Beware, Jonathan’s Government Set To Plunge Nigeria Into Confusion By Scuttling February Elections, APC Raises Alarm

All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation has alerted the nation of what it called “a dastardly plot by the PDP and the President Jonathan-led government to scuttle the 2015 general elections.”
A statement by the Director of media and publicity for the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, Mallam Garba Shehu today, disclosed that the government plans to use the subterfuge of the frivolous litigation by some people to get a court pronouncement (from one of the Presidency’s pliable Judges) to the effect that General Muhammadu Buhari – the APC presidential candidate – lied under oath in saying that the military had his certificate, whereas, the military had denied being in possession of the certificate.
Garba Shehu said that the arrangement is that the counter arguments by the APC candidate’s counsel would not matter because the particular Federal High Judge has been prepared to do a dirty hatchet job.
According to the APC Presidential campaign spokesman, the calculation of this plan is that the wicked pronouncement of disqualification of the APC candidate would precipitate spontaneous violent protests across the country.
Garba Shehu said this scenario would then make President Goodluck Jonathan, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the 2015 general election, to declare a six-month state of emergency across the land.
He disclosed that the three-week long strike action by the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) was embarked upon on the prodding of the PDP-led Federal government as a way to stem any higher Court upturning of the lower Court pronouncement which ruled on President Jonathan’s eligibility to contest the February 14 election.
He said that the same trade Union has been procured to open the Court to allow for this Court Pronouncement in disqualifying General Buhari from contesting the election.
“We are aware of the intense desperation of the PDP-led Federal government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in desiring to retain political power at all costs despite his party’s overwhelming rejection by the Nigerian people, ahead of the 2015 general election.
“We have brought this wicked plot of the PDP-led government to the attention of Nigerians, from whom any government derives its legitimacy. Nigeria cannot be thrown into chaos because of the selfish and callous desire of a tiny cabal to goad the Nigerian people into its destructive path. The governance of the Nigerian people by any person or group of persons must have the assent of the Nigerian people.”
Garba Shehu then called on the International community to prevail on this obviously agitated presidency not to plunge the Nigerian State into avoidable intractable crisis. [myad]









Soludo, Fayemi And Fani-Kayode: My Takeaway, By Iyabo Obasanjo
Professor Soludo’s article on the elections in Nigeria is the best writing I have read recently on the real situation politically and economically in Nigeria.
The well-articulated response from Dr. Fayemi compared to the abuse infused response from Femi Fani-Kayode on the PDP side is a great example of the contrast of the status-quo compared to the alternative.
Whatever the case and I don’t expect miracles from APC but right now they have more thinking people than the PDP. As a Yoruba person, Dr. Fayemi’s response is how we expect our educated elite to take up issues and not the mad rantings of Fani-Kayode.
I agree with most of his premise but I do not think they (APC) can take up a massive public works program in a period of “famine” i.e. low oil prices.
During the great depression when Roosevelt used public works to help provide jobs, it was the stock market that failed i.e. Government revenue was affected from tax income but income from exportation which was then mainly agricultural goods was not affected.
The government could use money from its coffers to create jobs and provide skills and training, which people could then use in the private sector.
The best part of Dr. Fayemi’s response is that it is not elite focused. Nigerian governance as I saw it was not a democracy but an elitocracy. It is government of the elite by the elite for the elite and even if you grew up in near death poverty, once you left those circumstances, you forgot where you came from and concentrated on your immediate family and matters affecting the wellbeing of the elite.
Changing this perspective to make the elite understand that their wellbeing was in fact, dependent on the wellbeing of the masses will be APC’s challenge.
They are sourcing from the same pool of elite talent that every Nigerian government has to source from and it is this pool that essentially has to be different or we will find ourselves again at precipice as usual.
Iyabo Obasanjo DVM, Ph.D, a former Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria wrote from the United States of America. [myad]