Why Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Will Win in 2015 – By Reno Omokr
The Special Assistant to President Jonathan on New Media, Reno Omokri writes on why he believes the president will win in 2015 presidential elecetion. Read below and tell us what you think about it…
My dear brothers and sisters, a number of you have asked me, particularly on Social Media, why I think President Goodluck Jonathan deserves your vote. I will use this space to answer that question headlong and unequivocally, because I believe with every fiber of my being that reelecting President Jonathan is the best course of action that Nigerians can take if we do not want to go back to the old ways in which the government dictated to us rather than related to us.
Everything about the emergence of President Jonathan as the candidate of the PDP shows his party and it’s candidate as the only truly national candidate. The National Convention in the Federal Capital Territory, which is known as the ‘Center of Unity’ was auspicious and befitting as the PDP is the only political party that projects one united and indivisible Nigeria.
Nigerians can take pride in the PDP and its pan Nigerian credentials. The party does not have regional bases. The whole nation is its base.
The ruling has a unique ability to unite as a party that goes on to unite Nigeria as a nation.
The PDP is the largest party in Africa and under this banner, we have grown our economy to the point where it is now the largest economy in Africa proving that as the PDP grows stronger, Nigeria grows stronger.
And with all due respect, the choice between the PDP’s candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan and the opposition’s candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari is clear.
Lagosians who are today escaping Lagos traffic via the air conditioned Goodluck train must be under no illusion that this service just appeared from nowhere. No. It came about via a visionary long term plan whose ultimate goal when fully implanted will see a Lagos-Ibadan High Speed metro line that will enable people live in Ibadan and work in Lagos. The contract was signed in August 2012 for $1.5 billion and the management of the Chinese Firm CCECC has mobilized to site.
The project itself, being part of the Interstate Rail Project, has been listed by KPMG as one of the world’s top 100 infrastructure projects!
This is a fulfillment of the idea that Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande had way back in 1982-3 but which was delayed when the military thought they had murdered that idea by canceling the project. But that project has been given new life today by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration because as Thomas Sankara said “you cannot kill ideas”.
Some people erroneously think that President Jonathan will not do well in the 2015 election in Katsina State, but the people of Katsina will vote for President Jonathan because he built the only Federal University in Katsina state as well as the only 6 Almajiri schools in that state. Before the ascension of the President to power, Katsina and 11 other states had no Federal Universities.!
The 2015 election is about records. The President has his record and the opposition have theirs.
The days of selling a candidate based on his ethnicity, region and religion must go forever. 2015 must be about issues, records and ideas!
I, Reno Omokri, am proud to say that President Jonathan has never publicly or privately called for violence or bloodshed.
President Jonathan’s has bequeathed a good Human Right Record to Nigeria. No political Prisoners exist in Nigeria. No one is imprisoned for their views under President Jonathan. What is the opposition’s Human Right record?
When President Jonathan took office in 2010, it used to take an average of 7-8 hours to go from Benin to Lagos. Today, after the reconstruction. (Not repair) of the Benin-Ore road, that same journey can be done in 3 hours and the President sent the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to undertake the journey and verify the Estimated Travel Time on that road.
Some people say the opposition is coming to fight corruption and I ask them if they have seen the latest Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International 2 weeks ago?
Under President Jonathan, Nigeria progressed 8 points upward in the scale proving that the President is tackling corruption headlong.
The major progress Nigeria made in the 2014 Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International are the result of the clinical surgical incision made by President Jonathan at the root of corruption in Nigeria.
Gone are the show trials that glorify style over substance with media prosecutions that do not lead to convictions. Under Jonathan, Nigeria has had more corruption convictions than at any other time and Transparency International noticed.
Remember that the Fertilizer Procurement and Distribution sub sector of the Agricultural sector was a veritable channel of corruption. Billions of dollars went into private pockets as middlemen inflated costs and supplied adulterated products to farmers. But under President Jonathan’s watch, 14 million farmers were registered by the Ministry of Agriculture who connected them directly to the product through an e-wallet system by which the Agriculture ministry send texts to farmers to go and pick up their fertilizer and seeds direct from their locality.
What greater anti corruption credential can you have than to weed out 50,000 ghost workers from the Federal Civil service saving Nigeria almost 350 billion Naira per annum?
As I speak to you, the Abuja-Kaduna Rail project has been completed, under budget and under the time frame for which this administration promised which is as a result of the new efficiency of the Federal Civil Service which, through the Federal Ministry of Works, had been able to supervise the contractors efficiently because no kickbacks exchanged hands.
My brothers and sisters, as I unveil my candidate to you, I am confident not only that he will win the 2015 Presidential elections based on his record, I will further call on you and other well meaning Nigerians, that If you value human life, please urge INEC to make candidates take an oath not to incite violence when they lose in 2015.
I sometimes wonder if the opposition think that President Jonathan is a time traveller. Why do I say so? When the opposition says Nigeria’s problem is Jonathan perhaps they should explain why we had problems when some of them where in power. Is it that President Jonathan travelled back into the past to create the problems they faced?
They say that President Jonathan has not achieved anything.
In that case is it that President Jonathan bribed the UN to say that Nigeria’s average Life Expectancy rose from 47 to 52 years under his administration, or he bribed the International Monetary Fund, IMF, to promote Nigeria to a Middle Income Nation in 2013 from a Low Income Nation before that? Or he bribed KPMG to list our interstate High Speed Rail project as one of the world’s top 100 infrastructure projects? Did he compromise the International Food Policy Research Institute to say that hunger has reduced in Nigeria under Jonathan from 16% to 14.1%?
I am not saying that Nigeria’s problems are all solved. How could they be? It took us 50 years to get to the point we were before President Jonathan became president in 2010. Surely it will take us more than four years to get out of the problems we faced for half a century.’
But one thing I can say is that we are making progress under President Jonathan. Elections are now free and fair and we have bade farewell to do or die elections.
People can say what they like and be assured of freedom of speech and freedom after the speech.
The era of politically motivated assassinations are gone.
Our railways have been revived, our major highways have either been revived or are in a state of being revived.
All those 12 states that did not have universities prior to Jonathan’s ascension now have universities.
In today’s Nigeria, you cannot name a state in Nigeria where Jonathan has not built either a brand new university, a secondary school, a hospital or a new road!
President Jonathan knows that a mind is a terrible thing to waste thus Jonathan built 150 schools for Almajiri. And then some say that he has only scratched the surface. My response to them is that if previous administrations had likewise scratched the surface, we won’t have 12 million children out of the formal education system in Nigeria!
President Jonathan is building schools in every state because if disadvantaged kids had schools in the 80s they would not have grown up into adults that believe that books are haram!
Those regions that did not have international airports before Jonathan now have.
Today, Hyundai, Kia and Nissan have opened up vehicle manufacturing/assembly plants in Nigeria even as the government, most especially the Presidency, is patronizing Innoson cars as official cars.
Nigerians want stability in their leader. You won’t marry a person who jumps from relationship to relationship, so why support a Presidential aspirant who jumps from party to party?
From 1999 till today, President Goodluck Jonathan has remained in one party come rain come shine. Who in the opposition can make such a claim?
Nigerians want to know what a candidate will do for them. They do not want to listen to candidates bicker like motor park touts. Even those that do not support the President or the PDP have at least heard of the Transformation Agenda. Have you heard of the opposition’s agenda?
As elections approach, expect more panic attacks from a party that spent its time insulting and criticizing the President instead of selling its ideas to Nigerians.
They say that they will form a parallel government if they lose in 2015. Under Jonathan, elections held in Edo, Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun. Which of them were rigged? Why is APC rejecting 2015 elections in 2014?
My brother and sisters, never allow those who swore that they were determined to make some parts of Nigeria “ungovernable” shake you and turn your focus from the verifiable progress Nigeria is making under President Goodluck Jonathan. I can assure that just as he said when he declared his interest to contest the 2015 Presidential elections, under President Jonathan’s leadership, Nigeria “will never go back to the old ways”!
Reno Omokri
My dear Reno Omokri,
Thank you for informing Nigerians on the activities of Goodluck Jonathan’s government even though the National Orientation Agency and the Mass media failed in this regard.
Let me start by saying I am neither a fan of Goodluck Jonathan nor do I have anything personal against Buhari, or any of the other Presidential candidates for that matter. However, as a patriotic Nigerian, I am compelled to contribute to this discuss in the interest of posterity. After all, it is a well known maxim that evil thrives when men keep quiet in times of moral crisis. It is therefore, a matter of moral obligation, and with a deep sense of responsibility that I make this contribution.
First, I must say your long list of President Jonathan’s achievements is simply awesome!!! It is particularly heart warming because all these were achieved in his first term. In my opinion, only Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and General Gowon came close to Jonathan’s achievements among Nigerian leaders.
However, in your account of Jonathan’s stewardship, you forgot to mention the privatization of NEPA and NITEL which no previous government had the political will to do. Even el Rufai will commend President Jonathan for this singular achievement. The administrative acumen and political sagacity the President has demonstrated lately in dealing with insecurity in the country particularly the menace of Boko Haram is indeed commendable. Even Americans and their western allies will admit it is not a mean achievement to build a formidable military alliance with so many countries to prosecute war against insurgency. This is why the formation of ECOMOG and its successes in the sub region remains one of President Ibrahim Babangida’s success stories. So far, It is incontestable that Nigeria is winning the war against insurgency. It has earned Nigeria respect among committee of nations. For once, those who think the Nigerian project will cease to exist in 2015 now have a different view. Indeed, Nigeria remains one indissoluble political entity.
Now that we have the biggest economy in Africa, the opposition should tell Nigerians how they intend to improve on the economy, and perhaps make us one of the biggest economies in the world with facts and figures and not political rhetorics. One thing is clear though, Trade by barter economic policy of 1984 to 1985 left Nigerian economy worse off, and certainly can not work in the 21st century. It is obvious among the Presidential candidates who is clueless, and bereft of ideas on how to run the economy. Even President Obasanjo in his recent controversial book said unequivocally that Buhari cannot manage the Nigerian economy. Nigerians must not allow primordial sentiments and unbridled emotions to becloud their sense of judgment.
In addition, since the opposition candidate has also occupied the same office in the past, it will be necessary to compare his job performance, and human rights records with that of President Jonathan. The opposition should not be allowed to sweep under the carpet the nightmare that was Buhari’s regime in the ’80s or pretend that their Presidential candidate has not ruled Nigeria before. Remember Rafindadi’s Ghestapo (SSS boss under Gen. Buhari), which was dismantled by President Ibrahim Babangida, and Nigerians hived a sigh of relief.
Let me quickly add also, that not only did Buhari councel the Lagos metro line project, he also refused to complete the Third Mainland bridge thereby causing untold hardship to Lagosians. How convenient it is now for APC members to pretend to forget all these anti masses agenda of Buhari regime.
It is laughable to hear the opposition say Buhari will introduce free education from primary to Tertiary level. Nothing can be farther from the truth. His actions and utterances while in government and out of government are reflections of his anti education tendencies. APC should tell Nigerians what percentage of our national budget was for education under Buhari. One of the first things Buhari did when he became Head of state, albeit by force, was to immediately remove the Federal Government meal subsidy for Nigerian Universities and Polytechnics students. Indigent Nigerian students suffered untold hardship as a result of this unpopular decision. Well – meaning Nigerians wondered why innocent Nigerian students should be punished for the failures of the political class. Needless to say Nigerian Tertiary education has not recovered from that anti people policy till date. It will be interesting for Buhari to tell Nigerians how much he saved by bringing untold hardship to indigent Nigerian families whose children and wards were in schools then. Perhaps Nigerians will forgive him if he tells us what his government did with such savings. Did I hear you say western education is evil? It is strange how APC wants to use political propaganda to fool Nigerians! It is sheer deceit and a futile attempt to try to sell Buhari to Nigerians as a caring, people – oriented leader. He has never been, and will never be a compassionate leader. A Leopard does not change its spots irrespective of age or political dispensation!
Lastly, the Nigerian media, as part of its social responsibility, should inform Nigerians about the job performance and human rights records of both candidates when they ruled Nigeria at different times.
In closing, my advise to President Jonathan is that though he has recorded an above average performance in his first term, there is still room for improvement. I hope a second term will afford him the opportunity to finish the unfinished projects. Only the Nigerian electorates can decide that. It is my prayer that Nigerians make informed decision in the forth coming elections.
Good luck to your candidate and good luck to Nigeria!
Thank you and long live Nigeria!!!