Jonathan Attacks Obasanjo Again, Calls Him Confused And Unstable

President Goodluck Jonathan has again lashed out at ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, describing him as a confused man unstable in his views regarding government’s handing of the protracted Boko Haram insurgency.

Mr. Jonathan, who spoke through his spokesperson, Reuben Abati, was reacting to Mr. Obasanjo’s comment in a CNN interview that the president had been deploying excessive force and exploring little or no dialogue in solving the Boko Haram problem.

“To deal with a group like that, you need a carrot and stick. The carrot is finding out how to reach out to them. When you try to reach out to them and they are not amenable to being reached out to, you have to use the stick,” Mr. Obasanjo reportedly said.

An apparently angry Mr. Abati took to Twitter early this morning deploring the former president’s comment and labeling him a confused man whose counsel or view the government does not care about.

In four different tweets this morning, the presidential spokesperson said, “In Nov. 2012 in Warri, fmr Prez. Obasanjo accused federal govt of being soft on Boko Haram. He recommended the Odi solution: genocide.

“In Jan.2013, OBJ tells CNN Govt shd adopt a carrot and stick approach to Boko Haram. Genocide & dialogue? Where exactly does he stand?

“OBJ’s position on Boko Haram= Contradiction and Confusion writ large.

“One report says OBJ is recommending a multifaceted approach to Boko Haram. This govt certainly doesn’t need a lecture on that!

“Jonathan administration has shown creativity & purposefulness in handling the BH challenge. Hence, the progress we witness.”

Mr. Obasanjo first angered Mr. Jonathan after he suggested that the president appeared a weak leader given the way he was handling the security challenges facing the country.

In his comment, the former President reminded the nation of how he directed security agencies to invade Odi, Rivers State, to fish out militants who killed some security men during his tenure.

An angry Mr. Jonathan however hit back at Mr. Obasanjo during his last media chat, saying the Odi invasion Mr. Obasanjo boasted about did not solve the problem but only ended up shedding the blood of the innocent.

Since then, elements loyal to the two men within the party have engaged one another in a war of words, and the national leadership of the party has been desperate for a reconciliation.

But when a peace team, led by party chairman Bamanga Tukur, visited the ex-President in his Ota farm on December 15, Mr. Obasanjo insisted he would continue to comment on national issues whenever necessary not minding whose ox is gored.

Read More

Boko Haram Killings Signs Of End Times? – Jonathan

Jonathan, speaking after 15 Christians had their throats slit last week in the country’s northeast, also suggested Islamist extremist group Boko Haram aimed to take over the Nigerian capital Abuja, but vowed the group would be defeated.

During comments Sunday in which he mentioned attacks on churches in Nigeria, Syria’s war and the situation in the Central African Republic, where rebels have pushed their way across the impoverished country, Jonathan spoke of the Biblical end times.

“I was just wondering, could this be a clear way of telling us that the end times are so close?” he told the church congregation, according to a recording of his remarks heard by AFP.

Some Christians believe in the idea of chaos in connection with the second coming of Jesus Christ, commonly referred to as the “end times”. Such beliefs are based on passages in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

Jonathan was speaking at an evangelical Christian church service in the capital. The church belongs to the EYN denomination, common among Christians in the violence-torn northeast, where Boko Haram is based.

Local media quoted the church pastor as saying 109 EYN members have been killed and 50 branches burnt.

Violence linked to Boko Haram’s insurgency in northern and central Nigeria has left some 3,000 people dead since 2009, including killings by the security forces.

Symbols of Nigerian authority have often been their targets, but the group has also specifically targeted Christians, fellow muslims, including suicide bombings of churches.

This Christmas season has however been notably less bloody than in 2011, when scores were killed in attacks on churches and other locations.

Jonathan has previously accused Boko Haram of seeking to destabilise the government and incite a religious crisis in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.

On Sunday, while speaking of the rebels in the Central African Republic, Jonathan said: “They were quite close to taking over the capital city, just as Boko Haram is taking over Abuja for me and those working in government to run and hide somewhere else.”

He vowed however that Boko Haram would not succeed and that the violence would be brought under control.

“If the idea of Boko Haram is to stop Nigerians from worshipping God, they will not succeed,” he said.

“If the idea of Boko Haram is to stop government from providing the dividends of democracy, they will not succeed…. God willing and with our commitment, the excesses of Boko Haram and other criminal organisations will be brought to a reasonable control.”

Jonathan spokesman Reuben Abati did not respond to a phone call to further explain the president’s comments.

Read More

Former RCCG pastor berates Adeboye for welcoming politicians in to their annual Holy Ghost congress

A former pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Bankole Solomon, has criticized the General Overseer of the church, Pastor E A Adeboye, for allowing politicians i.e President Jonathan, into their annual RCCG Holy Ghost congress and turning it into a political congress.

According to a statement released by Bankole who said he left the church as pastor in 2010 but still worships there, the church programme has now turned to a 'supermarket where charlatans and political opportunists come shopping. He questioned why President Jonathan should be allowed to stand on their 'Once sacred alter' and speak deceitfully and indirectly campaign for 2015 during a spiritual gathering.

"I know this post will attract a sharp condemnation because I worship in RCCG and I was once a pastor before I resigned voluntarily because of rights violations in the name of religion. I resigned in December 2010 but I am still worshiping there as an ordinary member. So, whatever I have here is without prejudice.

"Holy ghost congress of our great church is now a political congress where all shades of corrupt leaders will mount our altar to fool Nigerians on what they will do.

"Holy Ghost congress is now a supermarket where all kinds of people like charlatans and political opportunist come shopping turning God to father Christmas to give them end of the year bonus.

"Jonathan was even there turning our once sacred altar to political podium talking deceitfully and indirectly campaigning for 2015. My question is this? On what ground was president Jonathan allowed to speak to people. Is he a pastor? Because the gathering is purely a spiritual gathering and event.

"I've been a pastor in Redeemed for the past 10 years and I've not got any opportunity to sit on dat altar not to talk of holding mic. If because Jonathan is a President and he is recognized, it means some are more equal than others.

"Immediately I left camp on Saturday morning, I looked at the camp very well because I know that would be the last time I will set my foot to that Eagle Square called Redeemed camp."

Read More

Most praised, most criticised

Nigerians are a peculiar breed. This shows up everywhere. In a football match with another country on our home ground, Nigerians would start off encouraging their team; but as soon as the Nigerian team falls into goal deficit, Nigerians would switch their support to the visiting team and, depending on their level of disappointment, they might begin to haul stones at the Nigerian players.

This is the Nigerian spirit: no matter who is involved, the spirit punishes indolence and rewards excellence.

Suppose the leader suddenly surrenders? Sometimes, we pray and hope that our President is not about to give up on the system.

President Goodluck Jonathan was being economical with the truth when in his opening address to the 52nd Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in Abuja on Monday, August 28, 2012, he provided a frightening glimpse of the Nigerian situation. For the first time perhaps, President Jonathan came to the awakening that Nigeria had a load of problems.

The President sees himself as “the most criticized President in the world”, except that “his critics failed to understand that the current challenges predated his administration”.

In a tone suggestive of a man who is beating a retreat from responsibility, the President now admits: “We don’t have the magic wand, except the miracle worker who with the wave of the hand, probably will help to throw all these challenges away and prosperity will appear”.

Hear him further: “Sometimes, even people who have held offices in government criticise me to the extent of personal abuses. Sometimes I ask, were there roads across the country and Jonathan brought flood to wipe out these roads? Or we had power and I brought hurricane to break down the entire infrastructure?”

These are cheap escapes in which the President left the Nigerian spirit behind. Otherwise, he would have begun from the beginning. It is now convenient for the President to remember that he is the most criticised politician in the world. He has forgotten that he was once the most praised politician on earth.

The media that have today become “politicized” and “unreliable” were the same media that fought his opponents to a standstill, when during the final days of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, certain elements were bent on frustrating him from the presidency, particularly when the PDP machines were bent on Jonathan respecting the party’s so-called zoning policy.

Yes, Nigeria’s problems, like many others, are not new. Jonathan knew that much when he was asking for the job. And in the Nigerian spirit, Nigerians encouraged him, believing that he was coming to clear the existing mess.

It is on record that in the beginning, President Jonathan was encouraged to the extent that he stands as the only Nigerian President who came into office on votes from across party divides.

Nigerians voted for Jonathan, not for him to tell them that there are problems, which, of course, the people already know. Rather, they expect to hear that their President has solved their problems.

In any case, the media, the new critics of Jonathan’s administration, are the mirror of the discontent of society. In essence, they represent the supporters’ club – they applaud you when you perform and boo you when you don’t!

In adjudging himself the most criticized President in the world, President Jonathan ought to know that at his level, the totality of his environment comes into play.

His friends and family cannot be removed from his life. We are not in a hurry to forget the controversy that trailed the church gift of his Italian friend, Domenico Gitto, to President Jonathan’s hometown of Otueke in Bayelsa State.

We wonder how many people know that Gitto has since died perhaps out of depression from heavy debt pile-up in Nigerian banks. At the time of his death, on June 26, 2012, the full extent of his indebtedness was not ascertained but it was immediately known that his company was indebted to three Nigerian banks to the tune of N21 billion.

Talking of criticism, the First Lady has not been too helpful, either. It has been one controversy after the other. And all this must necessarily impinge on the President.

Whether we are talking of her status as a ghost worker in Bayelsa State during the era of Governor Timipre Sylva, or her controversial appointment as Permanent Secretary, or, for that matter, the public opprobrium of Governor Chibuike Amaechi in her hands on the Port Harcourt waterfront settlement, it has been controversy galore.

Again, there is no way some multi-million Naira investments  said to be owned by the First Lady will not attract press attention and be lifted to the front burner. People will talk and our President will complain.

The dog of the President is also the President of dogs. And when it concerns the President, no news is good news. He cannot shy away from public view.

If he refuses to declare his assets publicly, it is news. But if he opts for open declaration of his assets, it is also news. In all these, where does the Dame, the Permanent Secretary, the First Lady, stand on the issue of assets declaration? More criticisms may still lay ambush for our President!

Our counsel is simple: Let President Jonathan turn on the Nigerian spirit. Like in the game of football, if he performs, he can still become the most praised, but if not, he must contend with being the most criticised.

source:Vanguardngr

Read More

House of reps threaten Jonathan

The president of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan has been given 90-days by the House of Representatives to set a debt ceiling for Nigeria, as the country's rising debt profile worries the lawmakers.

The lawmakers who made this known on Tuesday threatened to abandon attending to executive bills if Jonathan did not comply with the Fiscal Responsibility Act and announce a debt ceiling. “It is time we do something about it.

Any Billbrought by the president should be put on hold until he implements the Fiscal Responsibility Act. It is a legislative tool we can employ. It is not a resolution (referring to the debt ceiling directive), it is an Act of parliament that is being flagrantly abused.

The first ninety days has elapsed and the president is yet to comply,”Minority Leader of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. According to the Debt Management Office (DMO) as at December 31, 2011, Nigeria’s external debt stood at US$5.7 billion.

A recent request by the president for $8 billion in four years raises Nigeria’s total debt accumulation to $14 billion after exiting the Paris Club debt in 2004.

Read More

Jonathan’s Brazil trip, abdication of duty — Reps

Members of the House of Representatives yesterday criticised President Goodluck Jonathan for travelling to Brazil for the United Nations conference on climate change when hundreds of Nigerians are being killed and maimed in several cities, saying he abdicated his duty.

The members stated this while debating a motion sponsored by Rep Yakubu Barde (PDP, Kaduna) who came under matters of urgent national importance over the Sunday bombings of three churches in Kaduna State and the reprisal attacks that followed.

The legislators unanimously voted summoning President Jonathan to come back home from Brazil. The House resolution invited the President and the security chiefs to address the House at a closed-door session on the insecurity situation in the country.

Representative Emma-nuel Jime (PDP, Benue) said: “There is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the President. So far what we have is a statement by his spokesman to say that he is too engaged with state issues than to talk about Boko Haram,” Rep. Jime added.

Minority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila (ACN, Lagos) also criticised the President for contravening the oath of office he swore on May 29th 2011 by travelling “to far away to Brazil to engage in climate conference when a state capital is under siege for hours.”

“We must begin to look elsewhere for solution, drastic situations calls for drastic measures. We have power of oversights not only on the National Security Adviser but also on the President himself”, the Minority Leader said.

In her submission, Rep. Olajumoke Okoya-Thomas (ACN, Lagos), said if the President knows that he can’t handle the situation ‘he should step down’. “We should issue marching order to the President in view of the security situation,” she said.

Rep. Jerry Manwe (PDP, Taraba) said:  “Is Mr. President scared? Is the IGP scared? Are there some people that cannot be arrested? If the President knows who is behind Boko Haram he should go after them otherwise nobody should come and tell us that they are on top of the situation”.

“Ali Modu Sheriff is today walking the street of Nigeria, Jonathan must now demonstrate that he has the will power to handle it, he can no longer be telling us that this is a phenomenon. He said even in his cabinet there are Boko Haram symphatisers but it means that he is the only person who has the custody of information about their sponsors,” Jime said.

Speaking shortly after the motion was passed, Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal lamented that he was quoted out of context when he issued statement on the Sunday bomb blast and reprisal attacks in Kaduna state through his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Malam Imam Imam saying, “my stance has always been known on issue of terrorism; I have always spoken against the perpetrators, therefore I crave the indulgence of those desperately looking for what to use to smear my name to please leave me alone”.

Although no date was set for the appearance of the President before the House, this would be the first time that the House has summoned the President since assuming office in February 2010 after he was declared Acting President by a resolution of the both chambers of the National Assembly.

Meanwhile three opposition parties; Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) also condemned the President Jonathan for embarking on the Brazil trip while Yobe and Kaduna States when dozens of Nigerians wee being killed and maimed. ACN said it is a sign of incompetence and confused leadership.

Read More

Jonathan Replies Buhari: Dogs And Baboons Can't Determine Nigeria's Future

President Goodluck Jonathan has responded to the presidential candidate of the CPC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who yesterday threatened bloodshed if the 2015 Presidential elections are not free and fair.

 Below is the statement from the Presidency as signed by Reuben Abati, spokesman to President Jonathan:

 BUHARI’S PREDICTION OF BLOODSHED IN 2015 AND COMMENTS ON BOKO HARAM, SAD AND UNFORTUNATE -PRESIDENCY 

 The attention of the Presidency has been drawn to unfortunate statements in the media made by former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) in which he allegedly predicted bloodshed in 2015 and labelled the Federal Government led by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as "the biggest Boko Haram". But perhaps the most unfortunate part of the statement was the portion in which Buhari said that, "Since the leaders now don’t listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the north can do."

 We find it very sad that an elder statesman who once presided over the entirety of Nigeria can reduce himself to a regional leader who speaks for only a part of Nigeria. We now understand what his protégé and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir El’Rufai, meant when he wrote in a public letter in October of 2010, telling Nigerians that Buhari remains "perpetually unelectable" and that Buhari's "insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known." 

Who can know Buhari better than his own political associate? Come to think of it, as the CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 election, how many states in the Federation did he visit to campaign for votes? Buhari never bothered to campaign in the southern part of the country and consistently played up the North-South divide to the chagrin of patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians. As the results revealed, Nigerians will never vote for anyone who wants to divide the country. Is Buhari going to continue to be a sectional leader? The Federal Government led by President Jonathan is not Boko Haram. 

Boko Harammeans Western Education is sin. That being the case, one wonders how a government that devoted the largest sectoral allocation in the 2012 budget to education could be said to be Boko Haram. Between 1983, when Buhari forcefully seized power from the democratically elected administration of President Shehu Usman Shagari, and 2012, no other administration has committed the same quantum of resources as the Jonathan administration to education in the part of Nigeria that has witnessed the most Boko Haram-related insecurity.

Only on April 10, 2012, President Jonathan commissioned the first of 400 Federal Government Model Almajiri Schools, equipped with modern facilities such as a Language Laboratory, Qur'an Recitation Hall, classrooms and dormitories as well as a clinic, vocational workshop, dining hall and quarters for the Mallams. As Nigerians read this, more of such schools have been completed. We now challenge Major General Buhari (rtd) to tell Nigerians what he has done, whether in his capacity as the head of a military junta or in his private capacity, to bring education to vulnerable children. 

If he cannot live up to this challenge, perhaps he has to reassess who really is Boko Haram. Buhari claims that the Federal Government does not listen. Such an accusation ought not to emanate from a man overthrown by his own hand- picked colleagues in the military for refusing to listen to advice and behaving as if he had a monopoly of knowledge. It is on record that the Federal Government led by President Jonathan is a listening administration hence its decision to pursue all means of resolving the Boko Haram insurgency including through dialogue. 

 When Buhari says that "if what happens in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, ‘the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood", we hereby state that it is Buhari himself who does not listen. He has obviously refused to listen to the Nigerian People, the European Union, the Commonwealth Monitoring Group, the African Union and a multitude of independent electoral monitors who testified that the 2011 elections were free and fair and "the best elections since Nigeria returned to civil rule." 

 Indeed, such a reaction from Buhari is not totally unexpected since he has become aserial election loser who has never taken his past election defeats graciously even when such elections were generally acknowledged to be free and fair. Still on the issue of Boko Haram, we wonder what locus a man whose party's Secretary General, Buba Galadima, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in December, 2010, that the Federal Government is underestimating the support base of Boko Haram, has to accuse a government that has been threatened on camera by the leaders of Boko Haram of itself being Boko Haram?

 Major General Buhari (rtd) also boasts of his knowledge of the Petroleum Industry because of his time as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum. We wonder why he did not boast of the infamous scandal that occurred in that ministry where under his watch billions of Naira (in the 1970s) were reported stolen, a matter which led to the setting up of the Justice Ayo Irikefe panel.

 Finally, we wish to make it known to Buhari that given his reference to "dogs and baboons", perhaps his best course of action would be to travel to the zoo of his imagination because President Goodluck Jonathan was elected by human beings to preside over human beings and it is human beings who will determine what happens in Nigeria at any material time not "dogs and baboons"

Read More

Fear Of Revolution Made Governors Abandon Jonathan

The seven-day protests and strikes embarked upon by organised labour and civil society groups in January forced most governors to abandon President Goodluck Jonathan despite the plan they had with him to withdraw the fuel subsidy, investigations have revealed. Findings by our correspondents showed that although most governors were party to the decision to withdraw the subsidy, they distanced themselves from the policy because of the fear that the protests could lead to a revolution similar to the Arab spring.

 Before the protests, there had been demonstrations in some Arab countries that eventually led to the ouster of their leaders. The uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and other Arab nations were dubbed the “Arab Spring.” A cross-section of the governors told our correspondents that they had to abandon the President because they did not want what happened in these countries to repeat itself in Nigeria. Jonathan had on May 7, said the governors abandoned him during the protests against the removal of the subsidy.

 However, some governors said they were not happy that President publicly said they abandoned him during the subsidy protests. One of the governors from the South-East, who pleaded anonymity, said he and some of his colleagues decided to dump the President when it was obvious that Nigerians opposed the issue. According to him, after analysing the security implications of the strike and street protests that were going on in different parts of the country then, the governors felt that the best way out of the logjam was to reach a compromise. 

 He said, “You know we did not put ourselves in office, we were elected by the people. This is not a military government. If you are doing something on behalf of the people you are leading and they say ‘no, don’t do it; we did not send you to do that,’ what do you do? “The best thing for us to do at that time was to stop that action and return to the people who have the sovereignty. That is democracy in action. We didn’t expect the President to go to newspapers and the television stations to say governors let him down.

 “All of us sat down and looked at the implications of the civil unrest that was ongoing at that time. We were afraid because the country was heading for its own type of Arab spring. Leaders should also learn from the followers. As at that time, we needed to learn from the people we were and still leading.” Also commenting on the president’s statement, the Enugu State Governor, Mr. Sullivan Chime, said he had earlier supported the removal of fuel subsidy because it was the agreed decision at the Governors’ Forum but that the decision was later changed. 

 Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Chukwudi Achier, said, “The governor, from day one, made his stance known on this matter. He has repeatedly said he would always be part of any decision taken by the governors. “So if the governors decided that they would switch from their initial position, the governor would definitely be part of it. The forum speaks with one voice, so our governor is automatically part of any decision taken by it since he is a member.” In Rivers State, a top official of the state government defended Governor Rotimi Ameachi against the president’s allegation.

 “The Federal Government takes the lion’s share of the funds that accrue to the country and it is not delivering. “Let it face the issue of subsidy and not blame governors. It is not a hidden fact that the Federal Government has not been allowing states to perform. Take for an instance the power project in the state; it is not a hidden fact that the Federal Government has not allowed the state to distribute the power it (Rivers) has been able to generate.” 

 The Action Congress of Nigeria governors, however, distanced themselves from the joint decision to remove fuel subsidy. The Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, said his administration never supported the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government. Speaking through the Commissioner for Special Duties and Regional Integration, Mr. Ajibola Bashiru, he said, “All ACN governors in the South-West were opposed to fuel subsidy removal. Why did fuel subsidy become a serious matter in an election year? “What the Federal Government needs to do is to clean the oil sector.

 The Federal Government should overhaul old refineries and build new refineries. It is absurd to import oil when we are an oil producing nation. The energy problem militating against industrial investment should be resolved too.” Also, the Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said the president had no right to blame anybody for the failure of his policy. The Commissioner for Information, Mr. Funminiyi Afuye, who spoke with our correspondents in Ado-Ekiti on behalf of his boss, said the subsidy removal policy was the policy of the president.

 He said, “The president being the number one person in the country and the head of government should not blame any governor for his administration’s policy. The buck stops on his table.” The Federal Government had on January 1 announced the removal of fuel subsidy. As a result, the price of petrol was increased from N65 to N144. The price hike was followed by seven-day protests in the South-West, North and parts of the South-South, by organised labour and civil rights groups, especially, the Save Nigeria Group.

Read More