₦airaland Forum

BY KENNEDY EMETULUNOV 02, 2014
First, let me quickly make an apology. I apologize for using the term “Buharists” to describe those invested in voting for General Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming presidential election if he is presented as the flag-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC). I make the apology duly noting that those who are opposed to the reelection of President Goodluck Jonathan and a lot of who are Buhari supporters have taken to describing those in support of Jonathan’s reelection derogatorily as “Jonathanians”, especially in social network exchanges.

Kennedy Emetulu
I mean, it is not in doubt that if you open a Buhari supporter’s dictionary, a Jonathanian is that specie of homo sapiens who is so stupid as to not see the virtues of voting for General Buhari, the anti-corruption demigod who is ready to return us to some Eldorado that the Otueke man supposedly yanked us from. The revolutionary fervor of these people cannot be challenged. You just have to shut up when they are talking and cursing Jonathan and you, the Jonathanian. Yeah, that’s just the way it is. So, if I must call them “Buharists”, I must apologize, because I don’t want to rouse their anger against me. I’m not worthy.

Seriously, this article is an adaptation of a response I made to someone with whom I was having an exchange on the social network. While it is partly a response to the fellow’s posts in the course of our exchange, I have adapted it into an article that is a broader response to Buharists in the form of a case against the Muhammadu Buhari candidacy for President based on his antecedents. In dealing with the latter, I have opted to be detailed. To that extent, I’ll plead that if anybody interested in reading it finds it too long, they should please forgive me and exercise some patience. I humbly suggest such persons don’t read it all at once. They can take their time to gently, gently read it for days and respond whenever they like or not respond if they choose not to. But, please, please, I urge everyone to just accept it as part of my continuing contribution to the political discussions surrounding Buhari’s candidacy.

Now, before I continue, let me make a caveat. I am not supporting President Goodluck Jonathan because he’s from the South-South just as I know that some Northerners supporting Muhammadu Buhari are not doing so, because he’s from the North. Jonathan contested four years ago and even though I supported and took part in the campaign for him to replace Umaru Yar’Adua as President I did so only because that was what the Constitution required, not because he’s from the South-South. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, as an Ezon, he is as close to me culturally as a Yoruba, Fulani, Bachama or an Idoma or Hausa. The truth is candidates and voters are entitled to come from different or the same section of the country, but what determines if they are being sectional or sentimental is the quality and nature of their arguments in support of their candidacy or candidate. I don’t play that kind of politics and I encourage those who want to engage me not to play that kind of politics too, because once I notice that ethnic politics is your game, I’ll ignore you and move on.

Also, I have refrained from making this article into a candidates’ achievement itemization piece. This is deliberate. I’ve had a running debate with some friends who were insisting that I list the achievements of Jonathan or make a case for him to be President all because they felt I have had a lot to say about Buhari and why he isn’t fit to be President, but I have consistently explained to them that I will indeed make a comprehensive case for Jonathan’s reelection at a latter date when he has formally declared and when the APC has finally chosen their own flag-bearer. It might just be that all the attention on Buhari is precipitate, even though most expect him to clinch the APC ticket. The reason I’m doing this now is because Buhari has declared his candidacy and bought his party’s presidential form, so we can at this point take a closer look at him. Those who are keen on taking a closer look at Jonathan now that he has also collected his own party form are free to do so. We will judge each candidate on the basis of the facts we present and opinions we share therefrom.

In any case, no matter how discussants have framed the debate in the past and how they hope to frame it between now and the general election, my point was and still is that people have different ideas about how to sell Jonathan or Buhari as a candidate. For instance, I keep telling people that the election would not be a referendum on performance, but a referendum on the soul of the nation and the future of the country. By this I mean voters would not be judging Jonathan mainly on one or more of his achievements in office, but more on whether he or the other candidate is the one more trusted to keep Nigeria one and relatively peaceful and prosperous. In this regard, while some people are not happy with some aspects of Jonathan and his government’s response to the Boko Haram menace, not many people are blaming him for it. In fact, most Nigerians actually blame the opposition for it. Indeed, despite the opposition’s attempt to talk and act with selective amnesia over Boko Haram by giving the impression it all started with Jonathan, Nigerians know that it came to a head under President Umaru Yar’Adua when he attempted to put them down by humiliating them with extrajudicial killings, including the extrajudicial killing of their leader, Mohammed Yusuf. For some of us more informed, we know that it was this episode which was transmitted live around the world that later gave Boko Haram its international ‘credibility’ with Global Jihad, the platform under which it operates today.

But ordinary Nigerians, most of who would comprise the voting public, are not very good with seemingly complex analytics. There are those who look at the political situation now and think amongst the opposition are the sponsors of Boko Haram; there are those who think that Boko Haram is the military wing of the opposition and there are those who believe its present campaign is aimed at ensuring a Northern candidate emerges President in 2015 based on some medieval feudalist agenda that does not serve the interest of the ordinary Northerner or Nigerian, but an agenda that only serves the selfish interest of the same cast of characters that have been ruining the North and Nigeria with bad leadership since the beginning of time! Unfortunately, this is the nature of Nigerian politics where people routinely use their ethnic background and/or professed religion as some form of advantage and selling point in certain constituencies. Buhari has used his Hausa-Fulani ethnic card, his Northern origin and professed religion so effectively that he is today regarded as the biggest defender of Northern political interest as opposed to national interest. Being clearly the biggest beast in the opposition, his mentality is massively reflected in their response to national issues. For instance, in trying to cash in on the Boko Haram menace, the opposition has acted as though this national security issue is a Jonathan problem, rather than a national problem. Amongst them, Buhari has been most vocal in his anti-Jonathan and anti-government stance, which some people are interpreting, rightly or wrongly, as a pro-Boko Haram stance. His antecedents do not help. His loss during the last presidential election led to killings and disturbances up North that claimed over a thousand lives, including the lives of many young members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and people haven’t forgotten that this is something he’s yet to condemn till this day.

He has since continued to make inciting statements unbecoming of a statesman over the forthcoming election, quite apart from being one of the loudest voices against government’s approach to the Boko Haram crisis when he says things like government should stop killing Boko Haram members and when he criticizes the army and so on. Unfortunately for him, this is going to be the overall focus of electoral choice. It is my contention that Buhari will lose, because not many Nigerians trust him as a statesman, not many Nigerians think he would do enough to keep Nigeria secular, democratic and united. He’s been contesting for over a decade yet you can’t get anything by way of policy from him or ideas on national security or the economy. It’s just not there! For me, listening to him talk and articulate his ‘vision’ is a painful exercise. He does not have it and there’s no surprise there. He knew very little when he came in as head of state and he’s done nothing since then to show he’s educated or improved himself.

Now, some are lapping up the fable that if Buhari comes in as President, corruption and embezzlement in high places would come to an end. But I think this is like the story of the child and Santa Clause. That reality does not exist now or in the future, because the reality of who Buhari is has been shown to us through his real actions, not by the pictures and images being put out there by his spin-doctors and uncritical supporters. Should I start with the scandal of the N2.8 billion NNPC money that got stolen under his watch as Petroleum Minister and head of NNPC in 1978? Let’s bear in mind that the value of that money in hard currency at the time was more than $3 billion. Under intense public pressure, the Shehu Shagari government, which shortly took over thereafter from the military, set up a Senate probe which traced the money to a London Midland Bank account belonging to Buhari from where the money again got missing. No less than a person of the then Senate Majority Leader and Chairman of the Senate probe panel, Dr Olusola Saraki revealed this in an interview with Vera Ifudu of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). When Ifudu reported this, she was clandestinely sacked by the NTA, but the lady went to court and presented all the evidence and won in a case of wrongful dismissal. Saraki till his death never denied what he told the lady. In the end, they settled Ifudu with a big payout to buy her silence.

But the public pressure for the government to release the report of the probe never ceased during the Second Republic. Indeed, the Shagari government had made all arrangements to release the probe report (which reportedly indicted Buhari over the missing money) after the Christmas and New Year holiday of December 1983 and January 1984, but on December 31st 1983, Buhari conveniently struck in a coup that ousted the civilian government. I know that it’s common to hear Buhari supporters claim he was never part of the coup that brought him to power, but they can tell that to the marines. No one risks their lives planning a coup only to hand over to others who are not part of it. No, the coup planners always have it worked out before execution those going to occupy what position, not least the position of head of state. Anyone who chooses to believe anything otherwise is free to continue to believe whatever it is they want to believe.

Predictably, the first act of Buhari and his cohorts upon seizing power was to ransack the Senate and destroy all the papers relating to the N2.8 billion probe and then they followed that up with indiscriminate arrest of politicians on the ostensible excuse of corruption, considering there was indeed serious corruption at the time and the national mood was against the excesses of the politicians. The Buhari government jailed the politicians and persons they consider threats to their government without due process. It was precisely because there was no due process that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) of the time boycotted the Buhari military tribunals meant to try the politicians. It was a sad period in our national history as many innocent people were simply put in the gulag and wasted. People like Professor Ambrose Alli and Bisi Onabanjo, the former governors of the old Bendel State and Ogun State respectively didn’t last long after they were released before they died. People like Adekunle Ajasin, the former governor of Ondo State, Sam Mbakwe, former governor of Imo State and Olu Awotesu who was the Minister of State for Agriculture lived with life-long health effects from their incarceration until they passed on. People have written plenty on the unfairness of the treatment of the time in terms of how politicians from the North and South were treated by Buhari, something that was exemplified with Shagari being under house arrest and the squeaky clean Alex Ekwueme banged up in Kirikiri Maximum Prison.

Really, this is not the place to get into the detail of how he unfairly treated Southern opposition politicians of those days as opposed to NPN politicians from the North, but suffice it to say when the Buhari regime was overthrown and the gates of the NSO dungeon was flung open, Nigerians were shocked when they saw over a hundred people come out, a lot of them mere skeletal remains of their former selves, like something from the Japanese World War II prison camp. That is why when sometimes I listen to some young people today eulogizing Buhari, I just wish they knew how the Nigerian people spontaneously celebrated the overthrow of his government, because of how much hell they saw under his yoke! Indeed, it was his unpopularity that General Ibrahim Babangida inversely converted to the huge popularity that initially greeted him and the coup that brought him in.

What the Nigerian people must know is that the whole events surrounding the N2.8 billion were part of a high-level conspiracy of corruption by the Nigerian establishment of the day against the Nigerian people. The reason everyone at the top was interested in covering it up was because it was money that was stolen by the military hierarchy as their own ransom payment for allowing the General Olusegun Obasanjo civil rule programme of the Second Republic to commence. There were countless reports that not everyone was happy they were handing over to civilians, but because of the commitment they had made upon the overthrow of the General Yakubu Gowon government and intense international pressure to return to civil rule, they knew they had no choice but to go. But the N2.8 billion was their last hurray! Obasanjo, Buhari, Theophilus Danjuma, Shehu Yar’Adua, Ibrahim Babangida, Aliyu Gusau and all the military top brass at the time were in on it. It was their own ‘settlement’ money; this was their goodbye handshake and the incoming civilians knew this, except Obafemi Awolowo who was dreaded for his uncompromising stance. This was the reason Buhari raided Awolowo’s home at the time, because the military boys wanted to be sure he didn’t have anything to indict them. The only reason the civilian government set up the probe was because of the public pressure, but the military boys under Buhari saw this as a breach of their agreement to look the other way and with a wink and nod from Obasanjo and Shehu Yar’Adua, Buhari and his cohorts struck and declared their government “an offshoot of the Murtala-Obasanjo administration”.

While it is true that the December 31st 1983 coup that brought Buhari to power was a conspiracy between serving and retired military officers who wanted to return to power under the guise of cleansing the Aegean Stables, there was one powerful civilian group that comprised the third power bloc in this coalition. This is the Kaduna Mafia. Those conversant with old Nigerian politics would recall that the Kaduna Mafia originally developed as a collection of young civil servants, businessmen, military officers of Northern extraction vehemently opposed to the Major General Ironsi regime in reaction to the January 1966 coup. They were mostly based in Kaduna, the capital of the Old Northern Region and at the time, their thinking was that the 1966 January coup was an attempt by the South, especially the Igbo to lord it over the North. They never trusted Ironsi and always considered him part of the January 1966 coup. To them, the killings and all that happened were aimed at using the army that was dominated at the officers level by Igbo and Southerners as the new power base in response to what the South considered the Northern political domination being entrenched through electoral rigging and divide and rule tactics in the South, for instance, as witnessed in the Western Region. The Kaduna Mafia first began as the North’s intellectual response to the National Question after that coup, but soon they became the inciters of Northern army officers who planned the July 1966 countercoup as revenge for the January 1966 coup.

i kike this

Caseless:
apc members are 'humans' and nigerians too. Do know that whatever affect Nigeria affect them too; so they have the right to speak when things are not right.
Have u asked urself why it was so easy for a local hack to trick gej into believing he's from boko haram and , gej and his team believed him without investigation? The whole FG fell for a local farmer called Danladi? Gej is indeed d clueless-in-chief.
wait oo... Is he always drunk?

what Nigeria needs now is the support of Nigerians and not waiting for any tiny reason to be critical about any approach taking by the Govt. If you think deep i'm sure you will be able to identify the clueless in Nigerians and its definitely not Jonathan, and i'm certain all of you that call him clueless know that.

i'm really sick of this APC guys , must you criticize everything

taiwoflb:
Acording to International Monetary Fund (2013) Nigeria GDP world rank is - 20

Acording to List by the World Bank (2005–2013) Nigeria GDP world rank is- 20

Acording to List by the CIA World Factbook (1993–2013) Nigeria GDP world rank is- 30

So it is very possible to be among the 20 developed countries by 2020

bro abeg educate this pessimist

abbakacici:
PDP ask for 2 week to study the budget and another 2 week for ward congress. so is not APC or Tambuwal

here we go again!!! trying hard to twist the truth..smh

yemobrown:
May God's wisdom rest upon you forever. Amen

Amen my brother wish you same...

Isiterere:
who empowered the Nigeria Police to interpret the constitution?

ALL IZZ WELL

please mr man who enforce's the law? the Nigerian police has said they consulted the relevant agencies before carrying out the decision to withdraw their men. so bro chill

Isiterere:
why are you guys shallow in knowledge and credible information?
FYI, the Senate is also resuming by December 4th, so spare me any idea of him being selfish.

When has it become the duty of Nigerian Police to arrest a thief and sentence such a thief to prison without a trial in a law court.
Who empowered the Nigeria Police to interpret the Constitution ?
Like Sanni Abacha like GEJ.

ALL IZZ WELL

mr information!!! the senate is resuming on the 4th of Nov. Do you need to intepret the law for the police to arrest you if you are guilty of stealing??

Akingbiz:
You can be right on the timing part. But even jona.daft the fool that otueke mumu and fool is even more clueless than tanbuwal. Tanbuwal is the people choice is like a gun and with APC u got the bullet. Ok APC=Tanbuwal. Hope u grab. Now go buy an APC ticket b4 u die a PDP.

i rather stay with GEJ clueless style than Tambuwal's/ APC cluefulness

Tambuwal's timing was just wrong. And for those shouting, do you think taking the resumption date to dec 3 was a wise move?? cos of his selfish interest you decide to slow the pace of governance in Nigeria?? when we have dwindling oil prices and need to review the budget benchmark if need be, the PIB and other important issue and you guys(tabuwal supporters) choose to to be comfortable with his selfishness...

Ayatullah:
WHO IS FOOLING WHO?
Sir Innocent Chukwuma is not in the rank of Rochas Okorocha who we all know as a kind hearted man. Those buses (the ones that survives campaign violence) will definitely be returned to the factory for refurbishment and will be offered for sale to the public.

listen to yourself, whats is basis of this comparison

Thank you Sir Innocent Chukwuma. If the Govt policies were not favorable to industrialist would INNOSON do this ... abeg GEJ till 2019

rudedough:
Put your tinfoil hat back on. The space aliens are coming!

you should ignore people like that. Lots of kids on nairaland.

harde2lah:
The problem is not really the semantics per se but with the intent/motive with which he said it. That statement was very upsetting. The president made it look as if corruption is not in Nigeria but common stealing when you and i know that Nigeria's oil wealth have been siphoned by these corrupt politheivecians.
Gej said:
“Over 70 percent of what are called corruption, even by EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and other anti-corruption agencies is not corruption, but common stealing. Corruption is perception, not reality,” the President said during his 7th Presidential Media Chat on Sunday.
Was the president trying to say that the N10 billion reportedly spent by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke on hiring private jets is common stealing or the Police Pension scam is not corruption but mere stealing. What about the illegal oil deals, missing $20billion, BMW bullet proof cars? are they mere stealing too? Since the president said "stealing is not corruption", it means we should not expect any serious fight against corruption.
Little wonder, former United State’s Secretary of State in a public interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, lambasted Nigerian government, in her words, “They have squandered their oil wealth, they have allowed corruption to fester and now they are losing control of parts of their territory because they wouldn’t make hard choices” These are not my words. I rest my case.

saying 70% means he agrees to at-least 30% of the casses to be corruption cases. He never said Nigeria was free of corruption but that rather this cases were exaggerated. with your level of reasoning i'm sure you agree with him deep down but choose to twist thing s a little maybe cos of party affiliation or something. And as for the the 10billion, this payments were not made directly by our govt nor the ministers office but by complex Joint venture arrangement with NNPC and our IOC, her only problem(for me though) is her alleged abuse of that privilege.

harde2lah:
YES!!!
Here is an excerpt:

Fela Anikulapo Kuti vocalized this clear point, regarding all these fancy terminologies as pretty tags for the same armed robbery offence. His words, ‘authority stealing pass armed robbery.’ He continues, ‘if gun steals eighty thousand naira, pen steals two billion naira.’
If you are still confused, let’s define and study these ‘complex’ words with help from the free dictionary online:

Stealing- This is the act of taking someone’s property without obtaining legal permission.

Government corruption - lacking in integrity, debased, putrid, tainted government officials who steal from the public-people’s coffer and betray the people’s trust. This includes giving or taking illegal payments in exchange for favors or influence. It also includes denying people justice.

Stealing, corruption, embezzlement, maladministration are infringements and strong violations of trust.
When government officials are corrupt, they have robbed the people of their due allotment. ‘They have stolen our trust.’ These officials have stolen, not from the national cake, but from the pauper’s loaf. They have dipped their hands into the pocket of every last Nigerian at home and abroad and taken from the pennies contained to enrich themselves. This is done without our consent and legal permission, thus making it stealing.
Hope you understand now

with your last paragraph i believe we are getting somewhere.so tell me what is wrong in Jonathan trying to make that distinction clear All he was trying to say is that, we should hold the individuals responsible for there acts when its clear and the govt too when its a clear case of corruption. Bottom line, don,t blame the govt if Mr A steals rather ask that Mr A is made to pay for his sins....thanks

[quote author=harde2lah[/quote]It is obvious the writer is trying hard to prove that corruption is same as stealing and yet admitting that its different..bro IS CORRUPTION STEALING?

Kodus to the Economic team. with falling oil prices which is a threat to dollar and China's growing Economy..i can only say kodus

pacesetter939:
So happy to learn that Nigerians are now more ready than ever to enthrone change in this Country whose name to the international community has been regarded as CORRUPTION.
I kept wondering what else could be described as corruption, if GEJ in his words said 'stealing in not corruption.'

please is stealing corruption

sense

LeStylo:
Onne seaport has long been concessioned to Atiku Abubakar. He's handling the expansion. Our darling Prez only recently reviewed the initial concession upward with another 25yrs!

THE Federal Government has commenced the construction of a deep sea port at the Federal Ocean Terminal, in Onne, near Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to boost the operations of Liquid Natural Gas, LNG, and other deep off shore operations. The project is being executed in partnership with Intels Logistics.

Speaking at the inspection of on-going construction in the project, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, said the facility had to be extended because of the pressure the ports in Lagos are currently experiencing, which, he noted, was occasioned by the expansion in the nation’s economy.

Maku, who visited the project as part of his Good Governance tour, said that the government had decided to develop more ports across the country with a view to meeting the increasing needs of Nigerian importers and exporters.

He explained that the absence of deep sea ports in West Africa had prompted the government to develop these facilities in partnership with private investors

He said: “This port is of great significance to the government and the economy because this region is basically oil and gas and global attention is being shifted to the Gulf of Guinea because in future, this facility will play a significant role in the supply of oil and gas to the rest of the world.” He said the extended port facility sits on 90 hecters of land, adding that Intels has 20 years to recoup its investment.http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/02/fg-intels-construct-deep-sea-port-extension-at-onne/

phantom:
done by which administration? please furnish links to prove it was Jonathan's.

THE Federal Government has commenced the construction of a deep sea port at the Federal Ocean Terminal, in Onne, near Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to boost the operations of Liquid Natural Gas, LNG, and other deep off shore operations. The project is being executed in partnership with Intels Logistics.

Speaking at the inspection of on-going construction in the project, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, said the facility had to be extended because of the pressure the ports in Lagos are currently experiencing, which, he noted, was occasioned by the expansion in the nation’s economy.

Maku, who visited the project as part of his Good Governance tour, said that the government had decided to develop more ports across the country with a view to meeting the increasing needs of Nigerian importers and exporters.

He explained that the absence of deep sea ports in West Africa had prompted the government to develop these facilities in partnership with private investors

He said: “This port is of great significance to the government and the economy because this region is basically oil and gas and global attention is being shifted to the Gulf of Guinea because in future, this facility will play a significant role in the supply of oil and gas to the rest of the world.” He said the extended port facility sits on 90 hecters of land, adding that Intels has 20 years to recoup its investment.http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/02/fg-intels-construct-deep-sea-port-extension-at-onne/

phantom:
shameless people........i nearly threw up my guts laughing at this list by a grossly corrupt FG institution.

you are listing 6 model classroom blocks as FG projects?? projects that should be carried out by villages and hamlets if this country was sane.

this list just embarrases your oga at the top even more...
what a shame!! most of those NDDC roads listed up there didnt even last 6 months before they failed.

list something tangible GEJ has done in rivers state and stop makinga fool of him...

Projects targeted at the common man yet you say this?..ok then how about the exapnsion of the Onne seaport? do you know the impact of that seaport to the Riers economy?

childish

News reaching AIT’s desk says the Boko Haram insurgents, who reportedly abducted about 50 women and girls from two border villages between Adamawa and Borno states have released the women among their captives.

This was disclosed in an interview by villagers, who spoke on the issue with newsmen on the telephone from their hide-outs.

They however, said that the exact number of those released could not be ascertained, but that no fewer than 45 girls were still being detained.

According to the villagers, the women and girls were abducted from Waga Mangoro which was between Gwoza in Borno and Madagali in Adamawa states.

Relatives of some of the abducted women who were later released by the insurgents also, told newsmen in Yola that some of the girls have been turned to cooks while others were married off immediately to some of the insurgents.

A relative to the one of the women who spoke on the condition of anonymity said; ”Initially, the insurgents captured 80 girls and women whom they later loaded into their vans and zoomed off into the bushes.

Later in the night, the insurgents separated the elderly women from the girls and released the women, who are now languishing in the forest because they could not relocate the towns because they were razed down by the insurgents.

“We are confused that hours after the so called cease fire agreement between the Federal Government and Boko Haram insurgents, our girls are still being abducted by the insurgents.

“We are at a loss about government’s insincerity on the whole issue and we urge them to rescue our daughters without further delay as we are ready to die searching for our missing ones.http://aitonline.tv/post-boko_haram__sect_releases_abducted_women__girls_rumoured_married_off_to_insurgents

sexzskil:
You all keep bashing that dude, but d real condition is that Nigeria is a complte mess. This country is long due for disintegration!

can you please mention one country that has got right in all aspects?? The USA has got security, unemployment, greedy capitalist name them, Russia has teh current Ukraine issue, currency and Economic issues to deal with, Europe has got the recession and security issues, China has hong kong and Inflation to deal with , the middle east am sure u know by now , india has got corruption and all to contend with and don't these so called countries are completely free from corrupt practices my dear....so what we should as Nigerians is to support our Govt in tackling our challenges and laugh or mock the Govt when ever things go wrong.

omenka:
Mumu government. E remain the chickens for Baba Iyabo farm wey una go blame for una failures.

you are so childish, i wonder why people on this forum waste time in replying your hate-filled post...

i don't expect less either..

alabiyemmy:
I expect APC shiiits on NairaLand to abuse this man and his write up.

on point...

by Femi Aribisala

The English have an expression: “give a dog a bad name in order to kill it.” It refers to the malicious misrepresentation of someone in order to discredit him. This has been strategy of the opposition to Goodluck Jonathan to date. This opposition comprises an unholy alliance between the APC, the Arewa Consultative Forum, the Northern Elders Forum as well as the Boko Haram. In complete disdain for the office of the president of Nigeria, the membership of these institutions has gone to great lengths in despising, disdaining and abusing the person of
Goodluck Jonathan.

“Clueless” opposition
One favoured insult is to refer to him as “clueless.” Taking a leaf out of the infamous notebook of George Bush who told all kinds of lies against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election in the United States, now referred to as “snow boating;” President Jonathan’s traducers are seeking to establish falsehood about him and his administration just by sheer force of repetition. It is therefore necessary to ask the question if, indeed, Goodluck Jonathan can be rightly described as “clueless.” What exactly is “clueless” about Goodluck Jonathan?
President Goodluck Jonathan
Shehu Shagari was president of Nigeria from 1979 to 1983. He had very limited formal education and never attended a university. Nevertheless, he was not called “clueless.” Olusegun Obasanjo was president of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. He did not go to university before becoming President: he only enrolled after he left office. Nevertheless, he was not labeled “clueless.”But some would like us to believe Goodluck Jonathan, who has been substantive president since 2011 is “clueless.” However, Jonathan is the most highly-educated president in the history of Nigeria. He has a B.Sc. in Zoology; an M.Sc. in Hydrobiology and Fisheries Biology; and a Ph.D. in Zoology. It is preposterous to describe such a man as “clueless.” Indeed, there are few Nigerians with comparable educational credentials. Who are those “clueful” ones ranged in opposition against him? Surprise, surprise! They are former military dictators with no university training whatsoever and dubious politicians with forged university certificates.
Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State wants to be president. But what he displays most of the time is cluelessness. When he captures newspaper headlines, it is to shout things like: “Jonathan wants to kill me;” or “Jonathan is not qualified to contest in 2015.” Somebody needs to advise Kwankwaso that abusing and disparaging the president is no substitute for having substantive policies on how to govern Nigeria.

Legacy of “cluelessness”
Who can be more clueless than many of the Northern politicians who have been in power in Nigeria in the past to very little effect and are still clamouring for power today? These men have defrauded the North and the country over the years? They have ruled for some 38 years but failed woefully to promote meaningful economic development in the North or the South.
In their years of Northern rule both at the state and the federal level, not a single model Islamic school was established in the North that teaches Mathematics. Instead, the children of the “talakawa” are restricted to Koranic memorization and recitation. No single Islamic model school was established in the North that teaches Chemistry. The singular focus was on Arabic grammar. No single Islamic model school was established that teaches Biology. The children of the poor were limited to Islamic history.
Northern politicians failed to draw inspiration from such excellent Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, where Western education is not deemed to contradict Islamic education. Instead of educating the youth, some of our Northern politicians kept them as fodder for instigating insurgencies for their selfish power-political gain. It is no wonder therefore that, in the 21st century, when a “Third World” country like India has landed a spacecraft on Mars; an insurgency has arisen in the Nigerian North-East claiming that “Western education is a sin.”
Northerners opposed to Jonathan, like Muhammadu Buhari, Ango Abdullahi, Adamu Ciroma and Junaid Mohammed have never demonstrated any belief in the education of the masses. Their children don’t attend almajiri schools and beg on the streets. When in power, they pay no attention to the mass illiteracy in the North. This makes them no different from the Boko Haram that maintains western education is sinful. Now that we have a South-South president from Otuoke in Bayelsa State who is committed to Northern education, these same do-nothing politicians are claiming he is clueless. Who needs their “cluefulness?”

Jonathan’s northern agenda
Atiku Abubakar showed remarkable cluelessness when he observed that the North would not be voting for Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. If the North would not vote for Jonathan, who then would they vote for?
In 2011, Jonathan received over 8 million Northern votes. Since then, he has bent over backwards to reward the North. He has highly favoured the region in his appointments. The former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu said: “Quote me; in a long time we have not had a government where the northern extraction has enjoyed so many appointments like this one.” Indeed, under Jonathan, the Vice-president, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are all from the North.
Jonathan’s opponents would have us believe he is “clueless” but, within four years, Jonathan built 125 Almajiri Schools in 13 states in the North; something Northern rulers themselves failed to do. At the commissioning of the first Almajiri Model School in Gagi, Sokoto State, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Sa’ad III, observed that Jonathan’s action was unprecedented in the history of Northern Nigeria.
“Clueless” Jonathan went on to establish ten new federal universities; seven of them in the North. It is important to list them, so Nigerians can be in no doubt how ridiculous the allegations against our president have been. Jonathan established the Federal Universities in Lafia, Nasarawa State; Lokoja, Kogi State; Kashere, Gombe State; Wakari, Taraba State; Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State; and Dutse, Jigawa State. No other president in the history of Nigeria has this kind of legacy, North or South.
The Jonathan administration has more than doubled the budgetary allocation to education in the country. It sponsored 7000 lecturers for post-graduate studies at home and abroad and licensed 100 Innovation Enterprise Institutions, while also granting 101 Presidential Scholarships for innovation and development. 51 Polytechnic laboratories have been rehabilitated and
34 new NCE awarding institutions created.
The result has been remarkable. There has been a 10 million student increase in basic education enrolment (UBEC) in the country. There has also been a 75% increase in O’Level credit pass in Maths and English under the Jonathan administration.

Health transformation
Part of the grouse of Nigerians against past governments is that when subsidies are removed (especially that of petroleum), the extra money disappears into thin air without any appreciable public benefit. For this reason, Nigerians insist on the retention of subsidies so that the man-in-the-street can at least get something out of it. However, under the Jonathan administration, it has been possible to identify the salutary effect of the subsidy removal on the well-being of the people.
With the drastic reduction of the petroleum subsidy in 2012, the government created the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). This is designed to invest the savings accruing from the subsidy reduction in critical infrastructure and human-resource empowerment projects across the length and breadth of the country. To this end, the scheme has included maternal and child-
health programmes.
Within two years, the Maternal and Child Health scheme of the SURE-P has reduced the maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria by 26%; reduced neo-natal mortality by 22%; increased the percentage of births by skilled attendants by 33% and increased the percent of reproductive aged women using family planning by 100%.

Road transformation
SURE-P has also been invaluable in engaging in a number of road rehabilitation projects right across the country. For example, the Onitsha-Owerri and the Vom-Manchok roads have been completed. Work is underway on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway in Lagos; the Benin-Ore-Sagamu dual carriage-way; the Onitsha-Enugu-Port Harcourt dual carriage-way; the Kaduna-Maiduguri dual carriage-way; Lokoja – Benin road; Lagos-Ibadan Expressway; Mokwa-Bida road; Akure-Ilesha road; Sokoto-Tambuwal-Jega road; Enugu- Abakaliki- Cross River road; Ogoja – Ikom road; Vandekiya-Obudu road; and the East-West road.
The Kano-Maiduguri and the Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja roads are currently undergoing dualisation. The Onitsha Head-Bridge Flyover (Ojukwu Gateway) and the Oweto Bridge across River Benue have been completed. The Second Niger Bridge is under construction and the government is also undertaking the dredging the River. There is also on-going seaport construction and the expansion of existing ports, including Warri, Baro, Calabar, Onne, Owerri and Onitsha.

Rail transformation
The railway system in Nigeria had been comatose for over 30 years. However, the “clueless” Jonathan administration has managed to revive this within two years. The Lagos-Kano line has been rehabilitated and is now functional again. The Port Harcourt-Maiduguri line is being rehabilitated and will soon be operational. Kano-Maiduguri, Kaduna-Abuja and Lagos-Port Harcourt rail-lines are also under construction.
President Jonathan inaugurated two Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) train-sets and six air-conditioned passengers’ coaches at the NRC terminus in Lagos. His administration also launched the Mass Transit Train Service (MTTS); deploying 11 trains carrying close to 15,000 passengers daily within the Lagos metropolis. This has drastically reduced the cost of intra-city train transportation within Lagos.
A return-trip from Agege to Ebute Metta under the MTTS now costs less than N150, as against the more than N1,000 it costs by taxi. Transportation from Lagos to Kano now costs less than N1,800 as against between N4,000 and N5,000 by car or bus.
This is what Babatunde Fashola had to say about the “clueless” Jonathan administration’s contribution to mass transit in Lagos State: “It is a very welcome development to our nation, Nigeria and to the Centre of Excellence, Lagos State. No doubt, we require this infrastructure. We appreciate it and we will continue to give every moral support that the corporation requires as we now have complementary services in the transport system of Lagos State.”

These are by no means the tokens of a “clueless” presidency.

EroZA:
give me one example to show that Nigerians are better than other Africans....

Every country in Africa needs and targets the Nigerian market and consumers to patronize their Goods and services..the likes of MTN,Kasaprekos alamo bitters and co..