The Minority Factor In GEJ’s Presidency

A RECENT post on the Facebook revealed that, apart from the office of the President and the Secretary to Government, other key appointments are held by the North. These include: The President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Office of the Head of service, the Chief Justice of the Federaltion and President of the Appeal Court, the Governor of the Central Bank, the Chairman of EFCC, the Inspector General of Police, the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Comptroller Generals of Custom Service, Immigration Service, and Prison Service.
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Others are the Chairman National Population Commission and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the richest man in Africa is from the North,just as 85 percent of Nigerians who have oil blocks are from that region. 80 percent of Nigerians in oil marketing businesses are from that region. So, what does the North want from Jonathan?
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Where are the army of violence mongers and ethnic chauvinists who are hounding Dr. Jonathan? What has happened to the principles of Federal Character?
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Before going further, it is imperative to draw a parallel between what happened in 2008 in the United States of America and the election of Barack Hussein Obama, as the 45th president of that country.
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The outgoing administration of George Bush had plunged US into two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Americans were dying in their thousands.
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The media went after the Republican Party and George Bush. The US and global economy went down as the global economic went into a recession. The presidential election was a tough call for Obama but he won.
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As stated earllier, the Niger Delta region had become embroiled in militant agitation for resource control and some elected politicialns and elders in the region had become so emboldened as to challenge the Federal Government in court. The youths in the region had taken up arms. At the height of the agitation.
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Obasanjo went after Chief James Ibori and Chief D.S.P. in brutal fashion. Chief Ibori was slammed with ex-convict charges while Chief D.S.P. Alameyesiagha was lured from his tummy tuck treatment in Germany to be arrested in UK.
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He was finally allowed to return to Nigeria where only seven members of the State House of Assembly were locked up in a hotel room to impeach their Governor on corruption charges. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was seen by Gen. Obasanjo as a dove, weakling who would never raise a voice on resource control.
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It was part of Obasanjo’s plan that no Niger Delta person who would be bold enough to raise a voice that made him play the card of Yar Adua/ Jonathan ticket. As far as Chief Obasanjo was concerned, the South South would be happy with a symbolic presence of one of their own close to the seat of power. Even when death struck and Alhaji Umar Yar ‘Adua died on May 5, 2010, the north was not keen on having a South South person step into the presidential shoes.
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It is now seen as an aberration for President Jonathan to have the audacity to think of a second term in office. The political gladiators in South West and the North are incensed that a native son from a politically inconsequential South South, has the audacity to ask for a second term in office. This is not different from what played out during Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
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The right wing element in Republican Party, the Tea Party members went berserk. They attacked Obama viciously and made him look like an imp. His accomplishments in the first four years were treated as none event.
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In fact, the racists openly screamed that:“it was time to return the white man to the white house”. Obama was so racially abused and tormented, but just a few days to the election, Hurricane Sandy struck and silenced all the bad people.
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Obama went ahead to thrash Mitt Romney with more popular and Electoral College votes than he did to Senator John McCain, even when the election was predicted to be a dead heat. Today what the Republican Party is doing is to frustrate Obama in every inch of the way to deny him of any legacy as two term president. Obama’s crime, just like Jonathan’s is the minority factor. The APC have learnt from the Republican Party, how to destroy what they could not get through the ballot system.
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Behind the veneer of the alliance between dominant regional parties in the South West and the far north, is a battle to remove a minority person in power.
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Gen. Obasanjo’s claims that Jonathan over populated his adminstration with Ijaw people was effectively debunked by Chief E.K. Clark. The charge of marginalisation which the Yorubas drummed up against Jonathan was recently exposed, Femi Aribisala on January 28, 2014, in his article entitled: “What Does Tinubu Want”.
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According to Aribisala, Alhaji Bola Tinubu used CAN members in the House to sabbotage the nomination of their own daughter as a Speaker of House of Representatives beause he did not want and nobody from Obasanjo’s camp to wittle down his dictatorial hold on politics in South West.
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The analysis of Aribisala clearly exposed the “APC as a coalition of ethnic and religious bigots who are masquerading as progressives, on a mission to rescue Nigeria”. It is obvious that their main agenda to wrestle power from a minority man, whom they think should be eternally grateful that he had the opportunity to get to that office in the first place.
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But the truth remains that if Jonathan is bullied out of power, Nigeria’s Petroluem and power sectors will die. Those who think that the man from whose land oil is drilled to run Nigeria is not fit to rule Nigeria, then you must be kidding. This should be clear to those behind this parochial stop Jonathan gang up.
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It is better to give him a second term than threatening hell and violence, which no section of the country has monopoly of. It goes without saying that nobody should think of the minorities as second class citizens or subjects of a conquered territory.
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The presumed incompetence and poor public perception of the Jonathan admistration is a fallout of the failure of his media managers and the ministers who have failed to deliever, the presidency is not a one man show, but ultimately the President takes the rap. Period.