JONATHAN OUT OF TUNE WITH NATION'S SITUATION - ACN

By NBF News

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) said the comments made by President Goodluck Jonathan during his maiden media chat on Monday have shown that he is largely out of tune with the situation in Nigeria.

In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party described as superficial and devoid of deep understanding of issues the president's comments on such issues as the single-tenure proposal, the Jos crisis and the National Sovereign Conference (NSC), just to mention a few.

'When the president of a nation talks, citizens must take something concrete away from it. Sadly, that cannot be said of our president's maiden chat on Monday,' it said.

ACN said, for example, that since sovereignty derived from the people, the president should not be oblivious, or even pretend to be, to the preponderance of the people's opinion against the single-tenure kite he was flying.

'Saying he has no regret and indicating he will push forward with the ill-advised single-tenure proposal, even at the expense of more pressing national problems of insecurity and lack of economic development, shows he is not in tune with the same people who voted him into office.

'Failing to tell Nigerians how his administration will ameliorate the serious problems of infrastructural decay is a blunder. Missing the opportunity to comment on the fate of Nigerians who are being arrested, detained and killed in Libya by the transitional authorities, which his administration has recognised is a serious error of judgement,' the party said.

But it said the president's biggest faux pas during his media chat is on the lingering Jos crisis – a problem which he failed to exhibit an understanding of the issues at stake or proffer any innovative solution.

'The platitudes about one group not having the right to kill the other or that enforcing the law doesn't bring the peace in any place until the people themselves agree to have peace are not what Nigerians in general and the people of Jos in particular, want to hear. They want to know that their president understands the issues at stake and has the political will to end the mindless killings. They want to know what the government will do to bring the perpetrators of the killings to justice, so as to end the ongoing culture of impunity in Jos,' ACN said.

The party said, for example, that the president's decision to ask the chief of defence staff (CDS) to take over the security situation in Jos was superfluous and reinforced the same well-worn mindset of resorting to a reckless use of force to solve all security problems, including the Boko Haram crisis.

'Right now, the military is in charge of security in Plateau, under the Special Task Force deployed to the state. Even with the task force's best efforts, the killings and violence persist. One therefore wonders what miracle the CDS is expected to perform with the same task force, when even some groups are accusing it (task force) of taking sides in the crisis and calling for its withdrawal to pave way for the deployment of 'Operation Rainbow' a coalition of regular and mobile policemen.

'We agree with those who have said Nigeria's reliance on the military for a solution to terrorism or other insecurity problems is counter-productive. We agree with those who have called for a holistic approach (that will take into consideration the root causes of the problems) to the security problems facing our nation,' the ACN said.

We say no to knee-jerk reactions to these problems, as exemplified by President Jonathan's comments during his ineffective Media Chat on Monday,' ACN said.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed
National Publicity Secretary
Action Congress of Nigeria
Lagos
Sept. 13th 2011