2011: Delta Monarch Backs Jonathan

Source: OUR REPORTER - thewillnigeria.com
PHOTO: PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN.
PHOTO: PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN.

WARRI, DELTA, May 19, (THEWILL) - The Monarch of Seimbiri Kingdom in Delta State, His Royal Majesty Charles Ayeni Botu has said that President Goodluck Jonathan should be allowed to contest the 2011 general elections in order to consolidate the good foundations he has laid for effective governance apart from the fact that the Ijaws constitute the fourth largest ethnic group and the economic livewire of Nigeria.


The Monarch in statement made available to THEWILL in Warri said that the Ijaws have never held the Presidency before and that there was no North and South agreement in the Military packaged 1999 Constitution adding that PDP was just one out of the numerous political parties in the country and hence could not be bigger than Nigeria.


Reacting to a warning by a northern elder statesman Alhaji Lawal Kaita that the north would do all within its power to stop President Jonathan from occupying the presidential seat beyond 2011, the Monarch described the statement as unguarded and unbecoming of a statesman in the person of Alhaji Kaita, stressing that the north had ruled Nigeria for 38 years out of our 50 years of independence.


The Monarch argued that Nigeria operates a federal system and hence, political, economic and cultural power must be decentralized and devolved from the centre to the periphery vis-à-vis states, local government councils and communities as well as entrenching true fiscal federalism to eliminate the endemic fraud at the centre.


He warned that any attempt to scuttle the above guiding rules and principles of governance was a direct invitation to the call by Libyan Leader, Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi that Nigeria should be broken up along religious, geopolitical or ethnic divides.


"Enough is enough and it is now the turn of the Ijaws like the Hausas, Yorubas and Ibos to be bold and courageous to take the bull by the horn, because Nigeria cannot and will not continue to practice a dictatorial unitary government at our expense and in the guise of a federal system while appropriating all our resources and destroying our environments," he said.