2015 electoral failure: Ijaw leaders dismiss Jonathan’s claims

2015 electoral failure: Ijaw leaders dismiss Jonathan’s claims

Prominent Ijaw groups and elders, yesterday, told former President Goodluck Jonathan, to blame himself for his defeat in the 2015 presidential election.
The leaders asked Jonathan to stop blaming his woes on the North and come clean on the issues that led to his ouster from the Presidency.
They, however, condemned a statement credited to former President Olusegun Obasanjo that Jonathan was too small for the Presidency, describing it as derogatory and childish.
They also appealed to the youths in the region to desist from issuing renewed threats of bombing of oil installations in the region.
Jonathan was quoted in a new book, Against the Run of Play, written by Segun Adeniyi, as saying that his re-election ambition was frustrated by northern betrayers.
But the two prominent Ijaw groups, Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide and the Ijaw National Congress (INC), including some Ijaw leaders, differed sharply with Jonathan’s claims.
The President of IYC, Mr. Eric Omare, said it was belittling for Jonathan, who occupied the highest political position with all security apparatus under his watch, to feign ignorance of conspiracies against him before the election.
He said: “I would like to align myself with statements credited to former Senate President David Mark who said that he told Jonathan that there was a conspiracy against him but how Jonathan could not decipher the information was what he could not fathom.
“Jonathan would not say he didn’t know about the conspiracy. You cannot be the commander-in-chief with all the security at your disposal without knowing of a conspiracy by a region against you. It was a conspiracy that was obvious to all Nigerians except himself. He needs not say it.”.
Also, a famous Ijaw leader and immediate past President of IYC, Mr. Udengs Eradiri, said Jonathan should not blame the North, adding that the former President failed to establish the required machinery before the election to get necessary feedback for the happenings across the country.
He recalled calling on Jonathan at the time to go outside conventional security protocol to gauge the mood of the nation but the former President ignored his advice.
He said: “I don’t see the North as betraying Jonathan. I think the problem was that Jonathan did not have the machinery necessary to give him full feedback of what was happening. It was Jonathan’s fault, not the fault of the North.

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