Mahmud Jega advises the Jonathanians to DISOWN THESE ONES AS WELL - 2nd June 2014 - Mahmud Jega He has been a minister for only a few months. He was a state governor for eight years who fell out with his political godfather, remained in PDP and made into the Federal cabinet after he organised a group of former governors for Jonathan 2015. He ended up in the less-fancied Ministry of Youth Development and at the weekend, Mr Boni Haruna received a public dressing down from higher quarters without precedent in the Jonathan presidency. Haruna had in a speech on May 29 urged the youth to support the amnesty program that he said President Jonathan offered to Boko Haram insurgents. But the president’s spokesman Reuben Abati harshly disowned Haruna at the weekend, saying the minister is on his own and that the president did not use the term amnesty in his televised May 29 speech. According to Abati, the president only “spoke about those who are willing to denounce terrorism, those who are ready to embrace peace, opportunities have been created for them” through two presidential committees. How different does that sound from the amnesty offer that the late President Umaru Yar’adua offered to Niger Delta militants in 2009? Most likely Boni Haruna, an old newspaper man, merely put the president’s offer in context. Anyway, I cannot be the judge between the president and his minister. Maybe the Presidency has a rule, fashioned along the Supreme Court’s model in the interpretation of constitutional provisions, that nothing must be added to the President’s speech that he did not expressly state. I had previously thought that the Jonathan Presidency is totally averse to disowning its officials and associates no matter the gravity of what they said or did. Since I have been proved wrong on this score, I thought of some Federal Government officials as well as some other persons close to the Presidency whose words or deeds in recent times cast the government in bad light and who ought to be disowned. For example, the presidency should disown ex-militant leader Asari Dokubo for saying there will be trouble if Jonathan does not rule Nigeria beyond 2015. I cannot imagine a statement more injurious to the democratic order than that one. At first Asari said trouble will come “if Jonathan is not allowed to contest in 2015.” Realising that PDP will not stop Jonathan from contesting but that he could well contest the election and lose, Asari upped the ante and repeated the threat “if Jonathan is not allowed to rule until 2019.” That means if voters exercise their right to reject him at the polls, there will be trouble in the Niger Delta. This is more serious than Boni Haruna’s slip, so could Abati kindly disown it? I am also thinking of Petroleum Minister Diezani Allison-Madueke’s efforts to thwart a House of Representatives committee from probing allegations that the ministry and NNPC spent N10 billion to charter private jets. Rushing to court to obtain an order to stop an inquiry sounds to all observers like admitting guilt. The argument that the National Assembly summons ministers too often is not good enough. Nor is the argument that documents cannot be released to the National Assembly unless the president personally authorises it. Please Abati, disown that manoeuvre. Next, the presidency should disown four different statements recently made by Information Minister Labaran Maku, hot on the heels of one another. One, he said that Northern governors “are not doing enough to win the war against terror” and that “their grandstanding and politicking in the fight against terror is increasing the tempo of the activities of terrorists”. If Maku’s wish to become a Northern governor in 2007 had met with success, he would have been singing a different song by now. In any case, what really can state governments do when all the security agencies are Federally-controlled? Secondly, Maku said 90% of the #Bring Back Our Girls protesters are APC members. The Federal Government recently doubted that schoolgirls were missing from Chibok because it did not receive a full list of their names and their pictures. Therefore, we doubt Labaran Maku’s claim until we see a list of their names together with photocopies of their APC membership cards. Thirdly, Maku said that Boko Haram “has organic link with the Borno State government” because a former state commissioner extra-judicially executed by the police in 2009 was a sect member. Now, President Jonathan once said that there are Boko Haram members in the Federal Government. The military has also accused some soldiers of having Boko Haram sympathies. By Maku’s definition, Boko Haram has organic links to both the Federal Government and the Nigeria Army. Apart from Maku, the presidency would also do well to disown the call by Ijaw national leader Chief Edwin Clark for “total emergency rule” to be clamped on the three North East states. Clark said in April, “There is nothing like partial declaration of a state of emergency in the 1999 Constitution. What section 305 (c) of the Constitution contemplates is the recourse to ‘extraordinary measures to restore peace’ and security where there is a breakdown of public order and public safety. This in effect means that all democratic institutions should be suspended to permit the military exercise full control until peace and order returns.” Given that the president said during a live media chat that he has no power under the Constitution to remove elected officials, why won’t the presidency disown this poisonous call by Clark? Before I forget, the presidency is also yet to disown Dame Patience Jonathan for rounding off her melodramatic televised Chibok inquisition with the grand declaration, “Now we know that no one is missing.” It means Michelle Obama was a fool to raise the #Bring Back Our Girls logo and her husband was a fool to send a swarm of drones, satellites and fixed wing aircraft to look for girls that are not missing. French President Francois Hollande must be an even bigger fool to convene a summit in the Elysee Palace to discuss the issue, while Prime Minister David Cameron, the Chinese Premier and all ECOWAS leaders are big fools to rush in to assist. Abati, please disown Dame’s claim before the foreigners pack their drones and go away since no girls are missing. Presidency should also disown PDP national chairman Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu for saying that WAEC asked the Borno State Government not to conduct examinations in Chibok. He apparently relied on earlier claims made by an intimidated WAEC official during the First Lady’s inquisition. However, Secretary to the Borno State Government Baba Ahmed Jidda has produced the letters and had them read on a live television program. All the Minister of Education asked for was security for Federal Government College students who were writing exams, a request that BOSG conveyed to another Federal agency, the police. It is time for the presidency to disown the PDP national chairman on this matter. There is at least one important matter for which Reuben Abati himself needs to be disowned, his claim on May 16 that President Jonathan never planned a visit to Chibok, only to cancel it at the last minute. Why then did a presidential advance party go to Maiduguri the day before? The Borno SSG also said in Lagos [while addressing a different issue], “As soon as we got information that the President would be on his way to France with a stopover in Chibok, my governor cut short his trip to return to Borno. And while we were waiting to receive the President, we got information that it had been called off.” Pray, how could anything be “called off” if it was never scheduled in the first place? Presidency, please disown Reuben Abati on that one. Then there is one last disowning to do. President Jonathan said at a rally in Kano that he gave money to Rabi’u Kwankwaso to distribute to PDP convention delegates in 2011 but “he did not give anyone a kobo.” Presidency, hurry up and disown this statement before Oga Kpata Kpata is hauled before the Electoral Offences Tribunal one day.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 08:23:31 +0000
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