Fictitious writer, Eghosa Imogie, who penned a diatribe against Vice President Goodluck Jonathan in this site last week, should actually ask God for forgiveness. Some of us who have followed the career of Dr. Jonathan for years read the piece with disgust. We know the writers. They also masquerade under the name of Bayelsa Transparency Initiative, and in Bayelsa, their funding is huge, and its source, oh so “transparent”!
In their vomitous piece, the group raised issues ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, in the vain effort to give Dr. Jonathan a bloody nose before the online audience. But from the reactions that have trailed the piece, Nigerians are smart enough to know an assassin wielding a pen when they see one.
What are the issues raised?
WEAK LEADERSHIP
The writers claimed that Dr. Jonathan is more of an administrator than a leader. This is actually a commendation. We believe what they meant to say was that the man is more of a thorough going process planner and achiever than a vainglorious soap box rabble-rouser that spews inanities from both sides of the mouth. Having made the point, we must note that there are different leaders for different times. There are leaders who lead nations to war (George Bush), and there are leaders who lead nations away from war (Barack Obama). There are leaders who build, those who destroy what has been built, and indeed those are saddled with the duty to rebuild that, which has been destroyed.
When Jonathan was a deputy governor, he indeed served loyally under Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha . He had a choice to go the route of some other deputy governors of that period who engaged in turf wars with their governors. He chose not to, and Bayelsa was the better for it. When Alamieyeseigha fell in the unfortunate circumstances that happened in 2005, Jonathan stepped in, albeit reluctantly. But within a few weeks, he was able to restore order to a state torn apart by the impeachment saga. Let us remember that Alamieyeseigha was and is still extremely popular among Bayelsans and Ijaws generally.
Those who knew the tempest of those heady days still commend Jonathan for rising up to the occasion and reuniting the fractured state behind him at the time it mattered most. That, dear friends, is leadership!
In the 15 months or thereabout that he was governor, he track records were transparent enough for all to see. Realising that Bayelsa had more riverine areas than Rivers and Delta states; he started the Ekole bridge project, which was 75 percent complete before he left. Those unfamiliar with the terrain may not understand the significance of the Ekole Bridge. But it is to Bayelsa what the Third Mainland Bridge is to Lagos. In fact, Governor Sylva who completed the project named it the Goodluck Jonathan Bridge, and it remains the only major bridge in Bayelsa built by the state government since 1996 when the state was created.
In the space of 15 months, he initiated the ultra modern Bayelsa peace park, as a rendezvous for the younger generation in the state. Given the fact that Bayelsa was fast becoming a tourist destination given global interest in the Niger Delta, he initiated one five star hotel and two world-class three star hotels. These projects are in various stages of completion.
He also embarked upon the construction of three major highways meant to open up motorized access to the three senatorial zones of the state. But even more significantly, these three highways were all meant to terminate on the seashores of the hinterland and promote tourist access to the beautiful, yet unsung beaches of Bayelsa.
What about the Gateway road Jonathan started? This was another significant project to open direct access to Yenagoa, the state capital, from the East/West highway.
But even more fundamentally, he embarked on an urgent human capital development programme in the state. He initiated an annual programme to send at least 100 intelligent but indigent students from Bayelsa to the best secondary schools across the country on fully paid up scholarship. These schools were Turkish International College, Abuja; Atlantic Hall College, Epe; Vale College, Ibadan; Bells in Ota, and Doyin College, Lekki. The purpose and planned impact of this programme requires no further elaboration since these are school children who would never have had access to even the backyards of such institutions simply due to no fault of theirs.
Jonathan also initiated three unique new schools. One was to train talented children, the other to train intellectually gifted children and yet another to retrain the trainers at the primary school level on a regular basis. All these were to ensure that Bayelsa sheds it educationally disadvantaged status rapidly, and forge ahead with the rest of the Nigerian nation towards a brave new world.
These are just a few of the projects and programmes he embarked upon as governor, while equally applying himself assiduously to complete the projects that Alamieyeseigha left behind. If this is not leadership, then show me a leader!
FALSE ASSETS DECLARATION
We believe that in this wild accusation, the onus of proof rests with the accuser. We challenge them to give the world the names and the addresses of the “two gigantic hotels” belonging to Jonathan. As for Mrs. Jonathan, she is a public servant only on leave of absence, and public service rules dictate that she declares her assets independently of her husband. This she has done.
Indeed the accusations against Mrs. Jonathan were summarized under two sub heads, The Inflated Flower Contract and The Aruera Foundation N3 billion scam. These hack writers alleged that Mrs. Jonathan “awarded a contract of planting flowers in the Mbiama-Yenagoa road for a whopping sum of N500 million”. This is a big lie.
There was no such contract, and as wife of the governor, Mrs. Jonathan was in no position to “award contracts”. The so-called beneficiary of this fictitious contract, Mrs. Bozimo, is a public servant in Bayelsa, and heads the state radio station. Maybe we need to ask these fake writers who signed the contract, and by what company name it was awarded.
They also claim, “more than N3 billion naira was paid” to the Aruera foundation. We challenge them to provide even the most rudimentary proof of this payment, and establish the faintest audit trail of the movement of these funds. If Mrs Jonathan had N3billion, would she be running helter-skelter to find money to complete the Aruera foundation office on Isaac Boro road, a project that she started since 2006?
We also challenge them to prove the existence of choice property owned by the VP in Otuoke, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Uyo. We need to see pictures; we need addresses, not just vacuous noisemaking merely to annoy. It is on record that the only house the VP had in Otuoke was bombed in the build up to the 2007 presidential elections. It is now that he is putting up a modest home there, to at least have a home in his own village.
THE BIG COVER UP
It is quite strange that this same group once alleged that the VP left a debt profile of N75 billion in Bayelsa. They later revised the figure to N50 billion, and in this latest diatribe, it is now N28 billion. The good news is that Dr. Jonathan did not BORROW one naira from any bank during his tenure. Anyone with EVIDENCE, NOT MORE SILLY ALLEGATIONS, to the contrary should feel free to post it on Sahara Reporters for the whole world to see.
THE N8 BILLION GAS TURBINE SCANDAL
This is a scandal that dwells exclusively in the imagination of this group. First and foremost, there were no N8 billion contracts. A N3 billion contract was awarded to a competent company owned by a Bayelsan for a 31 Mega Watts Rolls Royce gas turbine, which has since been delivered, and the installation aspects are currently being worked upon. Infact, the Sylva administration reviewed this contract upwards by nearly N1billion. If it was inflated initially we should have seen a downward review or outright cancellation, not an upward review.
The allegation that the lady who won the contract is Dr. Jonathan’s “girlfriend” reveals the mindset of these hacks. This is a responsibly married woman, whose husband used to go with her to Government House to pursue her approvals that these characters are describing in such terms. Pity.
ON ANYIAM OSIGWE
With the overwhelming reader’s response to the parody of the “Igbo Contractor”, we are tempted to ignore it and leave the writers to just desserts! In a state where major contracts were given to foreign behemoths like Julius Berger, Setraco, Gitto Construziani and others, this group believes it was wrong for Jonathan to give a contract to an Igbo man. We are certain that if Ayiam Osigwe were a woman, they would have dubbed her another girlfriend of Jonathan. How silly! But we can disclose that there are also negotiations on going to review this contract upwards given the impact of inflation and devaluation on the original figure. And someone has the temerity to say it was inflated.
THE NEMBE-BRASS ROAD CLEARANCE
This is another silly allegation in its entirety. Is the Nembe council of chiefs the Bayelsa Tender Board? How can reasonable people want a state governor would push aside a fully qualified contractor and give the contract to another who didn’t qualify because some chiefs preferred one over the other? Is that not corruption in itself? Is it possible to bulldoze a major road without a survey? Abeg make we hear word!
It is obvious that this group has moved its campaign of calumny from newspaper advertorials to the online audience. All they want is to destroy an innocent man, who they fear, could attain the Presidency of Nigeria someday. And they are fellow Bayelsans like Jonathan. But from all we know about him, Jonathan has never sought, and is not seeking presidency. In fact he never did even aspire to be Vice President. He only wanted to be left alone to serve his people, only that the Good Lord had other plans. Please leave Jonathan alone.
Natein Ndutimi, a Bayelsan, is of the Abuja based Law and Due Process institute.
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