President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the January nationwide
protest over the total removal of subsidy from petroleum was stage
managed by a class of Nigerians who wanted the status quo of corruption
in that sector to remain.
He said it was not carried out by ordinary Nigerians who wanted to communicate their grievances to their government.Jonathan, who spoke at the 52nd Independence anniversary lecture
with the title, Nigeria: Security, Development and National
Transformation, said it was the responsibility of Government to provide
the enabling environment for development but it was left for the
citizens to ensure enforcement.
Reacting to the issue of the January protest raised by one of the
discussants and the Director of Centre for Democracy and Development,
Dr. Jibril Ibrahim, President Jonathan said, “Let me touch on what Prof.
Ibrahim said about the January subsidy protest, yes you said the
citizens were right, in a way they may be right, in a way they were also
misinformed.
If you had followed the last Earth Summit in Brazil, about
two countries came out to condemn the issue of subsidizing hydro carbon
all over the world. They stated that subsiding hydro carbon does not
bring development.“Look at the demonstrations back home, look at the areas this
demonstrations are coming from, you begin to ask, are these the ordinary
citizens that are demonstrating? Or are people pushing them to
demonstrate.
“Take the case of Lagos, Lagos is the critical state in the nation’s
economy, it controls about 53 per cent of the economy and all tribes
are there. The demonstration in Lagos, people were given bottled water
that people in my village don’t have access to, people were given
expensive food that the ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. So, even
going to eat free alone attracts people.
They go and hire the best
musician to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain;
is that demonstration? Are you telling me that that is a demonstration
from ordinary masses in Nigeria who want to communicate something to
government?
“For me, if I see somebody is manipulating anything, I don’t listen
to you, but when I see people genuinely talking about issues, I listen. I
am hardly intimidated by anybody who wants to push any issue he has. I
believe that that protest in Lagos was manipulated by a class in Lagos
and was not from the ordinary people.
“Government everywhere must create environment for development and
transformation, so I agree the lead must be the government but the
people must be the implementator if we must transform our country”.Jonathan also alleged that because of interest in 2015 election, the
media were being used to abuse the privileges of the Freedom of
Information Act to the point of overheating the system.
“The key issue we are discussing is about peace and development and
of course we all know that there is no way you can talk about
development when you have a lot of crisis. In fact some people make more
money when there is crisis and when there are crises it’s like a
country in a state of emergency, anything goes.
“Crisis is one aspect but generally if there is no peace is
extremely difficult for the ordinary people to survive though big
players in economy may survive. Ordinary citizens having small and
medium enterprises cannot come out to do business during crisis and of
course it affects the economy. So you must have peace to develop.
“Peace is one of the cardinal marks of a leader. In the monarchy in
the olden days, the king had maximum power, but for your kingdom to be
stable, you must have the military strength. So without stability of any
state we cannot develop.
“I agree totally with President Kufour who really gave us the breakdown of the kind of security situation that we have.“When you talk of insecurity of using bombs and guns to kill people,
what has been described as physical security, but in terms of social
security, food security, health and the justice system all have to do
with the security of individual.
“But I believe what we face in Nigeria though not peculiar to us;
one of our greatest problems is what I described as political security.“Government can continue to provide physical security but also very
important is the political security. When you have unending political
conflicts in Nigeria, the country cannot develop.
“I believe political security is a big issue. There is this axiom
that the pen is mightier than the sword. The sword is used to kill and
destroy, but what we use the pen to do is also very critical. When you
have society with these unending political conflicts, it is there on the
media whether print, electronic or social media, it brings a lot of
insecurity to the system and sometimes people begin to doubt your
government.
“For example, when we were contesting election, we promised it will
be free and fair, I was convinced I must do that even if I will lose the
election. After our election in 2007, even the presidents in our
neighbouring West African states were finding it difficult to
congratulate us because the observers felt the election was not properly
done.
That hounded us even when we travelled out and I promised myself
that if I have the opportunity to preside over election, I will do
something different even at my expense at least for the sake of the
country. And we did that but unfortunately, even though there were
crisis in some parts of the country, observers felt the election was
reasonably free and fair compared to others. But immediately after that
election, not quite six months, the kind of media hype that started
hitting us made us to stop and ask where this coming from?
“I said, I did not just come out from the blues to contest the
election, I was deputy governor for six and half years, I was a governor
for one and half years, I was a vice president, and before election, I
was the president up to April when the elections were conducted, people
knew me. So, within this period, including when I even acted, if I was
that bad, will people have voted for me? So for Nigerians to have voted
for me overwhelmingly, that means there must have been something they
were expecting and definitely six months would have been too short to
pass any valid judgement. But the media condemned me.
“And I believe is not just the media, like when we talk about the
Boko Haram, we have political Boko Haram, religious Boko Haram and
criminal Boko Haram. So also in the media, you have the professional
media and the political media. That is why I talk about the political
media, because of the interest of 2015, whatever you do is immaterial,
the government must be brought down. And that mentality cuts across most
African countries and even outside Africa.
“So addressing insecurity is critical in developing African state.
When you have this ending political conflict especially in a country
like Nigeria that is highly religious and with high ethno-tribal
sentiments, it becomes very potent to even create a lot of problems for
government.
“So I will plead with us as Nigerians that whenever we elect
government into power at whatever level, at least for the sake of the
country, allow the government to work before going into unnecessary
overheating the system.
“When you talk of providing infrastructure, whether power, water,
there is nothing you can use the magic wand to provide for the people,
it takes time. To build your personal house, there must take a good
number of days not to talk of infrastructure like power in a country
like Nigeria and with the challenges we have and so on and so forth.
“I believe our great problem is political conflict, for a typical
politician, the day you win election is the day you start the next
election.
“So as government, we are committed to creating the environment. I’m
quite pleased with the way President Kufour spoke on the issue of
transformation. I agree that the leader must be the key actor for
transformation, but those who will implement are the citizens. For
instance, during the election, we advocated one man one vote, we were
totally committed and I said it that nobody should rig election for me.
But Nigerians believed that we were sincere and because they knew we
were sincere, that took the life of its own. No, I don’t need to go and
preach again. We have monitored elections in Edo and other places,
nobody wants to compromise with his vote. It’s government that created
that environment, but it’s not government that will enforce it, it is
the citizen.
“That is why we are a bit worried that sometimes when government
create the environment, whether economic, social or even the media, but
how the citizens use those privileges matters so much.
“Take the media environment for instance, we signed the Freedom of
Information Bill into law, it became the Freedom of Information Act, but
are we using it in the way we are suppose to use it? Are some of us not
abusing the privileges? The media environment that should have helped
our transformation agenda are being used negatively, these are some of
the issues we need to address.
“The way Nigerians challenge and abuse me, yes the President has
enormous power, but if you use that enormous power to some extent, you
will look like a dictator. In a democratic setting, you want to create
an environment where people can create their opinion and that is why
people are allowed to talk freely and demonstrate. But are we doing so
properly”.
