NATIONAL ASSEMBLY BLOCKADE: APC ACCUSES JONATHAN OF SABOTAGING WAR AGAIN BOKO HARAM.
November 20, 2014.
All Progressives Congress
The All Progressives Congress, APC, has accused President Goodluck
Jonathan of sabotaging his own Administration’s war against Boko Haram
on the altar of personal vindictiveness and political desperation, an
action that is unbecoming of a self-respecting national leader.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party said just because he was so desperate
to oust Aminu Tambuwal as the Speaker of House of Representatives,
President Jonathan ensured that the House could not meet as scheduled on
Thursday to consider his request for an extension of the State of
Emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.
“For a President who
has severally stated his administration’s commitment to the battle
against the insurgency in the North-east, is it not a cruel irony that
he allowed his personal ego and political desperation to override his
sense of propriety, by moving to have Mr. Tambuwal removed instead of
having the House of Representatives sit to consider his request?
“Does anyone need any more evidence that the president’s sole
preoccupation is how to win the 2015 elections, rather than the fate of
the hundreds of Nigerians who are daily being killed and maimed at the
epicentre of the insurgency? Had he been genuinely committed to the
fight against the insurgents, would the president not have allowed the
House to sit to consider his request? How does he feel now that the
entire National Assembly has been shut down because of his capricious
action?” it queried.
APC said because of his meddlesomeness in
the affairs of another arm of government, and also his blatant disregard
for a court order that the status quo be maintained on the issue of the
defection of the Speaker to the APC, the President on Thursday suffered
a moral and political defeat that will hunt him for a long time to
come.
“The plot was simple: The presidency decided to use the
reconvening of the House as an opportunity to remove the Speaker. While
Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha was accorded a presidential ride into the
premises of the National Assembly, House Speaker Tambuwal was barred
from entry by the hordes of security agents who have been deployed
solely for that purpose.
“Their plan was to ensure that, with Mr.
Tambuwal locked out, Ihedioha would preside over the reconvened House
and the Speaker will then be removed. The consideration of the request
to extend the State of Emergency was not important to the Presidency.
The fate of the Nigerians who are suffering from the insurgency, which
has displaced 1.5 million people, does not bother the Presidency. All it
wanted is to remove Tambuwal.
“However, the plan failed as
members of the House overpowered the security personnel were overpowered
by and the Speaker was led on foot into the Chambers, even as a rain of
tear gas fell on them. In the end, the President himself sabotaged his
Administration’s tepid war on terror, and he got himself a birthday gift
he didn’t bargain for: A humiliating political defeat that played out
on national television.
This is a clear reminder that there is always a limit to impunity!,” the party said.
APC said because it is clear that history is not a forte of this
presidency, it (presidency) needs to be reminded that the kind of crisis
it is willfully instigating in the National Assembly helped to truncate
the First Republic in the early 1960s.
The party said the crisis
instigated by the Jonathan Administration at the National Assembly on
Thursday showed the prescience of the “APC’s Salvation Rally” in Abuja a
day earlier to protest the runaway impunity, corruption, poor
governance, anti-democratic tendencies and win-elections-at-all-costs
disposition of the Administration.
“We have said it before and we
will restate it: It’s Jonathan first, Jonathan second, Jonathan third,
Jonathan always for this President.
If not, why will he be more
interested in playing politics with the lives and blood of our sons and
daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters who are suffering
untold hardships in the hands of Boko Haram, especially in the
North-east?
“Because of his ambition to be re-elected at all
costs, President Jonathan is ready to throw Nigeria into crisis. He is
ready to bring Nigeria down. He has presided over an unprecedented
assault on democratic institutions. He has presided over the desecration
of national institutions, especially the police.
“Is it right
for the police to be trampling on the constitution? Is it right for the
Inspector-General of Police, apparently acting under orders from the
President, to deploy the police to prevent the Speaker from entering the
House?
Why on earth would you not allow the Speaker of the
House, who is still seen as such by the law, to enter the House? What
would have happened if the Speaker had refused to reconvene the House?
Wouldn’t Nigerians have said he is putting his personal interest above national interest?” it queried.
APC said surely, Nigeria is in clear and present danger from the
inordinate ambition of President Jonathan to run for a second term, and
called on all men and women of goodwill to speak out before a desperate
President brings the country down on all Nigerians.
Lai Mohammed
National Publicity Secretary
All Progressives Congress (APC)
Abuja, Nov. 20th 2014
Source: #Premiumtime_News.
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