Against the background of alleged threats to arrest him on account of
his predictions of a bloody response to any rigging of the 2015
elections, erstwhile military Head of State General Muhammadu Buhari,
yesterday, dared President Goodluck Jonathan to carry out the threat.
Responding to the condemnations from the Presidency and the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP to his assertion, Buhari said yesterday that only
those now contemplating to rig the 2015 elections could have been afraid
of the threat of a violent response.
While giving a robust defence of Buhari’s pan-Nigeria spirit, his
party, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC also chided President
Jonathan for fixing his fellow Ijaws in prized national offices.
Support for Buhari also came yesterday from the opposition Action
Congress of Nigeria, ACN which chided the administration for launching a
personal attack on Buhari simply for giving a valid warning against
election rigging.
*Buhari
The ACN said the attacks against Buhari were reflective of the
determination of the ruling administration to use the instrument of
power to return itself to power.
Buhari had stirred controversy while receiving a delegation of the CPC from Niger State on Monday.
Speaking in Hausa language while receiving a delegation of the CPC
from Niger State, Buhari was quoted as referring to the Federal
Government as the biggest Boko Haram. He was also quoted as saying: “God
willing by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct a free and
fair election or they go a very disgraceful way. 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.’
Special Adviser to the President on Media, Dr. Reuben Abati in the
presidency’s reaction said by his reference to the north in his speech,
Buhari who is an elderstatesman has reduced himself to “a regional
leader who speaks for only a part of Nigeria”.
Denouncing Buhari’s outbursts, the presidency and the PDP had
described the former head of state as a serial election loser renowned
for inciting his supporters to violence and a blood thirsty politician.
Galadima defends Buhari
But responding yesterday, Buhari speaking through his close political
associate and national secretary of the CPC, Alhaji Buba Galadima dared
the President to arrest him, saying that not even his master, General
Olusegun Obasanjo dared to arrest him.
He said: “Let them go and pick him as their mentors are now advising
them to. If Obasanjo cannot arrest Buhari, I want Jonathan to do it if
he can try it because they are hiring people all over the North to be
talking for them because they can pay them money.
“They are picking on the General because it is him they are afraid of
and because once you take away rigging, they are gone; but they have
forgotten that their master, Obasanjo was the first to talk of do or
die, do or die means blood, if you don’t do what I want I will kill you,
that is what he said.
“The issue is very simple, if you are not a thief why should you be
afraid if they say whoever steals should be killed? That is why they are
afraid.”
Galadima said that Buhari was not the first to have noted the existence of three Boko Harams in the country.
“General Buhari said he was quoting Prof. Ango Abdullahi who said
that there are three Boko Harams, the original one, the one that is now
perpetrated by criminals that are now raiding homes and markets and
government itself. Was it not Jonathan who said that there are Boko
Harams in his government,” Galadima asked yesterday.
He further gave a strong defence of General Buhari’s nationalistic
spirit saying that Buhari as a soldier fought civil wars that arose from
election rigging in the Congo and in Nigeria.
“Are you saying that somebody of Buhari’s stature cannot warn those
in authority that there is no need for the country to go into this? Why
are we mis-reading things? The man should be commended for having the
courage to tell those in authrotiy that they should behave well.”
He also dared the administration to publish the contents of the Lemu
Panel inquiry on post election violence which he claimed exonerated
Buhari of culpability and rather blamed the administration.
“Why are they afraid to publish a white paper because it indicted
them as having been responsible for the election violence. I dare them
if they are honest people and I dare PDP if they are honest people, let
them conduct a free and fair election and let’s see whether they will
win one councillor.”
We stand by what Buhari said — CPC
The CPC in a statement also flayed the Jonathan administration for
perpetuating an ethnic agenda separate from what it said was the
nationalistic thrust of Buhari while in power.
In the statement issued by the party’s national publicity secretary,
Engr. Rotimi Fashakin, the party said: “As Head of State, his Oil
Minister was Professor Tam David-West, a Kalabari man in Rivers State.
As a Leader, he created the ambience for his ministers to work
unobtrusively and devoid of executive meddlesomeness. But what do we
find with Dr Goodluck Jonathan? All the appointees as oil ministers in
his two-year reign thus far as President of Nigeria have been Nigerians
of Ijaw extraction, like himself!
“Second, on October 1, 2010, there was a bomb blast during the year’s
independence anniversary celebrations, with attendant deaths of many
Nigerians. Without waiting for any preliminary report from the Security
Agencies, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, as President, told a traumatized Nation,
“it is not MEND!
“Third, so far as President of Nigeria, Dr Good-luck Jonathan has
shown very generous affinity for Nigerians of Ijaw stock in terms of
appointments and promotions in the Federal Public sector. There is a
marked lopsidedness that smacks of clannishness and ethnocentrism by the
President!
“On Corruption and sleazy tendency, the Jonathan administration
transcends all others before it! Nigerians are still befuddled by the
impeachable show of arbitrariness by the regime in expending
N2.67Trillion on fuel subsidy instead of the appropriated N240Billion in
the 2011 appropriation act. As expected, the regime has attempted all
manner of subterfuge to give Executive cover for the indicted people in
the scam.
On Boko Haram, the party said:
“In January 2012, Dr Good-luck Jonathan told a bewildered nation,
still smarting from murderous Bombings, that his government has been
infiltrated by Boko Haram. In February 2012, a serving PDP senator from
Borno South (Mohammed Ali Ndume) was arrested for being a member of Boko
Haram.
In March 2012, Ndume deposed to an affidavit before a Federal High
Court wherein he stated that Vice-President Namadi Sambo was aware of
his activities with Boko Haram. In April 2012, General Andrew Owoeye
Azazi , the National Security Adviser, averred that there was
indisputable proof that Boko Haram is PDP. As things stand, President
Jonathan is the national leader of PDP.”
ACN denounces crude attacks on Buhari
The ACN also condemning the attacks on Buhari said the warnings by
the former head of state was only directed against plans to rig the 2015
election.
The party also condemned the personal nature of the attack by the presidency which it claimed did not dignify the president.
In a statement issued in Osogbo, Osun State, by its National
Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the statement
for which Gen. Buhari is now being mercilessly savaged was nothing but a
warning against those who may be planning to rig the 2015 general
elections, hence should not have rankled anyone who believes in free,
fair and transparent polls.
It said the viciousness of the seemingly coordinated attacks by the
presidency and the PDP raise a lot of concern regarding their plans for
the 2015 elections.
‘’We hold no brief for anyone. But it is true that if elections are
rigged, as they have been so shamelessly and brazenly done by the PDP
since 1999, naturally people will react, and in doing so it is
impossible for anyone to predict how far things can go. This is what, in
our opinion, Gen. Buhari warned against. If the presidency and the PDP
have no intention to rig in 2015, why are they so worried about the
consequences of such action?’’ ACN queried.
The party said Buhari’s warning was in order, considering that the
2011 general elections remain the most systematically-rigged polls in
Nigeria’s history, irrespective of the so-called endorsement by some
visceral foreign election monitors.
“The 2011 elections also left Nigeria divided along ethnic and religious lines”.
Source: Vanguardnews
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