The Nation Newspaper

Tag: President Jonathan

  • The day after: Wither Nigeria?

    The day after: Wither Nigeria?

    It is the day after and I ask:  where exactly did President Jonathan and the PDP leave the entity called Nigeria?

    The problem that we have is Mr Goodluck Jonathan himself – a president who prides himself on his own weakness and incompetence and whose love of false prophets and strange women knows no bounds and has no end. “A president who is as confused and as clueless as the comic character called Chancey Gardner in the celebrated 1970’s Peter Seller’s Hollywood blockbuster titled “Being There”  -Femi Fani-Kayode (President Jonathan’s Campaign Spokesperson)

    It is the day after and I ask:  where exactly did President Jonathan and the PDP leave the entity called Nigeria?  What is left of it? Is it standing, dead, ruptured, wounded or warring?  Is it in the midst of, Kenya-like, a horrendous post-election conflagration, more like a civil war? Did this weakest ever   president succeed in taking the country down with himself, win or lose? I am writing this article a whole 48 hours ahead of the election and so haven’t the slightest idea who of Jonathan or Buhari has won.  But that changes nothing, since either he wins or not, Goodluck Jonathan has damaged Nigeria beyond immediate repair. The country is, without question, in worse straits than Europe at the end of World War 11. Exploiting every conceivable fissure in a huge, multi-ethnic country – ethnicity, religion, anything;   and manipulating everything in completely unimaginable ways as survival tactics, President Jonathan has left Nigeria more divided than ever. He split everything on his way and, in particular, shredded the Yoruba nation worse than did the long Yoruba inter-tribal wars of the 19th century.  With an eye on his re-election, he vacillated so needlessly he ended up sending between 15-20,000 Nigerians to their early deaths in the hands of a Boko Haram by deliberately permitting it to fester and luxuriate.   Add to this the thousands of widows and orphans and an estimated 1.5 Nigerians that have been turned to internally displaced persons. Through a mindless  divide and rule tactics  he  gave undue advantage to a small fraction of his  Niger Delta  compatriots,  gave them unmerited access to huge, sometimes,  illicit funds  and turned them to instant billionaires even as Nigeria  became  the world headquarters of stolen oil.

    The best way to appreciate how low he has taken Nigeria is to take a critical look at some institutions of state, namely: the police, army, and the economy whose national currency he shredded so nastily. An advertorial which appeared in The Nation of Wednesday, 25 March 2015 and yet unrebutted, showed how a total of 600 million dollars was taken from the Central Bank vaults under spurious national security reasons – reminding one of Abacha – and it has since become common knowledge that all manner of characters and organisations are being bribed in dollars all over the country ahead of the presidential elections.  If any institution has been thoroughly worsted, it is the Nigeria Police now turned PDP -Police. That institution has so completely lost its soul it is now being used by President Jonathan for the most heinous of assignments. Under the lead of  a totally  uncaring  Inspector-General , with its  men and women  training and living under the most wretched  of conditions, the police has become so disoriented it is now seen protecting  the likes of OPC thugs, armed to the death, behaving like rabid dogs  as we recently  saw in Lagos. It is, indeed, worse in Ekiti where it is now  nothing more than the  attack dogs  of the rigged-in governor who has put the entire state to rout.  When not being used to protect an illegal 7-man rogue legislature, the police is, zombie-like, enthusiastically running opposition politicians to ground and assisting his group of thugs.  With its men paying for everything needed for official duties despite the humongous annual budgetary allocations to it, the Nigeria Police is today nowhere near any national police. It has become so unkempt and uncared for that, as they have threatened, some elements within it should about now be going on strike. In its present circumstances, the Nigeria Police has been turned into a completely anti-democratic institution.

    The least said about an otherwise well trained Nigerian Army, respected world-wide for its discipline and abilities demonstrated  at several peace keeping, even enforcement, operations,  the better,  as  President Jonathan has  listlessly turned  it into a tool of political manipulation so horrible the rag tag Boko Haram accounted, unfortunately, for too many of  its members  thus  turning  their wives  to widows and the  children to orphans simply because, rather than fight Boko Haram, he  decided to use them  to serve his own personal desires. It got so bad its one time Chief of Staff was alleged to be a sponsor of Boko Haram by an expatriate peace negotiator who should know.

    It got worse.

    As has now been evidentially proven through the Captain Sagir Koli  Ekitigate tapes, President Jonathan so thoroughly undermined the integrity the Nigerian Army when he allegedly  – Obanikoro  and Fayose’s words –  ordered it, through its Chief of Staff,  to rig the Ekiti governorship election of 2014  for Ayo Fayose. So ruinous was that directive that the Nigerian Army will never ever completely erase its unwholesome consequences. By the time everything is known about the current election, it is almost certain President Jonathan would also have used the army to rig again for both himself and his party. It will be most unlike an eminently pliable President Jonathan not to have acquiesced to the illicit demands of the likes of Wike, Fayose, Obanikoro and Akpabio to have soldiers rig for them in their respective states.  If, therefore, there are post-election crises, the entire world should know who to hold responsible.

    Nor is that all he has done to tarnish the image of the Nigerian Army

    Some two weeks ago, the army leadership, apparently acting on orders from above, told Nigerians that elections will not take place in newly freed areas. Incidentally, this is by a government and party whose silly, unpatriotic fight over PVC was premised on no Nigerian being disenfranchised. So what did this president tell the army? Thanks to Chadian army authorities, we now know that Nigerian soldiers were ordered not to take over control of the freed territories in order to make them unsafe. The consequence was fast in coming: not only were several  Nigerians killed, about 500 were reported seized and carried away by Boko Haram from one of such towns already freed by the Chadian soldiers. Big surprise is it, that an army that put the dreaded Boko Haram to rout in six weeks could now be running away from taking over control and responsibility in the captured areas. That is how ineffective the president has rendered a once formidable Nigerian Army which, some thirty years earlier, under General Muhammadu Buhari , yes, the same  Buhari, ran Chadian soldiers  beyond their own borders  as a reprisal for an attack on Nigerian territory – a tale of two heads of state. The army has, however, proved itself by putting Boko Haram to the rout in six weeks even though the president has restrained it for a whole of six years claiming, without a shred of evidence, that his government had been infiltrated by the same Boko Haram.

    Unfortunately, while the president and his agents failed to completely shame the army as an institution, they are still relentlessly at work rubbishing its leading lights –the generals who gave everything to make the Nigerian Army worth its name in gold before its current ruination.  Following the lead of a president who called General Obasanjo, a former head of state, a motor park tout, all manner of rehabilitated drug addicts have since described General Buhari as an illiterate while the president’s own unrestrainedly loquacious wife, Patience, has declared the APC candidate, General Buhari, another former head of state, brain dead. Nor was General T.Y Danjuma, a former Chief of Army Staff, spared by some irritable, totally insufferable and ordinary, Niger-Delta militants turned billionaires. So miffed at all these shenanigans was General  Babangida,  also a former head of State, and victim of these reckless president-led attacks , that he had to issue a press statement decrying the descent into outright depravity. Wrote General Babangida: ‘ Nobody is stopping  anyone from campaigning for their preferred candidates but to do so at the expense of the reputation, contributions, patriotism, loyalty and sacrifice  of former presidents to the Nigerian state is, to say the least, immature. It is therefore callous, wicked, out of sync, cynical and a show of crass ignorance for anyone to undermine the military institution by embarking on mudslinging campaigns against former presidents and leaders with military background.’  And the clincher, which should resonate with these foul mouths: ‘it is this form of demonisation and stigmatisation that often compels us to exhibit espirit de corps amongst ourselves in support of our military institution, and colleagues, when the stakes are high.’

    One can only hope that those who have ears have heard.

  • Jonathan, wife vote in Bayelsa

    Jonathan, wife vote in Bayelsa

    President Goodluck Jonathan voted in Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly election at his Otuoke country home at exactly 3:04pm.

    His wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, dropped her votes in the three ballot boxes about two minutes later, to signify the commencement of voting in the area.

    He told reporters that he voted for the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidates in the polls.

    On reported card readers’ problems in few areas, the President said manual accreditation of voters will be carried out if the problems persisted.

  • Jonathan warned about Boko Haram ceasefire – Chadian president

    Jonathan warned about Boko Haram ceasefire – Chadian president

    Chadian President Idris Deby has said he warned President Goodluck Jonathan against holding talks with the Boko Haram sect, saying the whole episode was orchestrated by the insurgents to buy time and regroup.

    Deby said President Jonathan dismissed the advice and held talks with the sect, a decision he said was for political reasons.

    The Chadian leader accused his Nigerian counterpart of downplaying the Boko Haram threat.

    “I told President Jonathan not to open negotiations with terrorists but it was a political choice,” AFP quoted Deby as saying in an interview with French magazine, Le Point.

    “It has become something too serious for Nigerians to ignore. The blood of the dead that we have been counting every day for the past few years demands attention.”

    The October ceasefire humiliated the Nigerian government after it claimed to have reached a deal with the insurgents, who are responsible for more than 15,000 deaths.

    At the time, the Nigerian military said the talks were credible and directed its field commanders to immediately suspend hostilities against the sect.

    The talks were reportedly facilitated by the Chadian president, accused earlier of providing safe haven for insurgents.

    Shortly after the announcement, Boko Haram continued its attacks, sacking villages and killing innocent people.

    The Nigerian government initially claimed that the sect’s splinter groups were responsible for the continued fighting, but later blamed the failure on sabotage.

    Mr. Deby said President Jonathan and his military had underestimated Boko Haram for too long.

    “The whole world is asking why the Nigerian army, which is a big arm is not in a position to stand up to untrained kids armed with Kalashnikovs,” he said.

    Speaking about the ongoing war that involves Chad, Niger and Cameroun, the Chadian President said the Nigerian military has not cooperated with his country in fighting the insurgents.

    He said the two sides have not had any direct contact since Chad became involved in the conflict.

    “Two months after the start of this war, we have not had any direct contact with the Nigerian army units on the ground,” he said.

  • Laughing at the dead?

    Laughing at the dead?

    Suddenly President Jonathan shows compassion to Chibok, Buni Yadi and Immigration job victims!   

    You want to be president or campaign for one?  Take your cue from President Goodluck Jonathan, and you would probably end up as a study on how not to be both!

    For a third of his first-term tenure, the president left undone things he should have done.  But in the final lap, with its inevitable electioneering, he now goes on an over-drive — perhaps with manic determination to cover what he had not covered; or undo the harm his lethargy had done!

    True, it is never late to right wrongs; after all, perhaps the greatest anti-Christ of all times, Saul, became Paul, one of the greatest propagators of the gospel of Christ.  Still, the way President Jonathan goes about his lethargy-to-overdrive change oozes blind panic and seasoned cynicism.

    This has driven not a few to ponder: so if there were no looming elections, this president would not rouse himself?  And if all the buzz is election-driven, would he not most likely revert to his culpable lethargy, the instant he is gifted a second term?

    These theatrics, when applied to intense citizen tragedies, requiring instant state empathy but met none, are well and truly disgusting.  Take the twin tragedy of Chibok and Buni Yadi.

    At Chibok on 14 April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls (57 escaped, leaving 219), to intense global outrage.  These pupils of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, were writing their Senior Secondary School Certificate (SSSE) examination.  Despite the mass revulsion at seizing the girls, neither President Jonathan nor any of his top officials visited the tragic town to empathise with the community, despite the president’s bounden duty to provide security for all citizens.

    Earlier on 25 February 2014 at the Federal Government College, Buni-Yadi, Yobe State, Boko Haram terrorists also slew, in their sleep, 29 pupils.  After reportedly putting to the knife the poor and tender souls, the deranged savages set the school ablaze, thus charring the pupils’ remains!  Unlike Borno State-owned Chibok, Buni-Yadi is a Federal Government-owned school.  Yet, again, neither the president nor any of his top officials visited to commiserate.

    But all that has changed with the advent of electioneering  — to the reported deep fury of the victim communities.  At Chibok, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, finance minister and coordinating minister   for the Economy, visited to lay the foundation of a new school building, complete with security watch towers, state-of-the-art laboratories and other facilities.  She pledged studying there would be a delight; and the new facility’s security gadgets would avert any future Chibok kidnap tragedy.

    But would that bring back the girls?  That appeared the big question from the Chibok victims’ association of parents.  Could they then possibly embrace the new school in lieu of their missing girls, when, had the Jonathan government acted swiftly, most of the girls would probably have been saved?  And had the Presidency been alive to its duty, none of the Chibok 276 would have come to harm’s way?

    Only unbridled cynicism, driven by baseless electoral optimism, could have lured any government to such an insensitive strategy.

    At Buni-Yadi, the community pointedly told the visiting Federal Government delegation that their so-called commiseration came a year too late; more so when the attacked school was a Federal Government facility.

    The visits condemn President Jonathan: both for lack of empathy (no timely emotional support for the victims) and serious dereliction of duty (for preventing the attack); and culpable cunning: election-induced sympathy, which audaciously pitches a second term, even if the visit itself was symbol of the government’s incompetence at security, its most basic task.  So, how can proven incompetence attract a renewed mandate?

    The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment deaths scandal is another turf on which the Jonathan government engages in a sickening gallery play.

    The NIS tragedy was a hideous racket, which produced a grotesque result: no less than 16 dead, in an abortive search for elusive jobs.  No less than 700, 000 youths, paying, according to Wikipedia, an application fee of N1,000 each, applied for and attended the consultant-handled job interview, and NIS para-military drilling process.  But alas, only 4,000 spaces were available!  The deaths resulted from stampede and crushes, at different stadia nationwide “interview venues”, on 15 March 2014.

    After this soulless extortionist scandal, President Jonathan announced a cancellation, promised the youths their N1,000 application fee refund, automatic jobs for the wounded and cash compensation to the family of the dead.  Then, all went quiet — until electioneering, March 14: almost exactly a year after the tragedy, and less than two weeks to the postponed presidential election!

    The leading opposition, All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed the announced N5 million compensation to relatives of the dead, and fulfilled job promises to the injured, as “taking advantage of the NIS deaths” for cheap electoral reasons.  That would appear a valid accusation, even if the president must redeem his pledge, made under particularly tragic circumstances.

    The galling point, however, is the survival of Abba Moro, Interior minister, under whose charge the tragedy took place.  Despite the outrage, Mr. Moro, a protégé of Senate President, David Mark, survived.  But the sad trade-off that guaranteed Mr. Moro’s job would become apparent with the Mark-pushed Senate ministerial endorsement of Musiliu Obanikoro, even with his scandalous involvement in the Ekiti audio rigging tapes.  As Jonathan stood by Mark on Moro, it would appear, Mark also stands by Jonathan on Koro!

    Devious manoeuvring, to willy-nilly retain a job, at which a first-term performance screams incompetent, appears to drive the president.

    This tactic would explain the unilateral 30 per cent salary cut for the president and his federal executive (no crime; but it cannot be done without the input of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission), the halving of electricity tariff (which should be the forte of the regulators, Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, and not an executive-induced fiat) and the bunching together of the National Youth Service Corps three-year honours list (a desperate grab at approval and legitimacy, on the eve of a crucial election).

    President Jonathan appears on the roll: a festival of cant, in the final push to the election.  It is both cheap and un-presidential.

  • Goodluck or good judgment?

    SIR: Truth be told, it is not exactly that President Jonathan has not done this or that. I have journeyed Lagos-Ibadan all my life and the roads have been bad for longer than just six years. Now see hands on it. There has been an improvement in power supply and we have come some distance from where we started. There are efforts in agriculture, housing and so on.

    President Jonathan is a nice gentleman under whose administration the parliament is stable. Recent economic rebasing indicates that our GDP has grown significantly in periods including under his administration.

    So why exactly have people lost taste of President Jonathan and are canvassing for him to be sacked ‘prematurely’?

    First, there are some impeachable offences that President Jonathan is seen to have committed in the parliament of the people. The issues are already there in the open: insecurity, corruption and poor economic management.

    Some of us find it difficult to relate directly with the situation in the North East.  The situation is desperate and it only seems to get worse with no help in sight. His failure is so fundamental and I imagine it is why the likes of CNN and others have chosen to wage a war against our President’s handling of the insurgency. This is one of our fears when a ‘nice gentleman’ like Jonathan holds the office of the President.

    Even the President’s most ardent supporters may not be able to defend him on his stance against corruption. The President has serially laundered the images of people who have either been convicted on the grounds of corruption or are found wanting for it. The anti-corruption institutions have not been able to prosecute any politician to a logical conclusion, yet these same politicians are easily convicted outside the shores of this country. The DSS has shamefully turned itself to an arm of Jonathan’s campaign organization. The President has made billionaires of political jobbers and social nuisances who ordinarily have not been known for any business acumen. Crooks are busy feasting off our national resources and he instead mounts the podium to celebrate the number of private jet owners in this same country that doubles as having the poorest in international statistics.

    You erect glorified secondary schools and call them universities. Churn out graduates with little intellectual or employable values who clog our unemployment data without commensurate employment opportunities and you wonder why everyone is against you? The government profiteers gather our money and refuse to create wealth within, divert the fund outside the country and you reel out data on how much wealth you have created that people refuse to see!

    A good sense of judgment is what you either have or do not have; it can hardly be groomed. The President is ultimately responsible for all the actions taken under his government but do you really trust him? Just as in marriage, election is a union between the government and the people because the decision made by government will impact on your life even after the government is no more. Seeing the way he has managed the boom in crude oil price, would you really trust him with your personal finances?

    Even on issues that bother on his own ambition and interest, has he made the right choices? Do you not watch the way they go about the electioneering campaign and wonder whether there are no thoughtful ways of doing same? Would you pick a tainted Femi Fani-Kayode to run a critical campaign for you if you were the President? Would you play as easily into the hands of the opposition as he has?

     

    • Titi Sanni,

    Eti-Osa, Lagos.

  • ‘Born-again’ President Jonathan

    ‘Born-again’ President Jonathan

    Nigerians should pray that all days should be Election Day because that is the only time they see result

    President Goodluck Jonathan is ‘born-again’ indeed. In need, everyone becomes born-again. Suddenly, he has begun to give a damn to those little things he hitherto did not give a damn about. But, unlike one of our former presidents who was ‘born-again’ only from his head to his stomach, President Jonathan appears ‘born-again’ (or transformed) from head to toe. We should not expect anything less from the initiator of ‘Transformation’ as a government slogan and the patron of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN). Again, we should not expect anything less from a president who has traversed many churches in the land. That is the essence of those spiritual voyages to Lagos while his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, took care of the eastern flank which, unfortunately, ended in a fiasco, with Father Ejike Mbaka’s outburst against the First Family’s reelection campaign. By the way, what has happened to that magic wand of the president – the Neighbour to Neighbour outfit which was a major plank of his campaign for the 2011 election when his good luck shone unchallenged? That good luck appears to be in trouble these days.

    Anyway, while we await answer to that, it is good to mention some of the areas the president has suddenly ‘repented’ and become ‘born-again’. For the better part of last week, there was fuel scarcity all over the country. This was attributed to so many things, but it was apparent the fuel marketers did not want to be caught in a situation where their subsidy claims would not be paid in the event that President Jonathan is retired on March 28. They know it is only under the incumbent that spurious claims could be made and paid and that once a serious government takes over, that is the end of that satanic honeymoon. So, they decided to hoard fuel or stop placing orders for it.

    The thing worked. President Jonathan’s ears must be full with the numerous allegations of incompetence levelled against his government and so would never allow the scarcity to linger for long because he would not want fuel scarcity added to his long list of failures. Promptly, the government rose to the occasion and the marketers are happy once again. Fuel queues are gradually disappearing.

    Then, look at the case of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) outstanding corps members that the president honoured last Monday; 164 in all. They belonged to the 2012, 2013 and 2014 service years. The presidential honours for youth corps members is an annual event but the president who had not deemed it fit (sorry who had been too busy to hold the event in the last two years) suddenly discovered that it could now be accommodated despite his tight schedule for the elections.

    Then the Chibok girls. President Jonathan on Thursday sent the Minister of State (Power), Mr. Mohammed Wakil, to meet with the parents of the girls abducted from school by Boko Haram insurgents last April. “Mr. President is pursuing multi-faceted strategies which address the pains, anger and frustrations of victims.

    “Our President directed me to tell you that his government is committed to doing everything possible for the safe return of your daughters”, Wakil told the distraught parents. He did not forget to add that their children would return safely and thanked them, even if unsolicited, for not aligning with those who are politicising the issue, as if we have forgotten that it was the government that began the politicisation by saying no girls were abducted, at a critical time that it was still possible to rescue them from their spineless abductors with relative ease.

    On the same Thursday (last week), President Jonathan sent the woman with whom he is well pleased such that he has abandoned everything about our economy to her care, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to the same Chibok to lay the foundation of rebuilding the Government Secondary School  where the girls were abducted. Would you still call the president a coward when he had sent two eminent cabinet members to Chibok in a week to appease the people? And, if you are still thinking the president is doing all these for the sake of elusive votes, I pray that God would forgive you because I know he is doing them now because he is no longer of the world.  He abandoned Chibok when he was still in the world. Now, old things are passed away and all things have become new. That, indeed, must have informed his decision to send an emissary to the parents, as well as commence rebuilding of the school damaged during the Boko Haram invasion last April, three weeks to elections.

    With all these, I must have convinced, rather than confused those still harbouring the impression that our president is incompetent that the reverse is indeed the case. See what the man has done in just one week. This is aside the numerous claims of victory our soldiers are claiming in the war against Boko Haram, but the glory of which many Nigerians are giving to the Chadian, Cameroonian and allied forces that are helping us out with the war against the insurgents. That was how they accused a military governor of not being able to speak impeccable Queens English years ago whereas the man was working. What has Queens English got to do with performance? Soon, the whispers got to the governor who fired back: won la a gbeebo, a gbeebo, arson si nlo (they say we cannot speak good English, but arson (action) is going on!) If the man did not ‘have action’, he would not have seen the shoddy job done by the contractor that his government awarded a bridge project. ‘Who built dis gada’, it is shaking?’ (Who constructed this bridge that is shaking?) he asked when ‘bouncing’ on the bridge to test if its integrity had not been compromised.

    Now, simply because some critics do not like the president’s face, instead of praising him for the feat so far achieved, they are busy lamenting that it was the same Chad that General Buhari pursued several kilometres into their territory (their tails between their legs, in 1983, when that country tried to insult Nigeria) that is now warning the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, to surrender or be smoked out and killed! Apparently many Nigerians who are displeased with this role reversal are now asking: how did things get this progressively bad? Indeed, I remember when in one of those lacklustre advertisements put up by a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agent castigating Buhari, the advertiser had alleged that our military in such a bad state is Buhari’s doing! Trust Buhari’s acolytes, they would never allow such fallacy go unchallenged. So, they replied that Buhari left the stage since 1985; and many other governments had come and gone after him. Even the PDP that has ruled for 16 long and tortuous years, what has it done to improve the lot of the military beyond making it an annex of the ruling party, with ‘bloody civilians’ allegedly ordering generals about for electoral malfeasance? This is despite the fact that those who are supposed to probe the allegation are yet to admit that the said event occurred.

    For those who see Chad’s role in the Boko Haram saga today as an irony, I ask: what is ironical about that? What is wrong in Nigeria seeing Boko Haram and Chad killing it? Are we not all familiar with the saying that there is nothing wrong with a man seeing a snake and a woman killing it; that what is important is for the snake not to escape? Or, as our people versed in Pidgin English would say, whether we tie wrapper around the waist or we tie the waist around the wrapper, what matters is that one is not naked! Are we not to be celebrating the fact that it is a fellow African country that is doing for us what the United States of America, Britain and other world giants could not do?

    Honestly, my advice to those who thought not much could be done within six weeks’ postponement of the elections is to have a rethink, seeing the grounds our new, improved and ‘born again’ (to boot) President Jonathan has covered in so short a time. One, two, three and still counting! My own fear , however, is of a different kind. My worry for the president  is that if he rushes all that he has to do now, what then would he do if he is reelected? Honestly, this is my fear. Otherwise, we should be happy that our prayers for him are being answered.

  • Why I deserve Nigerians’ votes – Jonathan

    Why I deserve Nigerians’ votes – Jonathan

    … Chibok girls still alive – President

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday maintained that he deserves the votes of Nigerians because his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, has done well in many sectors in the last four years.

    He made the remark during an about one hour and 25 minutes interview on Kakaaki programme aired on the African Independent Television (AIT).

    Stressing that PDP still possesses the most formidable structure among the political parties in the country, the President said that he was not worried about the possible outcome of the forthcoming presidential election.

    He said: “I believe Nigerians should vote for me and I want Nigerians to vote for me because we have done well. Sometimes as a government we are busy working and we don’t advertise what we have done.”

    “Sometimes it appears not much (is done). Nigeria is a very big country. If you assess what we have done in a number of areas, we have done quite well and I believe that if Nigeria is linking up to where we were before and what we have done over these four years of government, they will want us to continue to make sure we at least complete some of the ongoing programmes.

    “We believe that in several areas, we have tried and we are working very well and if encouraged in the next four years, at least Nigeria will be able to stabilise in various sectors.

    “If Nigerians really know what we were before and what we did within these four years, then they will encourage us to at least continue for the next four years.”
    He noted that it was people from the PDP that gave the opposition the strength it currently enjoys, adding that if the PDP elements were to leave the opposition, they would crumble.

    President Jonathan added: “Even the opposition will tell you if they are realistic. Who has strengthened the opposition? Are they not the PDP elements? If you remove the PDP members from the opposition, they will just crumble like a pack of cards.

    “Why are people aggressive towards the PDP to the extent that even the presidential convoy is stoned? Why do you show that aggression? If you are comfortable, you will not do that.”

    On why his reelection for second term may be more difficult than the first term election, he said: “Globally, it is more challenging for a president to secure a second term than the first tenure because people get disappointed when their expectations are not quickly met by those they voted for.”

    Jonathan maintained that the increasing victory against the insurgents close to the election period was not political as the military just started receiving about 65 percent of the required equipment to fight the insurgents.

    He also assured that the schoolgirls abducted from Chibok, Borno State in April last year are still alive.

    According to him, the girls would be rescued alive.

    “The good story is that they have not killed them because when terrorists kill, they display so that they use it to intimidate the people in the society. So, these girls are alive. And so, we will get the girls. Luckily, we are narrowing down the areas of their control. So we will get them.” he stated.

     

  • Boko Haram: Military will protect civilians – Jonathan

    Boko Haram: Military will protect civilians – Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday said that utmost care was being taken by the Federal Government to avoid collateral damage to the lives and properties of civilians in the battle against Boko Haram.

    He made the remark while receiving the new South Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Noh Kyu-Duk, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    According to him, everything possible was being done by the military to avoid human rights violations in the theatre of operations in the Northeast.

    He said: “We are sticking to international best practices in prosecuting the war against terrorism and doing our best to ensure that we don’t have cases of human rights abuses in the Northeast.

    “We are consistently monitoring the situation and have investigated previous reports of such abuse which were mostly blown out of proportion for political reasons.
    “Our military has a reputation for discipline and we have insisted on that discipline and control for the safety of civilians in the Northeast.

    “The purpose of the entire operation is to save our people from the brutal tyranny of Boko Haram, so we cannot tolerate human rights abuses or willfully impose further suffering on them.’’

    He also told Mr. Kyu-Duk that Nigeria’s entire security architecture was being reviewed, restructured and strengthened to ensure greater safety for Nigerians and foreign workers in all parts of the country.

    “We are inviting all our friends in the international community, particularly those that are more technologically advanced, to complement our efforts to build a more secure and prosperous country in which our people and foreigners can live in peace and safety,” he stated.

    The President urged Mr. Kyu-Duk and his Indonesian counterpart, Mr. Harry Purwanto, who was also at the Presidential Villa to present his letters of credence, to work for the strengthening of existing trade and economic relations between Nigeria and their countries.

    The new ambassadors thanked President Jonathan for receiving them and assured him that they will do their best to promote stronger economic and cultural relations between their countries and Nigeria during their tenure in Abuja.

     

  • Ex-militant leaders back down on war threats

    Ex-militant leaders back down on war threats

    … Beg Nigerians to vote Jonathan

    Ex-militant leaders from South-South backed down on their initial threats of war if President Goodluck Jonathan loses the forthcoming Presidential election and begged Nigerians to vote their kinsman, for a second term in office.

    The leaders on Friday claimed that President Jonathan deserves reelection because he had performed.

    The leaders further begged Nigerians to ignore hate campaigns against the President, arguing that he had made positive impact in the country.

    The leaders, under the aegis of the Leadership, Peace and Cultural Development Initiatives (LPCDI), said the President had done well in the areas of education, power, infrastructural development and security.

    The group’s National Coordinator, Pastor Reuben Wilson, decried campaigns of calumny and violent utterances hurled at the President by politicians.

    He said: “We resolved to call on Nigerians, particularly eligible voters to rate the candidates for the presidential election based on performance and eligibility.

    “President Goodluck Jonathan has done well and he should be voted in by Nigerians for second term. They should assess him based on performance and not the region he comes from.

    “Jonathan has done well. Why are people opposing him? Is it because he comes from the Niger Delta? Would they have shown so much hatred and insincerity if he had come from the northern part of the country?

    “The people of the South-South and the Niger Delta are feeling bad over the rising insults and poor rating despite the huge achievement of the present administration. We advised the opposition party and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to come out open and declare that President Goodluck Jonathan has done well.”

    He said the amnesty programme had ensured that over 3,000 youths were trained on scholarship and skill acquisition.

  • A coded letter to President Jonathan

    Love letter in a time of angst Dear President Goodluck Jonathan, it is my guess that you receive dozens of unsolicited letters daily by virtue of your position. Letters from the high and low; open, closed and coded and de-coded; the sensible and many, sheer effusions from disturbed minds. You cannot possibly read them all even if you tried; you are not even obliged to read them at all but depending on your temperament and reading culture, it helps a great deal if you paid a little attention to some of these odd, unsolicited missives as they are liable to provide you some unedited views and perspectives of your domain.

    I respectfully add mine to the myriad of others not because one had not  brooked the subject of the day previously on this column but mainly because the moment warrants that the issues in question be raised again in a more pointed manner. Of course, the issue of the moment is squarely succession riding on the wings of campaign and the coming elections. Like a plane, the electioneering is at its cruising altitude now. All you want to hear about now is smooth landing, that is, success in the election. Anything short would be akin to treason in your view.

    But a sage once determined that the best truth, just like food, is the unpalatable one. You don’t want to eat it but it’s good for your health; you don’t want to hear it, but your very life may well depend on it.

    Mr. President, I imagine that the people you would rather have around now are your election ‘strategist’, ‘influential’ leaders of one major group or the other, ‘high-calibre’ endorsers of your campaign, voluble defenders of your government, financiers and sponsors. This is normal, natural and rational.

    At this stage of the quest for the prime office, there is only one thought in the mind of the returning incumbent – victory. I do not think there is a greater, more painful loss than an incumbent failing in his bid to win re-election. Again, it is human for an incumbent to fight with everything he has; to stake everything – including sovereignty – to make sure he returns to office; or more appropriately, to ensure that he is not ‘disgraced’ out of office as we say here.

    How to be a game-changer But the point of this letter is to ask that you do the seeming impossible; like asking you to stop a plane that is already cruising. It may seem crazy but that is the art of game-changers, it is the stuff that makes for greatness and eternal statesmanship.

    I do not ask that you quit the race. No, that is out of the question now. Though that had been canvassed here previously and would have marked the greatest path of honour for you but unfortunately, you shunned it. You missed that huge opportunity.

    However, another great opportunity is embedded even in this equally great quest for the presidential diadem. But first you must step away from the madding crowd of election hawks and vultures. You must find a lonely place for quiet reflection. You must ask yourself some of the following questions: what is this election really worth to me? I had spent a longer time on this seat (nearly six years) why is another four years so crucial to me that I am willing to do just anything to stay on? Why really am I desperately seeking another four years; is it for my personal ego and aggrandizement; for my country Nigeria or for the people around me who insist it is the right and entitlement of the minorities of the Niger Delta region?

    Further, you must reflect on the import of victory and a possibility of defeat. If I achieved victory, especially by a certain sleight of hand what would the victory mean to me? Would I be a better president than I am now? Would I be able to manage this parlous economy better than I did in my first five years of stupendous oil boom?

    Of sweet defeat and bitter victory On the other hand, if I organised an orderly, free and fair election and suffered defeat and stepped down dignifiedly, would I have lost anything other than the office?

    Would the whole world not hoist me up as a shining example of a great African leader who held a free and fair election in which he was defeated? Would I not become an African statesman and legend sought after around the world by all? Would my conducting a peaceful, free and fair election not be a worthier achievement than everything I have achieved so far?

    I know that most of the people around you would not give you room to breathe not to speak of a lonely moment of soul-searching but that is to be expected. If they allowed you a minute of deep-thinking you just might find out that most of them are actually not your friend but fortune hunters who are seeking to enrich themselves even more. If you run a quick mental check, you will find that most of them are worth billions now who had nothing when you first knew them.

    All their puffing and huffing and rattling is not because they love you more, no; they are feeding fat from the situation and they will push you over the cliff if that is what it takes to keep the pock.

    They will tell you to fight for it; they will tell you to go gung-ho; they will tell you to remember you are the C-in-C and you must do whatever it takes to remain in power; they will tell you no president in Africa ever organized an election in which he was defeated; they will tell you it would mark the ultimate capitulation and an effete lack of heart.

    They will make sure you do not to read ‘idiotic’ stuff like this letter penned by naïve people who do not understand the real situation. For them, it is ‘warfare’ in which all is fair. Your ‘strategists’ will lead you to dole out money in billions, Nigeria’s hard-earned money, as if the world will end with this election. Never had so much money been ‘unleashed’ on the polity in the annals of Nigeria’s electioneering.

    They will advise you that to win this election, you must shell out billions to the Christian association, Muslim associations, inconsequential ethnic organizations, student unions, to Obas, emirs, Ezes and emergency endorser groups. They will assure you that money will buy you the people’s votes. They will tell you to undermine Prof. M. Jega and rubbish INEC’s processes. It doesn’t matter that the same Jega conducted the 2011 polls that you have been boasting about. They will never explain to you that you are executing a scorch-earth policy by which you are tearing down everything we hold dear.

    Meanwhile they will shield you from the real troubles in the land. They will cocoon you so well that you will never know there is extreme hunger in the land today. They will never let you see that many of the people you govern are facing starvation and that is no exaggeration. Why would your police contemplate a strike? Why would hitherto proud Nigerian soldiers now shamelessly run from the warfront? Why is Nigeria, the great African waiting on soldiers and mercenaries from Chad, Cameroun, Niger, South Africa, America and Britain to clear a few LGAs of some armed miscreant?

    There is so much one wants to say to you but I am convinced you would never read a drivel like this. They will never let you see it how much more read it. It does not matter whether it is coded, un-coded or decoded. Anyway, nothing matters now, your plane is at cruising altitude now…