Please permit me to start off this press conference
with a quote by Chilean writer Isabel Allende, which
goes thus: ”What I fear most is power with impunity.
I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.”
Isabel, a victim of the Pinochet military dictatorship,
is not alone. All Nigerians must be worried about
power with impunity, which is what President
Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the PDP, have
resorted to in their desperation to crush the
opposition and destroy Nigeria in the process.
I have called this Press Conference to address the
grave dangers facing Nigerians as a people, our
country as a nation and our democracy as our hope,
at this very critical time.
Events in Nigeria in the past few weeks point to a
return to the dark old days of state dictatorship,
lawlessness, impunity and repression.
Our freedoms are being emasculated, our economy
being run to the ground, and our only hope of
bringing about change – our democratic expression is
being smothered before our very eyes all because
President Goodluck Jonathan is so obsessed with
reelection in 2015 at all cost that he is destroying not
just all our key institutions but indeed the entire
country.
At this critical juncture of our history and despite our
desire for restraint and mature engagement with
President Goodluck Jonathan and the ruling Peoples’
Democratic Party (PDP) it is evident that inaction is
no longer an option and we must resist.
Indeed keeping quiet in the face of the ceaseless and
unrelenting reckless violations of all known laws of
the land and the Constitution will amount to
complicity in the lawlessness and impunity that has
become the norm under President Goodluck
Jonathan.
We know it has been the dream of the ruling PDP to
rule for 60 unbroken years, not minding if Nigeria
becomes a desert land in the process.
Their evil machination has manifested in Ekiti. It has
manifested yesterday in Adamawa, They have carried
it to Nasarawa, and they have Edo, Osun and Rivers
in their sights.
In the states mentioned, all of them opposition
strongholds, President Jonathan and his party have
abused national institutions, resorted to a crude use
of force and engaged in unprecedented financial
inducements to achieve their objectives.
All these anti-democratic tactics come under the
umbrella of power with impunity!
But there is a bigger problem. President Jonathan is
obsessed with his re-election in 2015, and he does
not mind if Nigeria is destroyed in the process. He
does not care whether every institution of state, be it
the military, the courts, INEC or any other one, is
destroyed. All that matters now is his re-election.
This explains why he has embarked on this war
against the opposition, this war against all of Nigeria.
Having bastardized the army, the police, the courts,
aviation and the electoral commission, he has now
moved to the next level: Impeachment. Every
impeachment or threat of it in recent times has the
imprint of President Jonathan.
As we speak, the Governor of Adamawa, Murtala
Nyako, has been impeached at the instance of the
President and his party, they have moved to
Nasarawa, their next stop, while Rivers, Edo and
Borno, all APC states, are not being spared the
destabilization that precedes their new-found
weapon.
What was Nyako impeached for? Offences he
allegedly committed five years ago. Those offences
were not impeachable when he was in the PDP. But
the moment he decamped to the APC, they became
impeachable.
The entire “impeachment” of Governor Nyako is so
fraught with irregularities, bias, judicial
contradictions and in violation of every procedural
and constitutional provisions that it is the worst
manifestation of impunity. We intend to mount an
immediate and rigorous challenge to this gross
injustice to the party and people of Adamawa State.
What is Gov. Al-Makura of Nasarawa being
threatened with impeachment for? Allegations of
extra-budgetary expenditure, the same offence that
President Jonathan has committed many times. In
fact, on only on the 10th of July 2014, the Senate
passed a resolution asking President Goodluck
Jonathan to prepare and submit to the National
Assembly supplementary budget to cover the over
expenditure in the sum of N90.693 billion (US$585
billion) for PMS subsidy 2012 and the sum of
N685.910 billion (US$4.430 billion) for Kerosene
(DPK) subsidy expended without appropriation by
the National Assembly in 2012 and 2013!
In Adamawa, each member of the State House of
Assembly was allegedly given US $300,000 as part
payment to impeach Gov. Nyako; some 500 million
Naira has allegedly been moved to Nasarawa to
induce the state’s lawmakers to impeach Gov. Al-
Makura, and in Edo, each lawmaker has allegedly
been offered 75 million Naira to impeach Gov. Adams
Oshiomhole.
Now, who is more guilty of gross misconduct than a
President who is frittering away our commonwealth
to induce perfidious legislators to impeach their state
Governors? Who is more guilty of gross misconduct
than a President who deploys troops to harass,
intimidate and arrest the opposition during an
election? Who deserves to be impeached for gross
misconduct more than a President who uses national
institutions against the opposition, and shuts
airports arbitrarily?
President Jonathan’s desperation knows no bounds,
and he is willing to set a record of presiding over the
greatest number of impeachments under his tenure.
Before Nyako’s impeachment on Tuesday, a total of
five impeachments have been carried out in all of the
15 years of the Fourth Republic. But between now
and 2015, President Jonathan is championing five
impeachments, in Adamawa, Nasarawa, Edo, Rivers
and Borno.
In doing so, he is subverting hitherto respected
national institutions. The army has been so
compromised that it can no longer be trusted by
anyone to be neutral. The army has been so abused
that it now carries out police duties. Soldiers were
deployed to guard the residence of the Chief Judge of
Adamawa while the impeachment proceedings were
on. Soldiers were deployed to guard each member of
the impeachment panel. Soldiers were also deployed
to guard the venue where the panel sat.
In Ekiti, soldiers were deployed to hunt down the
opposition and prevent them from moving around
freely, in contravention of the nation’s constitution.
In Osun, soldiers are again to be deployed to shut
down the state and go after the opposition.
By using the military for election duties, President
Jonathan is clearly disobeying a court order as the
Court of Appeal had ruled as far back as 2005 that
the involvement of the military in the conduct of
elections is an aberration and therefore
unconstitutional. Indeed in the words of Salami, JCA
on page 176 in the case of Yusuf v Obasanjo (2005)
18 NWLR (Pt. 956 96@174-5)
“It is up to the police to protect our nascent
democracy and not the military, otherwise the
democracy might be wittingly or unwittingly
militarised. This is not what the citizenry bargained
for after 1999. Conscious step or steps should be
taken to civilianise the polity and thereby ensure
survival and sustenance of democracy.”
The Akure airport was suddenly slammed shut just to
punish opposition leaders who had converged in Ekiti
for Gov. Kayode Fayemi’s campaign rally. They had to
travel all night by road to Lagos.
In Borno, under the guise of ensuring security, the
Maiduguri Airport has been closed for several weeks,
hence the Borno Governor and the people of the
state, including the pilgrims heading to lesser Hajj,
have been forced to travel by road to Kano to board
their flights. However, the reason for shutting the
airport has suddenly vanished as the private plane
bearing former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff was
allowed to land at the airport on Monday, the same
day the Governor had to travel by road to Kano to see
his brother who was involved in an accident on the
same road!
Obviously, President Jonathan is fast turning Nigeria
into George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where some
animals are more equal than the others.
Welcome to Nigeria of President Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan, where the only people who are deemed to
be true Nigerians are those under the umbrella of the
PDP, where the only people worth protecting are PDP
members!
Conclusion
We have raised the alarm several times that
President Jonathan’s obsession with his re-election is
a clear and present danger to our democracy. Today,
we say this President’s obsession with re-election is
threatening the very existence of our nation.
Never in the history of our dear nation has any
President waged war on the country the way this
President is doing. Never in the history of our country
has any President desecrated national institutions
like this President is doing to the very institutions
that sustain democracy. Never in the history of our
country has our people been so divided along ethnic,
religious, political and social lines, with poverty rising
astronomically in the backdrop of a claimed rapid
growth in the nation’s GDP.
We warn that excessive political greed will always
have its consequences. Any student of Nigeria’s
contemporary history will realize what acts of
impunity and desperation to win elections at all cost
did to the country in 1965, 1983 and 1993, just to
mention a few.
We call on all friends of Nigeria to prevail on
President Jonathan to apply the brakes in his
obsessive quest for power, because every action has
consequences.
It is time for those who can still get the ears of this
President to remind him that his ambition is not
worth the destruction of a whole country. All those
who can must act now before it is too late!
I thank you all for listening

Jonathserpent! Where is the source? Abeg add it before PDP roaches descend on this thread to earn their crumbs!

I would have advise APC distant themselves from Nyako impeachment, but again they never disappoint, nyako is no baby and knows when he is oppressed or thrown out of office illegally. APC organising press conference makes them stupid and foolish over the impeachment, look at the man even agreed he committed a crime but the problem is it was committed 5 years ago, anyway Mr john Onyegun, it doesn't matter when he committed the crime, what matters was that a crime was committed, you can't be stealing from one side and be pointing accusing finger to another. If you want to be activist or be a governor and criticising Jonathan then you just remain clean, you can't steal and be accusing someone else when who you are accusing have the power to nail you for your crime. The governor FF big time, he thinks niger state governor and other northern governors love Jonathan? They know how to pay the game and the man may decide to overlook their crime. If he likes let him remove all the APC governors as far as it's through the right process and they are guilty of the crime, PDP is bad, you opposition should make a difference, you can't be stealing and be painting PDP bad.

Oyegun should shut his mouth up! What was his record as Edo state govr. Useless old man

This is indeed very sad, if while he was Governor(Jonathan), someone had done this to him, I wonder how he would have emerged as president. Take for instance,all the count charges levelled against al-makura, which of those charges has the president himself not violated. This man is preparing his own downfall, Nigerians are no fools. I won't be surprised if this turns the entire nation against him, he thinks power belongs to him, but all power is of God. He shud tread with caution and adopt lessons from saul's downfall in the bible, he shud beware of God's anger, and realise when God goes against him, I wonder how he'll recover. Man proposes, God disposes. He might be having a game plan and believing abusive use of state power is the way. I see a big surprise in Nigerian History come 2015, if this man does not check his activities.

Dasini: This is indeed very sad, if while he was Governor(Jonathan), someone had done this to him, I wonder how he would have emerged as president. Take for instance,all the count charges levelled against al-makura, which of those charges has the president himself not violated. This man is preparing his own downfall, Nigerians are no fools. I won't be surprised if this turns the entire nation against him, he thinks power belongs to him, but all power is of God. He shud tread with caution and adopt lessons from saul's downfall in the bible, he shud beware of God's anger, and realise when God goes against him, I wonder how he'll recover. Man proposes, God disposes. He might be having a game plan and believing abusive use of state power is the way. I see a big surprise in Nigerian History come 2015, if this man does not check his activities.

Aja to ma sonu ko ni gbo fere olode, Jona ma Jo lo mo nwo eyin e. Jona is too daft to learn from history.