. What has Mr. President done? Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency already had existing contracts with people and private companies who have paid to use the space. But without applying to LASAA, without paying and respect for the existing contractual right of businesses in this country, Mr. President has taken over those places with his posters. Is that not lawlessness? Is that the kind of leaders you want to re-elect? Is that the kind of party you want in power?

    He described the development as a breach of electoral act, urging the President to demonstrate what he preaches on election guidelines.

    Fashola, who also took a swipe at President Jonathan and his supporters over alleged demonization of the All Progressive Congress presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, said after rigging the former head of state out in previous elections, the ruling party has come out with series of allegations and condemnations.

    He argued that Buhari was the APC only presidential candidate that stood at the convention venue for over 24hours, saying that would not have been possible if the man was not hale and hearty as rumoured by the PDP.

    The governor added: “They have rigged him out three times in the previous elections, but in all those elections they never said he had no certificates. Now that they see that he is going to win, they said he doesn’t have certificates. Tomorrow they will say he is sick. Who is sick among them?

    “Buhari’s body is made of steel, he doesn’t drink before he speaks, we know those people that when they represent us abroad they will not show up when they are called to make a speech. Who is sick among the two?

    Also, the APC governorship candidate in Lagos, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, took a swipe at the federal government over the reduction of fuel price from N97 to N87, saying that the Peoples Democratic Party cannot deceive Nigerians with the reduction coming less than four weeks to the general election.

     

  • Buhari: Jonathan’s govt has ruined economy

    Buhari: Jonathan’s govt has ruined economy

    Nigeria is broke, All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday.

    “Many states could not pay their workers’ salary in December,” he said as he tongue lashed the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration for neglecting corruption and misgovernance  to focus on his health.

    The rumour of his ill-health, he said, is a desperate attempt to take the mind of Nigerians off the basic issues of corruption and misgovernance by the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration.

    Addressing a news conference in Abuja, Gen. Buhari also said he had no problem with his certificates with which he contested elections under the guidelines provided by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on three occasions.

    He argued that rather than address the problem facing the nation, which led to non-payment of workers’ salaries in December, the government was talking about the health of an individual.

    Gen. Buhari said:  “Vanguard reported that I was to jet out for medical check-up yesterday (Saturday) but here I am. I was in Nasarawa and Benue states yesterday (Saturday); tomorrow, I am going to be in two states. The day after tomorrow in two more states. I am doing two states per day.

    “How they got the impression that I was sick, I do not know. Although I got cold, that did not stop me from going on with my schedule.

    “I don’t know of this desperation. The issue we are telling Nigerians is that of corruption in this country and that in the last 16 years, PDP has literally destroyed this country.

    “This is the issue and I don’t understand what my health has got to do with that one. I have been sick on daily basis? And documents have been put on paper, on tweeter that I am sick and ABUTH has said they are forged documents. This desperation is beyond my understanding.”

    Asked to make a categorical statement on his health, Gen. Buhari jokingly asked the reporter: “How old are you? 50 years? I am telling you that if we go to the field, you would not last the time I will last in the field.”

    On the controversy surrounding his certificate, Gen. Buhari said: “Why didn’t Nigerians ask before? I have contested elections three times under the same rules set by INEC where there is a basic education qualification you must have. I was allowed to contest all these elections because my certificate? were in order.

    “There were individuals that wrote to the United States War College and the college answered them and it was published by some of your papers. Really, this desperation of misinformation that is being passed around will do nobody any good because our minds are being taken away from the serious issues of corruption and incompetence by the PDP.”

    The APC candidate spoke also on the alleged fraud in the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) where he was chairman during the Abacha regime, “That one has been cleared. There is no fraud in PTF,” Gen. Buhari said, adding:

    “There was an investigation and General Obasanjo has answered that question. He confirmed that there was an investigation and the report was brought to him and there was nothing on ground as far as my management and chairmanship of the PTF was concerned. So, what else can I say when the person who did the investigation because he was the Head of State has cleared me. What else can I say?”

    Lamenting the state of the economy, he said: “Well, the country is broke. Many states could not pay their workers’ salaries. Even in December most families were hungry during Christmas because government could not pay their salary and yet, they are talking about an individual’s health instead of paying the people.”

    Also yesterday, the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of circulating a scam medical report on Gen. Buhari.

    A statement from the Directorate of Media and Publicity of the organization, signed by Mallam Garba Shehu, said it was ludicrous for the PDP to throw caution to the wind in its “shameless” effort to pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians because of their rising desire for change of guards at the federal level.

    The statement, which was given to The Nation in Abuja, directed the attention of Nigerians to the glaring errors on the letterhead of the paper on which the purported medical report was written, wrongly identify the institution as Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital instead of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), as the Zaria-based teaching hospital is known.

    The statement reads: “The attention of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation has been brought to the circulation of a fake medical record of General Muhammadu Buhari.

    “We are able to track the circulation of the post on a social media platform and we know that the information emanated from the Facebook handle of one of Governor Ayo Fayose’s aides.

    “It is noteworthy that the authorities at the Ahmad Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) has given a clean bill on General Buhari’s health status. It is also noteworthy for Nigerians to understand that the PDP will stop at nothing to cast aspersion on the person of General Buhari.

    “We knew that the PDP would become unbridled at a point in its desperation to avert the defeat coming its way in the countdown to the February 14 presidential election, but to anticipate that the PDP would go as dirty as spreading falsehood on an individual’s state of health could not have been imaginable.

    “What is important is that Nigerians know today that our country is not healthy. They know that the PDP has driven the country to a near state of comatose. Our national security is very unhealthy and our national economy is right now gasping for breath from the stranglehold of the PDP.

    “It is almost as if official corruption and impunity are matters of state policy in the management of our national economy under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

    “That is why a great number of Nigerians yearn for change. Nigerians want a change from the clueless and directionless management of our security and our economy. Nigerians made a call on General Buhari to come on this rescue mission. They called on him because they know he is as fit as a fiddle to fix our unhealthy economy and the insecurity that has consumed a large region of our land.”

    In another statement, Shehu, said the seemingly “exhausted and frustrated” ruling PDP cannot hoodwink the public in its “sickening” attempt to tarnish the towering moral stature of its presidential candidate by dredging up a discredited report.

    The statement said: “President Obasanjo, who set up this panel to probe Buhari’s tenure at PTF, discovered something shocking from the work of the panel”.

    He recalled that after reviewing the PTF report, former President Obasanjo directed the relevant authority to go after those indicted by the report, giving Buhari a clean bill.

    Shehu explained that it was common knowledge to Nigerians that the Interim Management Committee was sacked by former President Obasanjo in March 2000 for alleged incompetence, amidst charges of serious abuse of public trust. Several members of that committee were indicted and made to refund hundreds of millions of naira of public funds, which they illegally took from the PTF.

    He said anyone under the illusion that it could use “a rotten report to smear Gen. Buhari must be living in fantasy”, adding that these “desperate tactics” would only amount to disservice to President Jonathan and his party, the PDP.

    He advised the Jonathan administration to focus its energy and attention on how to help give the country a new lease of life in the face of grim prospects on the economic front instead of wasting time on the futile efforts to smear the APC candidate.

    Shehu reiterated that the PDP administration lacked the credibility to throw stones at Gen. Buhari, who is “by all accounts more credible and trusted” in the eyes of Nigerians.

  • Why Jonathan should be voted out, by Keyamo

    Why Jonathan should be voted out, by Keyamo

    Rights activist Festus Keyamo has said it would be wrong for Nigerians to re-elect President Goodluck Jonathan owing to his many failings.

    He accused Jonathan of failing in security, economy and infrastructural development.

    Keyamo, who questioned what he described as the conspiracy of silence among the elite, said the resort to ethnic and religious sentiments by the president and his campaigners would not help his cause.

    Keyamo, in a statement yesterday, faulted the president’s claim to be fighting corruption, insecurity and to have improved the economy.

    Keyamo, who is prosecuting the case of money laundering against former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, wondered why Jonathan was comfortable among people, whose integrity was under question.

    He argued that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen Muhammadu Buhari, was a ready and better alternative to Jonathan.

    His words: “We have a president, who has no single appetite to fight corruption – yes, none. Imagine a campaign that is dominated by the theme of corruption, yet the President has decided to appoint a person facing trial for money-laundering as his director of Media and Publicity.

    “If nobody would say it, I will say it, because I am the one prosecuting the fellow in court and the case has been adjourned to February 23 and 24 for trial.

    “Part of the lies told is that the fellow has been freed, whereas some of the counts in the charge were just struck out and the court held that he has a case to answer on some other counts. Yet, nobody is asking the president these hard questions.”

    He added: “Before Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Boko Haram was nothing, but a rag-tag group of extremists living in enclaves like Sambisa, while our proud military boys patrolled the towns. Now, under Jonathan, the reverse is the case.

    “One obvious flaw is that our president has lost control of the military and the top hierarchy of the military is merely feeding fat on this unfortunate situation and the president seems to be totally helpless in the face of this.

    “The president is already sounding like a broken record. He says he has made the rails to function again. He mentioned this so much that you imagine that he was primarily elected to revive a few train lines. It sounds very funny when you hear such things, whereas the primary duty of government is the protection of lives and property.

    “If that primary duty fails, then the government has failed. It is like an undergraduate hoping to be promoted to the next level by barely scraping through the ‘electives’ and failing the core courses. It will never happen. So, is the president providing train coaches to be transporting the dead bodies from the North to the South? Are the trains to be occupied by living human beings or dead human beings?

    “All the personal attacks on the person of Buhari in the last few weeks have only convinced me that he is the best available option at this time. Anyone on the weaker side in any argument always resorts to personal abuses and attacks.

    “Have you noticed that on corruption? The only accusation against Buhari is that he was too high-handed in fighting corruption in the past? In other words, nobody can/has accuse him of lacking the courage, zeal and will to fight corruption.

    “On the other hand, the president eats, sleeps and wakes up with corruption.

    “In one of his famous interviews, he did not even see stealing as corruption. That is why he does not see the point why he should not appoint a person standing trial for corruption as his director of Media and Publicity. He just does not care.

    “So, Nigerians, we must decide what we want. When Buhari fought corruption and was supposedly high-handed, he was ruling with Decrees. Now, he has the constitution, the National Assembly and the judiciary without ouster clauses to guide him.

    “It is, therefore, only an idiot that will believe the propaganda that he would throw everyone suspected of corruption into jail. I feel so sorry at times for the gullible masses of this country, who fall for such cheap propaganda. But it is his type of appetite and revulsion against corruption that we so dearly need at this time.

    “You may say whatever you like about Buhari. But in terms of the character, the steel, the competence to lead the nation out of this period of insurgency, nobody can compare a Goodluck Jonathan to a General Buhari.

    “Just imagine the service chiefs (who were probably in secondary school when Buhari and others fought the Civil War) sitting in front of Buhari to brief him about the situation in the Northeast, and attempting to mislead him about movements of artillery, brigades or troops and, the strategy against the enemy!”

  • Rivers govt explains why Jonathan can’t use stadium for rally

    Rivers govt explains why Jonathan can’t use stadium for rally

    The Rivers State government has explained why President Goodluck Jonathan cannot use the Adokiye Amiesimaka Sports Complex on January 28.

    The government, through the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, yesterday in Port Harcourt, also urged Jonathan and the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba, to rein in their “mad dogs”.

    The state government said: “At a different time and under different circumstances, the Rivers State government would have ignored the PDP’s members’ ranting (to force their way into the Rivers State government-owned Adokiye Amiesimaka Sports Complex to hold presidential rally), but with the party’s (PDP’s) penchant for violence and its bombings of people and property all over the state, it is pertinent that the Rivers State government raises this alert and sounds a note of warning to the PDP that the Rivers State government will not trifle with its responsibility to guarantee the safety of life and property, irrespective of who is affected.

    “The matter of the Adokiye Amiesimaka Sports Complex is a simple one. The complex is still under construction. As a work site, it is an unsafe environment for use at this time. The PDP makes reference to the fact that the APC had held its rally at the same venue. What they failed to mention is that the contractor was moved out of site during the time the APC’s rally held and remobilised to site right after that rally.

    “With less than five months to the end of its tenure, the Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi administration is working on ensuring the completion of all its projects before the handover date of May 29. With that being the case, the River State government cannot move its contractors out of site at this time.

    “Unlike the PDP that has consistently refused the APC the use of stadia and other facilities in Abuja and other states where it is in control, the Rivers State government has magnanimously offered the PDP the use of the Liberation Stadium Elekahia, which is also a state facility.”

    The Rivers government also stated that the resolve of the PDP leaders to unlawfully break into the Adokiye Amiesimaka sports complex was to fulfill the threat issued by some members of the party (PDP) that they would burn down the complex.

  • Jonathan should be ready to hand over, says Kogi APC chairman

    Jonathan should be ready to hand over, says Kogi APC chairman

    The Kogi State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to start preparing his handing over notes.

    He added that the fabled 60-year reign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would come to an end.

    Ametuo spoke with reporters in Lokoja shortly after the APC presidential campaign rally, led by the party’s presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

    He expressed confidence that his party would send the PDP packing in next month’s general elections.

    He said majority of Nigerians, who are unhappy with the performance of the PDP since 1999, desired a change.

    He added that the massive crowd, which has been receiving Gen. Buhari and his entourage across the country, attested to the fact that Nigerians are tired of the PDP.

    Ametuo said the Buhari/Yemi Osinbajo ticket would develop the country, saying their partnership would provide purposeful leadership where insurgency, impunity and stealing with reckless abandon in governance among others would be a thing of the past.

    He thanked the people of the state for turning out in large numbers to receive Gen. Buhari.

    The party chairman said the APC would dislodge the PDP from power in the state, stressing that the state has been worse off under the present administration.

  • Is Jonathan Nigeria’s problem?

    The buck, we are told, stops at the table of the leader. That said, a country turns out to be great only when the people in it elect to make it so. I have observed with keen interest the condemnation President Jonathan gets from Nigerians these days – and he has had a measure from me as well, but I am baffled at some criticisms which I figure are not envisioned to campaign for social justice especially since some of these decriers fail to take zealotry (religion) out of their schisms.

    His lacklustre performance so far notwithstanding, I refuse to believe that he alone is responsible for the state of affairs of our country as it is at the moment. We are all as guilty as this president.

    Compare his advisers to that of developed climes and you will wonder if they truly have the interest of Nigeria at heart. Most political analysts see them as people only interested in feeding fat from the national cake, particularly with the combative way in which they engage the opposition.

    In contrast, during the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal, two of his principal presidential aid and defence lawyers Fred Buzhardt and Leonard Garment did what no persons had done before that moment: they asked President Nixon to resign due to the overwhelming evidence against him over the Watergate scandal. Can any of President Jonathan’s advisers show the same courage to tell him to his face that he has underachieved?

    Why is it that we hear that the resignation of top individuals from a party leaves the party ruined without a structure, needing the persona of other individuals to help bring it to life? Isn’t it outrageous and pathetic that our parties are centered on individuals and may not last beyond these individuals? How is President Jonathan responsible for the politics of anointment by states’ chief executives that have seen many of these endorsing wives and kinfolks to seek elective offices without grooming and recruiting capable candidates with widely-held support?

    I watched a CNN feature interview directed by Nick Robertson recently where soldiers recounted the distressing experiences they face in the fight against insurgency. They even have to buy their kits as revealed, but that is not news. Most Nigerians know that the armed forces are underfunded. What is stupefying is why no high-ranking senior officer has had the guts to spill the beans and step down, on moral and ethical principles. I recall with nostalgia the spat between General Victor Malu and President Olusegun Obasanjo over the latter’s directive that a US intelligence unit should have unrestricted access to our intelligence facility but that General refused, leading to his ousting from the army as reported at the time. Do we still have officers with guts and have they chosen to be political or apolitical?

    Whatever happened to our civil society groups after the end of military rule? Do they still passionately charge leaders to deliver electoral undertakings to the people and also stir up the youths from their state of disinterest for national growth?

    Isn’t it true that Nigeria is quickly becoming a place where people hide under the cloak of religion to promote hatred and the condemnation of people of other faiths? Instead of religious leaders to campaign for concerns that will be beneficial to their members, they now either prophecy that candidates will win or lose. How such predictions help our body politic remains an open question.

    The world woke up recently to the shocking news that 17 lives were lost in France to terrorist acts. It was really sad news for people who truly value life and humanity. What I found interesting was the bi-partisan meeting that was held immediately by President Francois Hollande and former President Nicolas Sarkozy who is now a leading opposition figure.

    There was no trading of blame, brickbats and bedlam like we have here with our political class that have all failed to rise above partisanship for the growth of Nigeria. You could see two great statesmen who care for their nation rousing citizens to stay united and not be cowed by terrorism and to fight against it in their homeland and also to stay alert. But in Nigeria, it took our president forever and a day to visit Maiduguri, leading many to assume that people who die in the northeast regrettably are lowlifes who do not matter. Little wonder Odumegwu Ojukwu said, Nigerians “suffer from selective amnesia,” and when they chose to remember, suffer from “selective myopia”. If not, how come the members representing these constituencies in the Senate and House of Representatives have not resigned their offices to protest the government’s grotesque abandonment of their people who fall prey to the killing machine of the ‘Haramists.’? Have we ever heard of resignations in those houses to protest the maladministration of this regime?

    Didn’t we read in the press that the ACF has chosen to endorse General Buhari because it is the policy of the outfit to endorse northerners for election even when concessions and merger made this development possible? And given our country’s need for a reawakening, should we still be encouraging regional prejudices to fester?

    The debates in the House of Commons entices youths in the United Kingdom to be politicians and to play an active role in that country’s national life but ours has been unexciting and mind-numbing at the national level, while some state assemblies remain closed, others have their members hounded out of the state and our office-bearers are yet to groom young people to be good citizens by their own good conduct.

    Did the elders from the Niger Delta not play politics with the carrying off of the Chibok girls by misleading this president that there was never an abduction which made him to act 21 days after when it was too late? And even after videotapes revealed that they were abducted, some of them still hold this deceptive viewpoint.

    Many years into democratic rule, most states do not have active developmental plans, technocrats are not employed but acquaintances, and the government remains the highest employer of labour instead of the private sector and machineries of state have been used to stifle opposition that is relevant in a democracy. How is the President responsible for all of these contradictions?

    It would require a long epistle to describe the tumble-down federal civil service where the practice of engaging people to boards of government organizations without recourse to national experience and age is widespread which till now is responsible for the lack of the development and implementation of rolling plans in the country.

    Why are the DSS and the Police not able to prevent ill-feelings before they aggravate? Why haven’t they been able to prevent gun-running so unparalleled in our history that youths now dare to kill as often as reported in the press these days?

    We are as guilty as this president for the decay Nigeria finds herself in and it is binding on all of us to rebuild her.

     

    •  Abah writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State