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Lawyers and civil rights activists, on Wednesday,
assessed President Goodluck Jonathan’s New
Year message, urging him to match his words
with actions.
The lawyers and activists including a legal
practitioner, Mr. Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa, Mr.
Bamidele Aturu and the President of the
Campaign for Democracy, Dr. Joe Okei-
Odumakin, dismissed Jonathan’s promise to fight
corruption and increase power supply to 18
hours per day.
Adegboruwa, in an interview with one of our
correspondents in Abuja, on Wednesday noted
that the assurances of a man depended mostly
on his pedigree.
He said that in 2011, the President promised to
fight corruption and stabilise power supply.
These, the lawyer said, Jonathan had not fulfilled.
Adegboruwa said that Jonathan should start his
war against corruption with the sacking of the
Aviation Minister, Ms. Stella Oduah, over the
alleged N255m car scandal.
He said, “Several probe panels and committees
have been set up by this regime. Their reports
have not seen the light of the day. It is difficult
now to imagine that one can do, in one year,
what one was unable to do, in three years.
“The case of corruption in this particular regime
has become very notorious, with all the anti-
corruption agencies, totally castrated and
starved of funds, in order to make them
ineffective.”
Adegboruwa noted that he did not believe that
Jonathan would fight corruption this year.
“If the President has, in the course of his
encounter with God, contracted a New Year
resolution on this point, then he should start by
firing, immediately, the aviation minister,” he
said.
The lawyer said that the dwindling power supply
in the country was very alarming, in spite of the
Jonathan administration’s huge investment in
the sector.
According to him, it will be difficult to trust or
rely upon any promise made by the President,
going by his antecedents.
On her part, Okei-Odumakin described
Jonathan’s New Year message as an annual
ritual.
She said that Nigerians would hold the President
accountable at the end of the year.
Okei-Odumakin said, “Over the years, Nigerians
have had to wake up to such New Year promises
only to end same years in mysteries of no basic
amenities.”
On the war against graft, she said willingness of
the government to fight corruption entailed its
readiness to be politically committed to it.
“This is the only way that Nigerians will begin to
have trust in such declarations that may be
made by the government on a day like this,” she
said.
Also, a lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, said
Jonathan’s war against corruption would be used
to harass political opponents.
He said, “The war will be used as a tool against
political opponents. While it is shameful that we
remember the war against corruption only when
we have opponents to deal with or political
battles to fight, I really have no problem with it
for as long as those who are prosecuted really
have soiled their hands.
“It is no defence to corruption allegation or
charge to say that one is being politically
victimised.”
He also dismissed Jonathan’s promise to increase
power supply to 18 hours in a day.
Aturu said, “With respect to the promise to
increase the supply of electricity to 18 hours, if
it happens it would be one of the wonders of the
world. The infrastructure on the ground belies
that ambitious promise.”
He wondered how the promise would be fulfilled
in the face of acute shortage of gas and
manpower.
“If you ask me, we are tired of empty promises.
We want actions. We want politicians who looted
our treasury to be dealt with promptly according
to the law and we want dividends of democracy,”
he said.
Also, a leader of the All Progressives Congress,
Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, said the President was
incapable of making any meaningful plan for
Nigeria’s growth.
Fashakin, who was the National Publicity
Secretary of the defunct Congress for Progressive
Change, said this in a telephone interview with
The PUNCH in Abuja, on Wednesday.
The party chief explained that there was no way
any reasonable Nigerian would invest his hopes
on the President’s promises.
Fashakin said, “The truth must be told that
Jonathan has no plan for Nigeria. He’s incapable
of putting together a plan for Nigeria.
“There is no way any reasonable Nigerian should
believe him. Right now, they are even afraid to
give us any deadline when we will have
uninterrupted power supply in the country,
because they know that the deadlines that the
President has given so many times, have failed.
“There is this thing they talk about capacity,
when you don’t have it, you don’t have it. There
is just no two ways about it.
“This is an administration that is incapable of
doing anything meritorious for the people of this
country. Let no one be deluded into thinking
that the leopard can change its skin; there is no
way he can suddenly translate from
incompetence to competence.”
Also, the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders said
Nigerians would find it hard to believe President
Jonathan’s promise to fight corruption more
intensely in 2014 in his New Year message.
CACOL’s Executive Chairman, Mr. Debo Adeniran,
spoke with one of our correspondents on the
telephone said.
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