Northern Leaders: Between Lies, Mischief and Elderly Rascality
By: Jackson Ude
Call it senility or elderly rascality of the old brigades, you will not be
too far from the best adjective that befits some members of the so called
Northern Elders Forum, NEF and opposition politicians whose foray into
politics have yielded next to nothing for the people they claim to
represent.
Succinctly put, our political landscape and airwaves have been taken over
by aged mischief-makers parading as elders. The same men whose politics,
practices, actions and inactions have knocked the engine of progress not
just in the North but the whole of our dear country Nigeria.
Foul-mouthed old men who have shamelessly put the country in the greatest
abyss of development have suddenly found their voices, behaving like
exuberant rascals and hiding under the cover of the sectional hegemony to
threaten the existence of our dear nation.
With no resume of hard work and contribution to Nigeria's development,
these men have continued to pollute the landscape, inciting the people
especially gullible Northerners against the Government and the person of
President Jonathan.
The polity, in recent times, has been so much charged, over heated by
threats coming from the North by the group of old men clustered under the
umbrella of NEF who should be in their homes churning out wise counseling
for the growth and development of our dear country, Nigeria.
For over thirty years, these same men and their cronies and cohorts sat,
nurtured and backed military coups led by soldiers from the North who are
today parading themselves as Billionaires having stolen oil blocks from
the South and the treasury of the nation with reckless impunity.
They trumpet the cacophony of hate, fanning the embers of disunity with
the worn-out appendage on the President as “clueless and incompetent.”
That appendage-“A clueless and incompetent President” has now become the
singsong of opposition party members and all those who cannot stand a
Jonathan Presidency and those who see nothing good in the administration.
A former minister of the Federal Capital Territory and a latter-day
activist is on the vanguard of this infamous and disingenuous branding of
the President of the Federal Republic. Disrespectful, cheeky and
self-righteous, this accidental public servant now aspires to be governor
of Kaduna State. Imagine! The people of that state will decide his fate
assuming he manages to secure the ticket of his party.
Professor Ango Abdullahi, a former Vice President of the Ahmadu Bello
University, an elite university, a supposedly educated Northerner who
should shine academic light on the people having attained the highest
level of academic qualification, debased himself and champions the group
throwing tantrums at the President.
But as the opposition struggle to convince Nigerians that President
Jonathan is clueless and incompetent and that only a Northern Presidency
has the solution to Nigeria's problems, let us take a peep into the
successes of the man from the creek who is our President:
It is President Jonathan, a southerner, from the creek who initiated the
building of over 100 Almajiri schools in 13 Northern States of Nigeria.
The decision was to take children from the streets who most of them have
become willing tools in the hands of terrorists.
We have had over 35 years of Northerners as leaders and none considered
the huge number of children from the North without education, a priority.
And to further encourage education in the North that have often enjoyed
“soft landing” in terms of admission to tertiary institutions, President
Jonathan established Federal Universities in Lafia, Nasarawa State;
Lokoja, Kogi State; Kashere, Gombe State; Wukari, Taraba State;
Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State; and Dutse, Jigawa State.
For the past years the Railway system had shut down, no one remembered it
as a veritable means of transportation. But under President Jonathan, the
railway system is back. The Lagos-Kano line is back, the Port
Harcourt-Maiduguri line is being rehabilitated . Kano-Maiduguri,
Kaduna-Abuja and Lagos-Port- Harcourt rail-lines are also under
construction and will be available before the end of the year.
But the so-called Northern leaders and opposition politicians do not see
all these. They rather want Nigerians to believe that we have “an
incompetent and clueless President.”
The President has also not turned blind eyes to the many death traps
called roads. He has since his administration continued to develop new
roads and rehabilitated old ones among which are: Onitsha-Owerri and the
Vom-Manchok road, which has as at today been completed. There is
significant progress on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway in Lagos; the
Benin-Ore-Sagamu dual carriage-way; the Onitsha-Enugu-Port Harcourt
dual carriage-way; the Kaduna-Maiduguri dual carriage-way; Lokoja –
Benin road; Lagos-Ibadan Expressway; Mokwa-Bida road; Akure-Ilesha
road; Sokoto-Tambuwal-Jega road; Enugu- Abakaliki- Cross River
road; Ogoja – Ikom road; Vandekiya-Obudu road; and the East-West
road. Work on the dualization of the Kano-Maiduguri and the
Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja roads have reached advance stage.
The Onitsha Head-Bridge Flyover (Ojukwu Gateway) and the Oweto
Bridge across River Benue have been completed. The Second Niger
Bridge is under construction and the government is also undertaking
the dredging of the River.
Seaport construction and
the expansion of existing ports, including
Warri, Baro, Calabar, Onne, Owerri and Onitsha are also on the list
of achievements recorded under President Jonathan.
These cabals have shown high degree of disdain, disloyalty and hatred for
a man who has not done anything wrong to them other than being born from a
relatively unknown geographical entity not recognized by “Northern
leaders” as qualified to produce a President of Nigeria.
It is on record that never in the history of Nigeria, has a President from
the hitherto unknown Otuoke, Bayelsa State, South-South of Nigeria,
succeeded in laying the foundation for the nation's economic boom,
enduring all the name calling and insults hauled at him.
What baffles my mind is that most of the so called Northern elders hauling
invectives and warning of consequences should President Jonathan seek a
reelection, supervised and backed the 38 year usurpation of the Military
that produced many coup-plotting Generals among whom are General Muhammadu
Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdulsalami Abubakar and the
rest.
They forced Nigeria into the Organization for Islamic Countries, OIC,
created lopsidedness in employment where Northerners both qualified and
unqualified dominated Federal Civil Service and the Military and yet have
nothing in the North in terms of developments to show for it.
Now that a minority from the South-South has seized the opportunity to
right the many wrongs, he is being disparaged and called “clueless and
incompetent.”
The vilification is just nauseating, the unwarranted attack malicious at
best. Whether they like it or not, Nigeria is moving forward. All the
indicators point to the fact that we are still the giant of Africa and
President Jonathan's administration has succeeded in placing Nigeria back
to the zenith of the international community with prospects.
Ude, a Journalist and Strategic Communications expert has a Masters Degree
in Political Management.
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