Oyegun Wants Jonathan To Maintain Silence And Bear APC’s Bashing Quietly
The Oasis Reporters
December 6, 2017
National Chairman of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Oyegun does not want former President Goodluck Jonathan to exercise his right of reply each time he is bashed by the ruling party, for by mentioning his achievements while in power, it holds a mirror to the lack of performance of the ruling party, more than two years after leaving office.
Jonathan had, while reacting to Governor Kassim Shettima’s remarks at a book launch last week in Abuja that his (Jonathan) regime wasted the goodwill of the people, reeled out his achievements in office, boasting that the current government in all its critiques against him was yet to match them.
But reacting to the statement, Oyegun, in an interview with Vanguard, chided the former President for not maintaining dignity in retirement, saying he might end up losing what was left of his reputation should he continue responding to trivial issues, yet he had no word of caution for his own party for raising “trivial” issues.
He said Jonathan had thrown dignity and decorum to the winds and took to infantility, factors which in his estimation, gave low reckoning to his status as a former President and the office he occupied.
Submitting that Jonathan attained the highest political position in the land with less personal effort of his, Oyegun said he blew the opportunity of the south-south geopolitical zone in the presidential zonal arithmetics, stressing that the former President who hailed from the zone did not make the people of the area proud in any way.
While arguing that Jonathan’s only passmark at the moment was conceding to electoral defeat in the 2015 presidential battle with President Muhammadu Buhari, the APC chairman, however, said that new intelligence had emerged that the former President tried to reverse himself afterward.
That assertion of a rumor based “new intelligence” was however not authenticated and therefore seen as one of the many sophisticated propaganda schemes of the ruling party to denigrate Goodluck Jonathan and divert attention to the monumental lack of distinction in governance being experienced currently in the country where the nation has dropped all it’s leading positions as number one destination in foreign direct investment, the biggest economy in Africa etc to abysmally low levels ever since Muhammadu Buhari took over the presidential seat after a free and fair election that he won.
For six months, Buhari had no cabinet in place and no economic team while the economy bled and virtually collapsed, leading the nation to an unprecedented recession never seen in thirty years of Nigeria’s life as an independent nation.
“I think former President Goodluck Jonathan is not being well advised. The first thing for a man whom God has elevated with little effort to the position he attained is to maintain some dignity and decorum after office. That he is not doing,” he declared.
“Second, the facts of Boko Haram are there. The facts of his achievements are there. He was President for six years, the East-West road is still not completed. He was president for six years, Port Harcourt airport was rated the worst international airport in the world. That is the airport that he uses virtually on a weekly basis. Just those little fundamentals.
“He was God’s gift to the south-south. There was a massive movement in the south-south to have one of our sons as President. On a platter of gold, God gave him to us. Did he make us proud? The answer is no. That’s one lost opportunity.
“We don’t know when that opportunity will come again for the south-south to produce a Nigerian president and the south-south has been significant throughout our history in maintaining coherence of this nation through all its difficulties.
“Finally, we had that golden opportunity and we blew it. He is honored and respected today because of his singular act of conceding the defeat, even though we now know that he tried to reverse himself.
“So, my advice to him is, let time heal wounds. Don’t answer every little query and question about your Presidency because the facts are all there, very glaring.
“But because of that singular act to save the nation, saved a lot of lives because the country was so charged at that time. So, accept that respect that the nation and the world give you. He is young relatively. Tomorrow, he will get over this.
“But if he starts doing what he is doing now, then I am really sorry he may just end up losing everything.”
While mentioning boko haram, Odigie Oyegun conveniently forgot that the north east state of Adamawa is currently in the throes of pain from the deadly attacks of herdsmen terrorists and while people are dying and whole communities are being overrun, no coherent strategy has been presented to stem the malaise.
The same complaints have been made in Plateau, Taraba, Kaduna and Benue, where it’s house of Assembly recently enacted a law against open cow grazing to stem the tide of farmers/herdsmen clashes.