THE PRESS WAR AGAINST PRESIDENT JONATHAN - How not to be unpatriotic: The western press have since the inception of the Jonathans Administration waged war against the Nigerian government on all fronts. Sometime they feel their fights is justified judging from view point that President Jonathan is to a large extent not fighting back at those obvious enemies of democracy who have without mincing words, promised to deal with his government and make blood flow on the street of Nigeria, thereby making the country UnGoVeRnAbLe for Dr Jonathan Ebele Goodluck to rule, should he attempt to run for a second term. These people still parade themselves freely as elderstatemen and leaders of opposition parties, struggling to find their grips on their various parties to also run. With presidents like Obasanjo for instance, such leaders that threatened the peace of this country would have been charged for treason, because their threats have started yielding those expected negative results since over a year ago. On daily basis, we lose scores of people in this country to either bomb explosion or outright cleaning of villages particularly in the North East To me, their threats have been carried out because the body signal of Mr President shows that he must contest the 2015 presidential election. However killing of innocent and poor citizens of this country is an act of cowardice; why therefore would they expect the president to react to the actions of the master coward in an undemocratic manner? I belong to that school of thought which believes that President Jonathans gentle nature must not be mistaken for weakness. It is simply borne out of his education of the human animal nature. President Jonathan was trained to understands when and how to deal with any wild animal. If you watch the trend of events as it unfolds, and reaction of government at all time, President Jonathan is simply playing to the rule of clear definition of democracy - government of the people, by the people and for the people. It does not portend that he lack the willpower to take certain actions without being propelled to do so. Should his humble nature of not wanting to hurt a fly give the western press such impetus to condemn both good and perceived bad government policies of this government? It is the believe of most Nigerians that the western press is being instigated against the Nigerian government in order to take up arms against the press and the Nigerian people alike, but I have found real wisdom in the maturity of Mr President who does not gets agitated at every attack on his person and the government. It shows that President Jonathan is truly grass rooted in the democratic norm. Responding to every garbage in the press will amount to wasting tax payers money and time at the presidential villa. I think Mr President is mindful of that hence he chose the option to remain focus with the transformation agenda, which is yielding result. Some may feel that this government has not done much to be praised. What they fail to understand however is that it takes much time to put right what was damaged by past governments. Looking at the issue of corruption and the drive to make Nigeria a corrupt free nation; yes President Jonathan has not been able to prosecute the anti corruption campaign to please good number of people. We must not forget the fact that this government inherited the good-ugly from past governments. If the civil servants in this country (Permanent Secretaries, Directors and down the ladder) were corrupt free, it would be difficult for any elected or appointed politician to wake up and start embezzling or misappropriating public funds. We therefore should know that the president need time to identify between the good, bad and ugly among his team. It is my candid believe and expectation that the appropriate time, will present itself for Mr President to purge those corrupt government officials, no matter how highly placed. It is obvious that Sahara Reporters, CNN as well as Aljazera will never find most of the governments policies useful to Nigerians for reasons best known to them. To them, the transformation Agenda of Mr President is a jamboree, even though the government is evidently laying solid infrastructure for the political economy of this country to fall in line with the strategies adopted by some of the western nations. The recent WEF organized in Nigeria attest to this fact. What then is the offense of Mr President that he should be held back not to move on? It is unfortunate that most Nigerian columnists would put pen on paper to condemn this government,yet fail to put solution across, if truly they have antidotes to our problems. Sometimes I find it extremely difficult to know what it pays to thread such unpatriotic path of running down our government and forgetting the dangers such write ups could cause our democracy which we have suffered to put in place again, since fifteen years ago. The Nigerian press must not be seen as playing to the gallery. It is most unfortunate that most of our press have forgotten so soon, our experiences in the hands of the khaki boys. If you incite the general public against this present democratic structure as to cause the military boys to takeover government, I wonder what shall become of your press freedom in this country. Messrs Nduka Erabor and Tunde Thompson (then) of Guardian can better tell you their experiences when the army clamp down on them for no just cause and put them away. The Gen Idiagbon government headed by Gen Mohamadu Buhari had no reason whatsoever to keep those erudite press men away for over one year. The Tell Magazine as well as News Watch experiences during the military regime witnessed the high handedness of military in their business of bringing the news to the people. Granted, no government can strive without criticism, but it will be bad to maintain criticism without civility. Our sovereignty is something we must protect, not putting it in the hands of any foreign journalist to mangle the image of our great country while we watch them helplessly. That is unpatriotic. I want to believe that Nigeria will rise above these security challenges and come out stronger. I believe so much in the sayings that goes to advise Mr President to ride on Mr President, those with you are much more than those against you.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 05:24:50 +0000