Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was yesterday cautioned by South-South leaders, chiefs, elders and stakeholders to stop harassing, intimidating, stampeding or blackmailing President Goodluck Jonathan.Obasanjo had recently accused President Jonathan of sundry issues including training of assassins to eliminate political opponents.But rising from its
meeting in Abuja, the South- South leaders, chiefs, elders and stakeholders told Obasanjo that Nigerians cannot breathe through his nose, adding that they over whelmingly supported him when he was the President and that they were not the ones that aborted his third term bid.Speaking though their spokesperson and chief coordinator in Abuja, Chief Bello Premier, the group condemned the letter Obasanjo wrote to Jonathan, describing it as doom and false alarm.Chief Premier said: “General Obasanjo is only shouting wolf when there is none at sight. The letter is full of premeditated ideas geared towards undermining the integrity of the South-South people and intended to keep them perpetually as minority in the political scheme of Nigeria as nation.”The group added that the South-South will resist vehemently any attempt to make them second class citizens in their own country, adding: “There is no way where one man (Obasanjo) would want the entire country Nigeria to breathe through his nose.”Saying that because Obasanjo’s bid to foist Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido and the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi on Nigeria as president and vice president respectively has failed and for that he reason, he wants to destabilise Jonathan’s administration, the South-South leaders said: “General Obasanjo shot himself in the leg when early in the year he anointed and pronounced Alhaji Lamido of Jigawa and Amaechi of Rivers states as next president and vice president respectively come 2015.“If he, Obasanjo, had his constitutional right to stand for an election to vote and be voted for, same goes for Dr. Jonathan, who is a bonafide Nigerian from the South-South. The right of offer of refusal to contest or not to contest in 2015 solely rest with Jonathan alone.“He must not be intimidated, harassed, stampeded or blackmailed to surrender power against the collective will of the good people of the South-South and Nigeria who in 2011 gave him (Jonathan) their mandate.”The group added that the bold developmental strides witnessed in the Jonathan have never happened before in the history of Nigeria despite the enormous challenges of both human and natural hiccups, which is of course global and its attended consequences.It added: “Despite the devastating phenomenon in the areas of security – terrorism, kidnapping and militancy, natural disasters like flooding, oil spillage among others, the Jonathan administration has made inroad in the power, telecommunication, agricultural, sport, education, health, defence, highways, aviation, waterways and other sectors.”
by OBIORA IFOH
