....SHARE Governor Amaechi, who actually made that statement of forming a parallel government, had been consistent in criticising the President and the federal government. That he seems to get away with the weighty allegations he keeps making gives credibility to whatever he says. Any plans to get him to prove the allegations he has made so far? You know that as a sitting governor, he enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution, and I guess, in his own case, he interprets that immunity to mean a licence to be utterly disagreeable whenever he chooses to be. It is really pitiable that a man like Governor Amaechi is almost descending to the level of the ridiculous with the accustomed manner in which he spews sound with no sense. At nearly every event these days, including the ones organised by him at public expense, and even when the event has nothing to do with President Jonathan, he will find a way of accusing President Jonathan of doing nothing for Rivers State, whereas that is not true. When that is not the issue, he would whine childishly about Soku oil wells. Or he will invite his audience to make sure that they don’t vote for President Jonathan in 2015. In fact, in one recent incident, he was said to have been addressing a group of students and he told them that in 2015 they must vote out President Jonathan and the student responded in unison, “no”. He lost his audience. He was booed. It is instructive that the more he tries to condemn President Jonathan, the more he finds that nobody is willing to listen to him. He doesn’t have an audience because the people know that his baseless allegations against President Jonathan make no sense. We will like to encourage Governor Amaechi in the few months that remain out of his tenure in Rivers State, to concentrate on governing and serving the people of Rivers State, rather than going about launching what looks like a full-time obsessive maniacal campaign against the person and office of President Jonathan. And of course, he must realise that we are living under the rule of law. Those who invite the storm over the heads of other people oftentimes fail to realise that when that storm descends, it may descend first on their own heads. Soon after the President’s declaration, the opposition alleged that it was insensitive for him to have proceeded with his declaration barely 24 hours after over 40 school children were butchered by Boko Haram sect in Potiskum, Yobe State. Doesn’t this sound like President Jonathan is a leader who lacks empathy for the plight of his people? On that, I granted an interview in which I accused the APC of sheer hypocrisy, because a day after the President’s declaration at the Eagle Square, they themselves had one elaborate event in Edo State. So, why didn’t they postpone their event? Why didn’t they even remember the children that were said to have been killed at their event? So, you are dealing with people who are duplicitous, people who go by double standards; they talk from both ends of their mouth. Whatever they do, no matter how questionable, is supposed to be accepted by others, and when another man does anything at all, especially if it is President Jonathan, they try to pull him down, and of course, I accuse them frontally of jealousy, hypocrisy and unproductive pull-him-down politics. They saw that the declaration by the President was a very successful event supported by Nigerians across all facets of society. Even in the United Kingdom, in the US and everywhere in diaspora, Nigerians celebrated President Jonathan’s declaration for a second term in office, which for them (opposition) cannot be good news because they could see with their own eyes very clearly, they could hear very clearly too that President Jonathan is the man, he is the leader that Nigerians prefer. The truth is that President Jonathan is fully committed to bringing the nightmare of terrorism in our country to an end. Anyone who tells you that he is not, is just being unkind for their own selfish reasons. No President will want to preside over any form of insecurity, because without peace, security and stability, it will be difficult to achieve the objectives of national growth and development across board. The aggression, especially after the failed botched negotiation with the Boko Haram insurgents had been one of the greatest reasons for attack on the President. Is there any hope of a total repel of the miscreants in the territories they now occupy? The war against terror is a war that this administration is determined to win no matter how long it takes, no matter what it requires. President Jonathan has been very unequivocal in making it clear that under his watch terrorists will not take over Nigeria. In what appears to be a resurgence of terrorist activities, there have been quite a number of unfortunate incidents in the North-Eastern part of the country but the government is acquiring new arms and ammunitions, soldiers are being retrained, more effort is being put into the cooperation with our neighboring countries. But of course if you look at the history of terror in different parts of the world, in Colombia, in Afghanistan, terror is a major threat to the whole of humanity because it is a cancerous kind of evil which even when you think it is gone, it suddenly resurfaces. But in this particular case, government is adopting every strategy to ensure that it wins the war against these evil-minded persons and that at the same time it safeguards the lives of people and their property. Aside terrorism, there are communal clashes like the recent one in Nasarawa State. Each time the clashes happen, the state governors keep saying they are helpless in quelling communal aggression and clashes. They keep insisting that it is only an assignment for the President and the federal government. What exactly does the constitution say about this and has the President been able to handle this in the face of rising socio-political clashes in Nigeria? The responsibility for ensuring peace and stability is not that of the President alone. It is that of all Nigerians, and the governors in whatever state they may be cannot say that it is not their business. What you are trying to suggest is that a sitting governor can legitimately say that the welfare of the people under him and their security is not his business. And for any governor to say that at all is irresponsible because state Governors owe the people they serve a duty of care. Take for instance, the Safe Schools Initiative that has been introduced by President Jonathan which involves physically securing schools and ensuring that schools without gates and fences, are properly fenced and all that. Are you saying that a state governor who knows that the state governments are equally responsible for secondary school education can legitimately say that it is not his business to provide security in schools? Some of these communal clashes that you talked about are usually as a result of disagreements between two communities or two sects or two ethnic groups and at the state level. These are grassroots issues. Can a Governor say it is the primary responsibility of the President to resolve communal clashes or to provide an enabling environment for inter-ethnic and religious harmony? I don’t think that any responsible Governor would say that. Even in terms of security, it should not be taken in the literal sense of soldiers and the police securing a particular environment. Security if taken in an expanded view involves economic security. Is it not also the duty of Governors to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the people? In fact, when you say this and that is the responsibility of the President alone, you clearly want to turn Nigeria into a one-man state where one man is responsible for everything. We are not running a one-man system. That is why President Jonathan at every occasion has always talked about unity of purpose, about solidarity of action and that is why we have a National Council of state where governors and the President sit together and take a decision on major issues. And that is why President Jonathan has said the kind of solidarity that was demonstrated in eliminating Ebola is the kind of unity of purpose, solidarity of action he would like to see in other aspects of national life, security inclusive. So, it would be wrong to say it is the President alone who is responsible for all the security. These days when people even dream and wake up in the morning after a bad dream, they will say oh, President Jonathan should do something about people having bad dreams. That is how ridiculous it is, the president gets blamed for everything, and if Governors begin to sound like that then it means that we really have a serious situation on our hands which amounts to abdication of responsibility on the part of whichever Governor is talking like that. - See more at: reubenabati.ng/2014-12-07-Impeachment-Threat-Not-A-New-Thing-Opposition-Only-Heating-up-Polity-acirc-Abati.html#sthash.ARPxuK5U.dpuf
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:12:34 +0000
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