Protect Buhari with army helicopter, Evah tells FG

Comrade Joseph Evah is national coordinator, Ijaw Monitoring Group, and former Publicity Secretary, Ijaw National Congress. Comrade Evah Comrade Evah In this interview, he says the Federal Government should spare no costs in protecting retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, as he joins the presidential race.

Excerpts: The President was recently adopted by PDP organs for 2015 contest. How do you read this? It is an internal PDP affair and the party’s Constitution allows it. I see nothing wrong there. But I don’t think President Goodluck Jonathan will be afraid of any party primary to re-contest. But politicians, they hate crisis, they don’t take themselves for granted. They want to know there are no dissidents. There could be the fear of a period of reconciliation after a crisis, which could affect the INEC’s time table for the elections. So, they take no chances. Of course, if there are people who don’t accept the adoption they could come out to protest but we have not seen anybody protesting. And you cannot force people to protest. It was not done in hiding, there was no secrecy involved, it was done in the open and Nigerians including the media were present. So, if there were people who were not comfortable with it, they could complain and get the issues resolved. Yet, I don’t think this adoption is final. It is the convention that will decide the issues for the party. Recently, everyone was saying crucify Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, on the South Africa $9.3m arms deal, but you said let’s await the outcome of investigations. Do you feel vindicated? You know we have this bandwagon mentality in this country. Nobody supports evil, but this is a man who during the crisis in the Niger Delta, he made himself available to pacify frayed nerves., asking militants to hold their fire and allow peace to reign. He was always for peace even when peace seemed elusive. To now be the champion of violence? That was a bitter pill for some of us to swallow. Today, everyone now knows he was not personally involved in money laundering or in arms deal. Infact, he had nothing to do on who leased his aircraft and for what purpose. However, if you look deeply, you can see the hand of fifth columnists in the saga. If the Presidency could conduct investigations on how this happened, they can find those who blew the whistle, primarily to embarrass the government and checkmate the good works of the Pastor. He has been in the forefront of asking Northern political leaders to own up to the intrigues of Boko Haram insurgency. He would want Northern political leaders to talk to these terrorists, the same way they themselves talked with Niger Delta militants in the past. If we want to look deeply, the National Security Adviser’s office has to come out clearly on certain things. I have been following Nigeria’s pattern from the time of June 12 struggle. It will be important to know, for instance, why, out of the 500 private planes in the country, Ayo Oritsejafor’s plane became the one to be used for this assignment. There seems a set up, a trap, saying, ‘let us use Oritsejafor plane, as we use the plane, you people will raise an alarm, contact the Press, contact South African government, that this is what is coming”. Within the National Security hierarchy, either the Ministry of Defence, or the NSA office, some people felt that with the coming elections, use Oritsejafor plane in order to rubbish him so that he will no longer be bold enough to speak. But that is what is lacking in our own Niger Delta leaders. They don’t calculate, they don’t strategize. Its like the INEC matter. When INEC came up with extra Polling Units, Niger Delta leaders started shouting against it. When the strategy to create these Polling Units and to give the North countless number of Polling Units, were our people not in the system? Why did they not give information to our people in government? We need a think-tank, and we don’t have any. Since, we have been asking our people to create a think-tank, nobody wants to listen. The Northerners have networks and they have strategies, so they coordinate their strategies. INEC chairman comes up with something and our Southern leaders oppose it. It is a shame that in the whole of INEC structures, we don’t have people. We don’t even have civil society people who are in touch, who should shout, complain, even before INEC makes its publications. Now the publications are out from INEC, now we are saying that they want to cheat Southern Nigeria. INEC is not trying to cheat Southern Nigeria, it is because they have focus and sincere leaders. But after the first $9.3 million, there is another $5,7+-million on the same project in South Africa. Is government not acting with impunity? Government sought and got approval from the Nigerian Senate to procure arms to fight insurgency. They all know that. What we are saying is that there are people within the system who want to embarrass this government, and they are succeeding. So, it is painful to us who are activists and who are from Southern Nigeria. Our son is President of Nigeria, the people who are using sirens, who are wearing fine coats, they have money so they don’t want to listen to anybody who has no money in his pocket. If not, the people who are exposing these things and embarrassing Nigeria and embarrassing government would not be doing it. Another thing is the survival of Muhammadu Buhari. I am very happy that after the survival of Buhari in the last attack, the Federal Government has provided enough security for Buhari’s life. They should double the security. If there is even need for them to use helicopter, even military chopper to follow his vehicle, when he is moving, they should use it. Because it is his own people who want to kill him and use it to burn Nigeria to ashes. It is his own people who want to use the blood of Buhari to destroy Nigeria. That is their calculation. So, we have to make sure that we don’t allow them. God will not allow them as God has already performed the miracle. I said it then that the survival of Buhari was the greatest miracle that Jehovah God performed in this country, because the worst genocide would have happened. And it would have happened from the barracks. The northern officers like what happened in 1966, they made sure that no officers from Abeokuta Barracks of Igbo origin, none of them survived the attacks. They were killed by their friends.