JONATHAN’S KWARA VISIT •There are more pressing issues to keep a serious President busy than going to receive defecting politicians President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Kwara State has come and gone, but the avoidable hullabaloo generated would for long be subject of rational public discourse. Before his visit to that ‘State of Harmony,’ there were palpable fears that a clash might ensue between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the centre controlling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The fears were not unfounded as the police reportedly showed tinge of partisanship when it invaded the premises of a printer engaged by APC to produce street signposts and destroyed his equipment, carting away over 300 signposts of the APC. Mr Ambrose Aisabo, the state’s police commissioner later unsatisfactorily defended his action: “We had information that APC was planning to print several posters and use it to deface that of Mr. President and we went there and indeed we saw several thousands of posters that they had printed. We impounded them but the people explained to us they had no plan of defacing the posters of Mr. President and I now warned them and allowed them to go with their posters …I am not against anyone pasting posters but I am against when people use it to deface those of others … so it is not true that anyone has been detained because we have released all of them,” he reportedly declared. We want to admonish the police to be cautious in acting on phantom intelligence reports in the future so that it would not be found wanting, dancing naked in the political arena. After all, the nation has not easily forgotten the injurious ways to which his colleague, Mbu Joseph Mbu, deployed the police during his infamous reign as police commissioner in Rivers State. Otherwise, the police in Kwara could be rightly assumed to have acted premeditatedly since neither the ruling APC nor its members fomented any trouble during the president’s visit to the state. As much as the police’s act is condemnable, we consider more despicable the motive behind President Jonathan’s visit to the state. Solomon Edoja, chairman, caretaker committee of the PDP in the state reportedly said that the President came personally to the state to welcome defectors into the PDP fold. And surprisingly, the President was actually in the state to do just that. How ridiculous this was at a period when the country was mourning the despicable killings of innocent pupils and their teachers in Yobe State, and other subsequent barbaric killings by the Boko Haram sect! So, the President is less busy at his duty post that what he now engages his otherwise precious time on are petty partisan assignments such as welcoming defectors into his ruling PDP in states across the federation. We still cannot fathom any tinge of decorum in why the President, despite the enormous insecurity, epileptic power supply, battered economy and serious corruption ravaging the nation would engage in uninhibited political escapades. This presidential political visit, because it is not a state visit to Kwara, to attend a so-called ‘Unity/Freedom rally’ is nothing but a denigration of the office of the President by an incumbent that ought to protect the sanctity of that post. The President will do well by deploying his precious time on policies and actions that would give Nigerians value for their money being expended on him and his government. Nigerians want solutions to problems facing the nation, not unnecessary political trips
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 04:10:12 +0000
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