Jonathan: we’ve failed

From President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday came a damning verdict on his generation. We have failed, he said, urging the youth to vote for young people.

Jonathan spoke in Lagos at the opening of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP’s) campaign ahead of next month’s general elections.

He said: “I do not want to address old people like me because we have failed completely. We are spent already.”

An angry and agitated Dr. Jonathan, who was sarcastic in most of his over 30 minutes speech, told the youth that the election was their opportunity to vote for their relevance.

The President addressed insecurity, unemployment and corruption, stating the steps his government had taken in addressing them. He promised that the recommendations of the National Conference will be sent to the Eighth National Assembly for passage — if he is re-elected.

Flaunting his party’s governorship candidates, Jonathan, who said he was addressing Nigerians who will be voting for the first time and young people, boasted that his party had provided the youth an opportunity by fielding young candidates.

Jonathan attacked  past leaders, saying they never bought any equipment for the military.

Jonathan also attacked those who said the militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), disowned him, adding that he has no business with a group whose leader (Henry Okah) is in a South African prison, for killing many Nigerians.

According to the President, Okah, the mastermind of the October 1, 2010 bomb blast in Abuja, was hired to assassinate him but his mission was uncovered by security agencies. He was not surprised such a group was not supporting him.

Jonathan boosted that it was under his administration that people understood the importance of voter cards, insisting that prior to 2011, elections were never really held as politicians were imposed through rigging and malpractices.

He said he had “directed” the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that irregularities in the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) distribution are corrected so that no eligible Nigerian is disenfranchised.

The President said: “I do not want to address old people like me because we have failed completely. We are spent already.  Listen to what I will say because I am going to address political gatherings in 37 places. Whatever I say, when you go back home, ask your aunts or uncles who are 60 years and above to confirm the things I mentioned.

“This election is about the young people. It is either you vote for the young people to be relevant in this country or you vote for you to be irrelevant. Those of you who are voting for the first time should vote for a Nigerian youth to be important and relevant in this country.

 “We have just introduced our governorship candidates and you can see that many of them are within your age bracket. Which other party will give the youth that opportunity?

“Those who say they want to take over power from PDP have been telling a lot of lies. They have hired people from all over the world.

“Do you want to vote for people who want to take you back to the old days? Nigeria is for the youths. It is not for old people like us.

“They talk about insecurity. That they will fight insecurity and we ask, are our Armed Forces weak? Ask the man telling you who are about 23-year-old that when he was Head of Government, if he bought one rifle for the Nigerian soldier?

“These people did not buy anything for the Nigerian soldiers. Ask them what they did with the defence budget throughout the whole time they were in government; no equipment was bought for the armed forces.

“Nobody equips the Armed Forces overnight. They are built over the years. Even if we spend $10 billion today, it cannot immediately equip the Army, Navy and Air Force because their capacities are built over the years. It takes a period of time.

“They refused to build the capacity, instigated crisis and now they are telling us they will fight insecurity. Ask them these questions and they will answer. I will disclose more as we progress.”

On corruption, which his administration has been criticised for condoning, Jonathan said:

“They say that the government is corrupt and not fighting corruption, but only yesterday (Wednesday) I addressed the corruption agencies (sic) to give Nigerians breakdown of their activities in the past 15 years.

“To fight corruption, you must take measures to establish firm institutions. You don’t just go into the street and arrest somebody and lock him up or show him on television and say you are fighting corruption.

“If they succeeded in fighting corruption in their time, corruption would not have been with us today. If they had put in place structures and embraced modern technologies to manage resources, we would not have been talking about corruption today.

“Why some civil servants did not receive their salaries in December is because of a software that processes salaries and does not allow money meant for salaries to be diverted for something else.

“Sometimes, some ministries and agencies divert funds to pay some kinds of allowances; so, what the system does is to shut down once anyone tries to divert money meant for salaries. That is why those departments of government were shut down and some people could not get their salary. That is how to fight corruption.

“In the past, fertiliser which is an area where the federal and state governments spent billions of Naira, had less than 10 percent of the fertilizer going to the farmers. Sometimes the 10 percent was even adulterated while the money ended up in the pockets of few persons. But today, there is no corruption in the fertilizer industry again.

“We assembled some young Nigerians that have attributes and developed what we call the Electronic Wallet, through which farmers get their fertilisers directly and no one cheats the government anymore. Is that not the way to stop corruption?

“If someone tells you the best way to stop corruption is to arrest your uncle or father and show him on television, it will not stop corruption. It will even encourage corruption. We are shooting armed robbers but armed robbery is still with us. Has that stopped armed robbery?

“We must set up institutions to prevent people from even touching the money and that is what we have been doing and we are succeeding. Since we came to power, Nigerians no longer sleep overnight at fuel stations, while those who hoard fuel benefit.

“Since we came on board, have you had to bribe somebody to get fuel? Have you suffered to get fuel? Is that the kind of country you want to go back to?

“They say the military is corrupt. When this insecurity crisis came up, we had nothing. So, to get weapons very quickly, we used some vendors to purchase, but now, what we do is government to government. Any procurement for the Armed Forces is done at government levels and so, there is nothing like corruption. Is that not the way to fight corruption?

“We are reducing corruption. I will not go further on this because the heads of the agencies will address Nigerians for you to appreciate what we are doing.”

Jonathan defended his administration’s style, saying: “They said the government is weak and has no plan…I came in with Yar’Adua (late Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua) and he advocated for due process. So, I stand by due process. Any country that does not obey the rule of law is a jungle. They said we do not plan and our economy is now the biggest in Africa. Without plan can we achieve it?

“Our trains were not moving for many years but now most of them are moving. Can we achieve that without planning? We have been able to conclude the privatisation of the power sector and our generating capacity is almost doubled. Can you do that without planning?

“The government feels that Nigerians are very dynamic people. Very creative and industrious but most of them do not have money. Having in mind that we are almost 200 million people and we cannot carry everybody at once, we came up with the You-Win concept to give grants to young Nigerians to manufacture things and in the next few years, they will be exporting their products.

“Can you do that without planning? And they say we have no plans for the country. They should come and tell us the plan they have for Nigeria.

“I believe that the young Nigerians, not people like me because we are finished. My generation has failed. We did not take Nigeria to the moon. Look at what countries that we were at par at Independence are doing now? For us to get to the moon, it takes a special candidate.”

On his achievement in the education sector, Jonathan said he created 12 Federal universities – one in each of the states that had non – adding that he built Almajiri schools to give dropouts in the North the opportunity to be educated.

“They say we have no plans but we produced Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). Other countries have it. It is to enable countries reserve a little of the money that comes into the country so that every income is not squandered.

“In addition to the SWF, there are some stolen money that are returned from time to time. They have been getting these stolen money before and no one knows how they spent the money. The ones that are coming in within this period we have not even started spending.

“We agreed with the states on how to spend it. We agreed that because we have security challenges, 50 percent of the money be channeled to security since the money was primarily for security reasons and were siphoned through security means; 25 percent for development and 25 percent for future generation.

“That is a decision we have taken even before we start spending the money. They should come and tell you what they used our money for…

The government has been widely denounced for not providing jobs for the youth. Jonathan said: “So far, we have created a number of jobs but we are not there yet. I have set up two presidential committees on job creation headed by the Vice President and made up of people in government and those in the private sector. The board is working very hard to ensure that at least two million jobs are created every year.

“Only two days ago, somebody stood in Port Harcourt and said he was going to catch corrupt people and put them in Kirikiri. The same mouth he used to say he was not going to probe anybody. Contradictory statements; can you trust such people? Are they not deceiving you?

“All what they want to use power for is to lock up and imprison their enemies. I do not have any enemy to fight. I have no enemies to fight. My interest is Nigeria’s interest and for young Nigerians to develop. Not to fight enemies.

“We must stop corruption but I will not do that by catching people and putting them in confinement or killing them. I think we have advanced beyond that stage.”

He also spoke on women, saying: “Somebody told Nigerian women he will give them position in his government. Ask him when he was Head of State, how many women were in his cabinet? Not a single one. So, Nigerian women should either cast their votes to go back to the kitchen and remain there or vote to liberate themselves.”

On MEND, he said: “I read in the newspaper that MEND has dumped Jonathan. I am from the Niger Delta, the leader of MEND is one Okah who is in South African prison. South Africa is not Nigeria else people would have said the President influenced it.

“Okah is a South African prison because October 1, 2010, when we were to celebrate our Golden Independence, he was procured by some Nigerians to assassinate me and Okah bombed Abuja. Their plan was to assassinate me but intelligence investigation from South African Intelligence and Nigeria Intelligence systems robbed him in while planning to assassinate me.

“He is now in jail in South Africa and they say ‘MEND dumps Jonathan’. Will Okah that wanted to assassinate Jonathan support Jonathan? And I am told that Okah is supporting some people. I am told that Okah, in a South African prison for killing Nigerians, is supporting some people. Count me out.”

Other leaders of the party and governors spoke at the rally.

Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko has described President Jonathan as the most  criticised, abused and insulted leader in this country.

Mimiko, who is the Southwest Co-ordinator of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Committee said in spite of the unwarranted attacks, “Nigerians across the country can feel the impact of his administration in agriculture, power, education, and resuscitation of rail system.

Chairman, PDP National Campaign Committee, Senator Ahmadu Ali stirred controversy when he said: “PDP is the agent of change. We fought for democracy when others fled the country. We have remained in power for 16 consecutive years stressing that that is the more reason why Nigerians should vote for PDP in February.”

To the Chairman of PDP Governors Forum, Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State,  belives Nigeria will be better under Jonathan if re-elected on February 14. His re-election, he said, would enable him consolidate on his achievements.

Akpabio said: “We cannot afford to hand-over power to those who will send us to prison. Jonathan is a democrat, Nigerians should let him continue in office”.

PDP leader in Lagos State, Chief Bode George described next month general elections as a decisive one. He advised Lagosians to vote for PDP at least for a change.

Vice President Namadi Sambo thanked the people of Lagos for hosting the take-off of the party’s national campaign. He thanked the youths for supporting the transformation agenda of Mr President adding that the PDP administration will introduce more poverty alleviation programmes if re-elected.

Senate President David Mark noted that the PDP-controlled Federal Government has impacted positively on the lives of Nigerians through improved power supply, job creation, infrastructure development, and revitalization of the education sector.

The highlight of the event was the presentation of flags to President Jonathan as PDP presidential candidate and all governorship candidates.

Lagos PDP governorship candidate Mr Jimi Agbaje, said they would work for the party’s success at the poll.

It seems the presentation of flags has foreclosed reconciliation or addressing petitions written by aggrieved governorship aspirants in states like Oyo, Ogun, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom and Sokoto.

At the rally were Governors Aliyu Babangida (Niger), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Gabriel Suswam (Benue) Ibrahim Dakwambo (Gombe) and Idris Wada (Kogi). Former governors in attendance include Ali Modu Sheriff (Borno), Mahmoud Shinkafi (Zamfara) and Peter Obi (Anambra).

Others are Senators James Manager and Hosea Agboola’ Hon. Muraina Ajibola, Chief Shuaib Oyedokun, Chief Abiola Ogundokun, Chief Bayo Dayo, Chief Tom Ikimi, former Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan, Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau,  Hajiyya Bola Shagaya and Mrs Olukemi Mimiko.