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Goodluck Jonathan Is A Coward By Babayola M. Toungo
President Goodluck Jonathan is a coward. Or how do you honestly describe someone who came to office through democratic process and is now doing everything possible to scuttle the same process that brought him to the office? In his reckless adventure, he is not averse to bringing down the house on everyone. His Rottweilers turned their poisoned tongues on former president Olusegun Obasanjo for giving them straight – that the Jonathan gang are taking Nigeria on the same path Gbagbo took Ivory Coast before the French intervened and saved the country from a needless civil war. For lack of anything to say, the presidency, the PDP and Jonathan’s mudslingers resort to vile language to answer critics of the government. Anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy and should not be spared the acidic tongue of Funny Kayode, Doyin Okupe, Reuben Abati or the dinosaur known as Edwin Clark and gang of oil thieves masquerading as Ijaw patriots. Now Obasanjo has left the party for our neo-carpetbaggers and he did that in a very dramatic manner – he tore his PDP membership in public.
Goodluck Jonathan has a deceptive mien and works hard to promote his image as a God fearing harmless man who will never allow the spilling of blood by anyone for him to remain a day longer than constitutionally allowed in office. But under this timid and docile exterior lies a cunningly dangerous man who can comfortably superintend the extermination of hundreds of thousands if that will guarantee his continued occupation of the office of the president. We have seen how he keeps mum while his associates insults the rest of the country and go as far as threatening war in the event he loses the forthcoming elections. While opposition figures are fair game to a compromised security apparatus, Jonathan’s friends must be given protection to rain abuses on us poor folks.
Goodluck Jonathan left no one in doubt that he is a going to be a sectional president right from the get go but we all ignored the danger signs and we are now paying for it. We all remember the October 1st, 2010 bombing at the Eagle Square, an act that was claimed by MEND only for Jonathan to exonerate the group well before any form of investigation commenced. His reason being that he knows his people and know that they cannot do what they claimed to have done, the then spate of bombings and kidnappings in the Niger Delta notwithstanding. And so began the serial bombings, killings and general insecurity in the north with the president wringing his hands and projecting an image of a besieged leader who cannot do anything. His supporters with his active support and prompting went to town with the implausible story that the north is killing its kindred just because they don’t like his face. They refused to see the danger staring them in the face by their divisive tactics and mindlessness. While the rest of the country was forced to be defending themselves against manufactured charges, Jonathan and his people are stealing the country blind. And this is where we can locate the need to scuttle our hard won democracy.
The level of theft under the Jonathan administration is unparallelld in any modern day country – the buccaneers of the 17th and 18th century will surely be turning green in envy wherever they are. They will look like angels compared to Jonathan. This is the first government in the chequered political history of Nigeria to turn over the federation’s purse to a few selected people to do as they wish. Some few individuals became so powerful they believe they can determine the economic and political fate of the over 170 million Nigerians. The likes of Deziani, Okonjo Iweala, Sambo Dasuki, Edwin Clark and their minions with a covering fire from Ayo Oritsejafo, are so enmeshed in stealing (not corruption, mind you) that they cannot afford to leave office and remain free. This is fundamentally the reason for the postponement of the elections and the plan to abort it altogether ultimately.
The insecurity alibi that was used to arm-twist the INEC in shifting the elections was put to test by the visit of General Muhammadu Buhari to Maiduguri yesterday and the massive turnout by his supporters effectively put to lie the claim by the military (Esau’s voice) of not guaranteeing the security of voters. The youth of Borno under the auspices of Civilian JTF provided security to the APC presidential candidate when he announced his plan to visit Chibok – that traumatised community which the cowardly Jonathan couldn’t find the guts to visit even as he is the Commander in Chief.
In their ill-advised adventure to delay their day of judgement, they are ready to plunge the country into chaos just so that the elections cannot hold. The mayhem visited on the people of Gombe on Sunday the 15th of February 2015 falls in line with the regime’s thinking. The attack came a day after the military are supposed to have launched a “massive” attack on the insurgents terrorising a corner of the northeast. I have always been sceptical about the military’s tactics in this war against the insurgents – why is it that the military have never attacked them in the past and only waits for them to attack first before they “repel” them? How are the insurgents able to move around freely without the fear of being molested by the soldiers manning the many roadblocks in the region, while innocent passengers are daily subjected to one form of harassment or the other? Are we to expect more attacks between now and March 28th, so that the government may have an excuse for invoking section 135 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended)? This section, in conjunction with section 180 (3), section 64 (2) and section 105 (2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) may be the government’s jokers in trying to extend the agony of Nigerians by six months “in the first instance”. And these sections, whose total effects may be used to extend the tenures of all elected persons, may be Deziani’s immunity clauses.
We must be vigilant. |