Jonathan gives ministers rules on political campaigns

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan yesterday issued guidelines for the participation of members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in the ongoing zonal and state campaigns of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) towards the April polls, saying that the business of government should not grind to a halt because of electioneering.

He directed that ministers who are not from the zones or states where campaigns are holding should stay behind in Abuja and do their work.

The President told his ministers at the weekly meeting of the FEC, which was held early to enable him and the Vice President attend the zonal launch of the PDP campaign in Bauchi that they were only permitted to attend campaigns in their zones, states of origin and one or two more states at the maximum.

But journalists were barred from covering the President’s campaign in Bauchi yesterday.

The council meeting had at its short session ratified the President’s anticipatory approval for the consultancy services, to carry out the concept, design and development plan of airport city, environmental studies/services, preliminary and final design of Bayelsa airport pavement and building at a total cost of N1.963 billion.

The project has a completion period of six months. The duo of Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Fidelia Njeze and the Minister of State for Finance, Hajia Yabawa Wabi, who briefed journalists on the outcome of the fourth council meeting of the year, said that “President Jonathan had made it clear that the campaign will not affect governance, that ministers must continue to work in their offices even as he continues to make out time to work in his office as well.”

On why the session of the council was short and brought forward to 9.00 a.m. instead of the normal 10.00 a.m., Mrs. Njeze said: “Council was short because we had only one ratification and a note. We didn’t have much today in council. It is not just because of the campaign. But because of the campaign too, we had to move forward the time for council meeting to 9.00 a.m.”

Wabi added: “We have already been instructed that since the budget ends in March 2011, there was no need to take new projects. We were all instructed to go and concentrate on the ongoing projects with a view to completing them.”

Njeze, who spoke on the approval for the Bayelsa airport, stated that “the Bayelsa State government is desirous of constructing an airport to serve the state as well as the oil and gas conglomerates in the region. In view of its strategic location, the proposed airport is considered fundamental to the economic development of the state, as it is the hub of the oil and gas industry in the Niger Delta region. Based on the above, council ratified the decision.”

However, journalists particularly those based in Bauchi who thronged the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) Square to cover the North-East take-off of the 2011 Jonathan’s presidential campaign were promptly turned back by fierce-looking security agents who termed the journalists security “risk.”

The security agents who had earlier drilled the journalists at the main gate of the IBB Square before allowing them into the area later changed their minds and asked the journalists out of the arena, saying that they were acting on higher directives. All entreaties to them fell on deaf ears, insisting that the journalists could not go into the main area.

Women journalists were even more humiliated as they were subjected to thorough searches and asked to go back home and drop their handbags if they wanted to go into the area based on security directives. But when the women journalists went back to the IBB Square, they were denied entrance, a development which annoyed all the journalists who left the place in their bus.   Even the intervention of the Bauchi State PDP Publicity Secretary, Mohammed Al-amin Sani, could not save the situation as the security operatives stood their ground of not allowing journalists into the square to do their professional duty of covering the event.

When the matter was reported at the Government House, the Directorate of Press Affairs issued the journalists press tags and asked them to go back to the IBB Square and for the second time, the journalists were turned back by the security operatives who insisted that they were acting on higher directives.

All the intervention by top Bauchi State government functionaries did not save the situation as the security operatives who were mostly in mufti refused to bulge on the stance that the journalists would not be allowed inside the area of the event but may wish to stay outside the gate to do their jobs.

In his reaction to the development, the Chairman of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Habila Iliya, condemned the action of the security agents, saying that it was rather unfortunate that in this era of civilisation, journalists could be barred from performing their legal and professional duties on such a big and international occasion such as the kicking off of a presidential campaign in a country like Nigeria. Iliya added: “It is high time these security agents were told how to relate with journalists particularly during high profile occasions such as this. This is not the first time such a disgraceful treatment will be meted out to journalists. People should stop looking down on us, we are as important as the security agents.”

There is confusion in the Enugu State chapter of PDP over the fate of aspirants on the platform of the party as Jonathan takes his campaign to the state.

A factional chairman of the party in the state, Okey Ogbonna, at a press conference in Abuja yesterday urged Jonathan to use the opportunity of the campaign to present the flag of the party to Anayo Onwegbu, a governorship aspirant following the declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that the name of the governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime, was published in error.

He said as someone who had respect for the rule of law, the people of Enugu expected Jonathan to do the right thing by giving Onwegbu the flag.

-Guardian

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Posted by admin on Feb 9 2011. Filed under Ministries, Raw Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry