Day Jonathan’s campaign electrified Lagos

Lagos residents and politi­cal watchers cannot forget in a hurry, Thursday, January 8. It was the day President Goodluck Jonathan stormed the country’s commercial nerve with his campaign train to showcase his achievement in office and to solicit votes for a second term in office.

Altough the event was slated for 11a.m. that sunny Thursday, the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), venue of the campaign started receiv­ing party faithful, supporters and well wishers as early as 6a.m. And before 10a.m., the venue was almost filled to the brim.
And when the dignitaries started thronging the venue, it would be an understatement to say it was a full house. The Director-General of the National Campaign Committee, Dr. Amodu Ali, his South-West counterpart, Governor Olusegun Mimiko as well as the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu were also on ground to receive another party wigs that included President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the party’s presidential flagbearer for the February 14 election as well as his running mate, Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Others in attendance were all PDP Governors, both sitting and former, all the governorship candidates on the party’s tickets, serving ministers, National Assembly members, party’s Board of Trustee members and party, student groups, Nollywood actors and actresses and various political associations among others.
While welcoming the guests to the occa­sion, Also, the South West coordinator of the Jonathan campaign and Ondo State governor Olusegun Mimiko said the South West was an educated region. He noted that, “This is why, among others, we will not settle for a President with less than a University degree.” Mimiko described President Jonathan as a cool headed leader who in spite of all the insults hurled at him has remained calm. “We thank you Mr. President that, in spite of being the most abused and negatively-profiled President in the history of this country, you have refused to roll out any obnoxious law of the semblance of Decree 2 of 1984,” Mimiko concluded.
In his own goodwill message, the Chairman of the PDP governor and Akwa Ibom state governor, Godswill Akpabio said contrary to the allegation by the opposition that $55 bil­lion was missing from the federation account, no money is missing. He explained that the money was shared among the three tiers of government. He noted that there was sense keeping the money when a lot of people are suffering, hence the gover­nors advised that the money should be shared to enable them ameliorate the suffering of the people. Akpabio said governors elected on the PDP platform, who were not at the campaign were those who wanted Jonathan’s seat and when they could not get it, they left for the Ag­grieved Peoples Congress (APC). “Nigeria cannot afford to hand over leadership to aggrieved people. People who are embit­tered. They are set to send people to prison again. Are you ready to go to prison? Some of your fathers were given 310 years for crime they did not commit. Can a leopard change its skin? They are threatening that if we win, they will form a parallel government. Get ready to defend your votes. “The people following Jonathan are more than those opposing him. To hell with their parallel government,” Akpabio declared. The Niger State governor, Dr Babangida Aliyu said the PDP abhors violence. He said some people were already planning to forment trouble in next month’s election and admonished the party members not to succumb. Aliyu also advised PDP members not to suc­cumb to the propaganda of the opposition, as there is a difference between sentiment and reality.
In his goodwill speech, the Senate Presi­dent, Senator David Mark also said the choice between Jonathan and the opposition candi­date was simple, saying, “it is just between Day and night.”
He expressed confidence that people would vote for the man, whose four years transfor­mation agenda has impacted positively on the people.
Former National Deputy Chairman (South), of the party, Chief Bode George said “today would be remembered as the beginning of the journey that would see the APC pack its bag and baggage out of Alausa Government House.”
According to him, the people of Lagos has not enjoyed good governance in the last 16 years in the state, saying, “though there is no perfect organization anywhere in the world, the PDP however handles governance well and that makes the party and its government formidable.”
Speaking on behalf of the South-West PDP governors, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State said the south-west people were eager for change asserting that, PDP is that change they were waiting for.
He then urged the zone’s people to vote President Jonathan again for the continuity of his good work.
Director General of the Campaign Orga­nization, Dr. Amadu Ali in his own comment said PDP has shown that there is no alternative to democracy pointing out that, since 1999, the party has moved the country forward.
He expressed delight that the party has succeded in deepening democracy in the country reminding that, “under our adminis­tration, Nigeria has transited for times without disturbance.”
He therefore urged Nigerians to keep on supporting the party by voting President Jonathan again.
Federal Capital Territory Minister of State, Oloye Junmoke Akinjide drew a line between Jonathan and Buhari pointing out that while Jonathan is a democrat, Buhari is a dictator, while Jonathan was elected through the ballot boxes, Buhari came to power through the barrel of the gun.
She also added that while Buhari chased people out of the country and jailed some for more than 300 years, Jonathan has not hurled a single person to prison inspite of undeserved insults being hurled at him.
Joseph Yobo, an international Soccer Am­bassador also spoke on behalf of the youth.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who was ushered to the podium amid ovation however stunned his audience when he declared that the members of the Movement for Emancipa­tion of Niger Delta (MEND), hatched a plan to kill him.
According to him, when he read in some national dailies that, “MEND dumped Jonathan,” he reminded the party chieftains and supporters that thronged the venue in their thousands that, the leader of the group, Henry Okar, who is currently serving a jail term in South Africa planned to assassinate him.
Against this backdrop, Jonathan reasoned that, the group’s acclaimed withdraw of sup­port for him was never expected to come as a surprise to anybody who has been following events in the country. On the claim by the opposition All Progres­sive Congress (APC), presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), that the President cannot fight the insurgents, President Jonathan fired a hot salvo at him, saying the latter did not buy a single rifle for any soldier when he was Head of State.
His words: They say they will fight insecu­rity. Then ask him, when he was the head of Nigeria government, did he buy a single riffle for the Nigerian government? He did not buy anything. They refused to equip the armed forces. Ask them, what they did with their Defense Budget. No government through­out the world equips the military overnight because their equipment is too expensive. Armed forces are equipped over years. Even if you send ten billion dollars today, you cannot equip the Airforce, equip the Navy and equip the Army. They refused to build the armed forces capacity. And now they are telling us they will fight insecurity.” He said if Buhari and all those who had ruled the country before now had equipped the military properly things would have been different today. Jonathan noted that the 2015 general elec­tion is about young people, stating that his message was targeted at young Nigerians, especially those who will be voting for the first time in the February polls.
“I will address only a segment of Nigeria populace. I want to address those people who are voting for the first time. Those of you who have attained 18 years. That means I am addressing those of you who are 20 years down. I don’t want to address old people like me because we are stained already. Those of you and those at home, listen to what I will say. When you get home, tell your brother, your uncle and fathers who are about 60 years old to confirm what the presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate of the PDP mentioned. The coming election is about the young people. Do you vote for the youth to be relevant in the history of Nigeria of to remain irrelevant? Those of you who will vote for the first the first time, would you vote for hope for the Nigerian youth to be relevant or to be treated as nonsense persons? And I believe all of you want to be relevant. We have just introduced our governorship candidate and you have seen how many of them are your age bracket. No other party will give the youth that opportunity. And they said they want to take power from us. They tell lies and also hire people from all over the world to tell lies against us.” The president seized the opportunity of the occasion to debunk the insinuation that his government is weak, asserting that his admin­istration has made giant strides in the fight against corruption, insecurity and in planning for the future of the country.
On the anti-corruption war, Jonathan explained that fighting corruption was not about arresting people, parading them on tele­vision and dumping them in prison without due process. “They want to get into power to jail their en­emies, somebody wakes up and thinks he can jail all his enemies if he gets to power, today I can tell you we have arrested more people, prosecuted and convicted more people since I came into power. “For you to fight corruption you must take measures, if they have succeeded in fighting corruption during their tenure you won’t be talking about corruption today. “They said we are weak, but we know some people who crated people abroad and put them on the plane before they were inter­cepted by superior powers. Any country that does not obey rule of law is a jungle nation,” he added. Jonathan while stating that his administra­tion has built twelve new federal universities to increase access to tertiary education and almajiri schools in the north to empower the youths there challenged the opposition to tell the nation their plans for the youths. “They said we have no plans for the youths, they should come and tell you what plan they have for the youth. Ask them, when they were in power did they build nusery school for anybody. They built prisons and I built universities for you. “They said we have no plans, but we intro­duced the Soverign Wealth Fund. “They want power by all means. All what they want to do with power is to lock up their enemies. I have no enemies to fight,” he declared.