Mr. Doyin Okupe yesterday attributed the defeat of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to his failure to rescue the Chibok girls.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) frowns at this hero-worshipping attempt to extenuate the various excesses of President Jonathan. While we appreciate President Jonathan’s timely act of conceding defeat in the presidential election, we hasten to assert that this single act alone is not enough to obliterate his litany of abnormalities in governance.
Doyin Okupe’s attempt at praise-singing his employer has only succeeded in jogging our memory. Nigerians cannot forget so quickly. Still fresh in our memory are President Jonathan’s politics of exclusion; his many failed promises; how he soaked the hands of the military in the murky waters of dirty politics; how he punished the entire North but pretended to be its best friend; the way he tore the entire country into two religious camps, his deliberate impoverisation of Nigerian Muslims, his favouritism in the area of job recruitment and his nepotism.
Doyin Okupe is deliberately playing on the collective intelligence of Nigerians. To tell us that the kidnap was staged in order to make Jonathan look incompetent is sheer infantile thinking. Who really is to blame if the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces refused to believe that the kidnap of the Chibok girls was real. Who is to blame if the C-in-C failed to act for good eighteen days after the unfortunate incident?
Has Doyin Okupe forgotten the cries of Nigerian Muslims over their marginalization in the 2014 National Conference? Has he forgotten the gross imbalance in the number of Christians and Muslim delegates? Didn’t the C-in-C promise to make amendments when the Sultan of Sokoto led a Muslim delegation to him to plead for parity and equal treatment? Did the C-in-C fulfill this promise? Did he do anything?
What of the removal of Arabic Ajami from the newly printed N100 note? Has Okupe forgotten the hopus copus which followed this anti-North cum anti-Muslim act? Can he recall what MURIC said at the time? If Doyin Okupe would check his records he would find thatMURIC made a statement at the time that tyrants are taught the lessons of their lives during elections. So is it still the Chibok girls’ factor alone?
Recall the Oritsejafor angle and the provocative statements which President Jonathan failed to check. The aircraft of the same Oritsejafor was involved in the scandalous and illegal arms deal and money laundering in South Africa.
Add or remove Patience Jonathan’s open contempt for Northerners as contained in a statement allegedly made by her in which she derided Northerners as people who produce children only to throw them on the streets! The First Lady’s impertinence is also partly responsible for her husband’s loss. Who snatched the microphone from the hands of a state governor at a public function? Who summoned the Borno State commissioner of police? Doyin Okupe should answer those questions.
President Jonathan paid the price for allowing his wife to usurp his executive powers.Nigerians may have said nothing at the time but they are not fools. What of the threats constantly issued by Jonathan’s kinsmen? Couldn’t Jonathan see that they were holding the rest of Nigerians to ransom? Did he think Nigerians are cowards? Jonathan’s conspiratorial silence in the face of the belligerence of his kinsmen has only one meaning.
How does Doyin Okupe explain Jonathan’s trivialization of corruption and his unGodly romance with corruption kingpins? Why must Jonathan give national awards to internationally acknowledged thieves and protect drug barons?
Jonathan’s dictatorial proclivity was demonstrated in the sealing of opposition secretariat, misuse of security and other federal agencies to witch-hunt the opposition. In the height of despotism, aircrafts carrying members of the opposition were denied landing right. This was an inhuman act as it could have resulted in the death of those helpless passengers on board particularly if the aircrafts did not have enough fuel.
A state governor was forced to drive himself from Kano to the South because his aircraft was not allowed to take off. Security agencies were used to subvert legitimate exercises embarked upon by the opposition while they openly supported illegal acts of members of the ruling party. Buhari’s certificategate discredited the army, an otherwise noble profession. It painted President Jonathan as mean and desperate to hold on to power. But the effect on the electorate was negative for him as emotions flowed in the direction of the victim.
These are the issues. It was not just the Chibok girls alone. Jonathan’s cup of excesses was filled beyond the brim and it was already spilling. Regardless of religion or ethnicity, we believe that any credible Nigerian endowed with vision and the credentials for good governance can lead this country.
The president’s religion does not matter. Any good Christian or good Muslim can successfully lead us and take us out of the woods. Whoever will treat Christians and Muslims as well as all ethnicities equally will make a good leader here. The president’s kinsmen must not treat the rest of Nigerians like slaves in their own land
In conclusion, MURIC implores the incoming administration to learn from the mistakes of the Jonathan administration. Buhari as a Muslim president-elect must rise above religious persecution and clannishness. The Christians of Nigeria must enjoy all fundamental human rights as well as the dividends of democracy. Neither should the South-South be neglected. Buhari’s administration must work towards improving the welfare of the people of the Niger Delta as a matter of priority.
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
