Jonathan blasts Buhari •Call him to order now, PDP tells Northern leaders

Posted by admin Latest Politics Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

The Presidency yesterday described as sad and unfortunate Major-General Muhammadu Buhari’s comments that the Federal Government is the “biggest Boko Haram”. Buhari, former Military Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) also allegedly predicted that there would be bloodshed if the government fails to organise free and fair elections in 2015.

He was hosting a CPC delegation in Kaduna on Monday who lobbied him to contest the presidential poll in 2015.

The Presidency stated that Buhari has consistently played up the North-South divide to the chagrin of patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians which he demonstrated when he restricted his campaigns to the North during the 2011 general elections.

A statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicty, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the most unfortunate part of the statement was the portion in which Buhari was quoted to have said that, “since the leaders now don’t listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the North can do.
“We find it very sad that an elder statesman who once presided over the entirety of Nigeria can reduce himself to a regional leader who speaks for only a part of Nigeria. We now understand what his protégé and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, meant when he wrote in a public letter in October of 2010, telling Nigerians that Buhari remains “perpetually unelectable” and that Buhari’s “insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known.

“Who can know Buhari better than his own political associate? Come to think of it, as the CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 election, how many states in the federation did he visit to campaign for votes? Buhari never bothered to campaign in the southern part of the country and consistently played up the North-South divide to the chagrin of patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians. As the results revealed, Nigerians will never vote for anyone who wants to divide the country. Is Buhari going to continue to be a sectional leader?”, the Presidency asked.

Abati insisted that the Jonathan administration is not Boko Haram.
“Boko Haram means western education is sin. That being the case, one wonders how a government that devoted the largest sectoral allocation in the 2012 budget to education could be said to be Boko Haram. Between 1983, when Buhari forcefully seized power from the democratically-elected administration of President Shehu Usman Shagari, and 2012, no other administration has committed the same quantum of resources as the Jonathan administration to education in the part of Nigeria that has witnessed the most Boko Haram-related insecurity.

“Only on April 10, 2012, President Jonathan commissioned the first of 400 Federal Government Model Almajiri Schools, equipped with modern facilities such as a Language Laboratory, Qur’an Recitation Hall, classrooms and dormitories as well as a clinic, vocational workshop, dining hall and quarters for the Mallams. As Nigerians read this, more of such schools have been completed.

“We now challenge Major-General Buhari (rtd) to tell Nigerians what he has done, whether in his capacity as the head of a military junta or in his private capacity, to bring education to vulnerable children. If he cannot live up to this challenge, perhaps, he has to reassess who really is Boko Haram.
“Buhari claims that the Federal Government does not listen. Such an accusation ought not to emanate from a man overthrown by his own hand- picked colleagues in the military for refusing to listen to advice and behaving as if he had a monopoly of knowledge.

“It is on record that the Federal Government led by President Jonathan is a listening administration hence, its decision to pursue all means of resolving the Boko Haram insurgency including through dialogue.
“When Buhari says that “if what happens in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, ‘the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood”, we hereby state that it is Buhari himself who does not listen. He has obviously refused to listen to the Nigerian people, the European Union, the Commonwealth Monitoring Group, the African Union and a multitude of independent electoral monitors who testified that the 2011 elections were free and fair and “the best elections since Nigeria returned to civil rule.

“Major General Buhari (rtd) also boasts of his knowledge of the petroleum industry because of his time as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum. We wonder why he did not boast of the infamous scandal that occurred in that ministry where under his watch billions of Naira (in the 1970s) were reported stolen, a matter which led to the setting up of the Justice Ayo Irikefe panel.

“Finally, we wish to make it known to Buhari that given his reference to “dogs and baboons”, perhaps his best course of action would be to travel to the zoo of his imagination because President Goodluck Jonathan was elected by human beings to preside over human beings and it is human beings who will determine what happens in Nigeria at any material time not “dogs and baboons”.

On its part, the PDP accused Buhari of persistenthy inciting the people against the Jonathan’s government.
The party has called on Northern leaders to call him to order.
Addressing journalists yesterday in Abuja, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary Olisa Metuh, described the former military Head of State as a frustrated politician, who has lost in his bid for the exalted seat of presidency thrice and was now trying to precipitate anarchy in the country by inciting Nigerians to violence.

“While PDP cherishes freedom of speech, assembly and association as the custodian of Nigeria’s democracy, we, at that same time, know that such freedom goes with immense responsibilities. We condemn in no uncertain terms, this shameful call for the spill of blood of innocent Nigerians to acquire political power.
“We appreciate Buhari’s frustration and antagonism towards the PDP.

He has lost three times at the polls. But is Buhari really a democrat?
Why is the blood of innocent Nigerians the only thing sufficient to quench his thirst for power?
But reacting to the allegation of the PDP, National Publicity Secretary of the CPC , Rotimi Fashakin, dismissed the allegation of blood letting against General Buhari.

Fashakin noted that what Buhari meant in the report attributed to him was that there should be sanctity of votes and that the opposition would not tolerate electoral sleaze.
“They are merely talking balderdash; what General Buhari has said is what many Nigerians have expressed. Remember Prof Wole Soyinka had said, election rigging is violence against people and that they have the right to confront violence with greater violence,’’ Fashola said.

-Sunwp_posts