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President Jonathan, Why Do You Engage And Condone Corruption, Terrorism, And Impunity? By Bunmi Awoyemi

January 9, 2015

President Jonathan, where is the audit report indicting your administration for stealing $20b? Where is the N4 trillion you have spent on security in the last 4 years? Where is the $50m per day that you have generated for yourself since 2010 from crude oil theft in conjunction with the 12 oil tankers, PEACE 1-12 belonging to your wife under the protection of the Nigerian Navy? Where is the $1b that you and Stella Oduah stole in the aviation sector under your fake airport remodeling and aviation transformation agenda? Where is the N3-N4b per year that you budgeted for food at Aso Rock?

I have heard time and time again from you, President Jonathan, that one of the reasons I should vote for you is to ensure the continuity of your programs. You repeated this at your Lagos State campaign rally when you angrily asked me for my vote. You concurrently criticised Nigerians in the diaspora and Nigerians on social media, whom you accused of unfairly criticizing your government.

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You have forgotten that millions of Nigerians on social media, including yours truly, voted for you in 2011 because we were deceived into believing that you had a vision and a plan for Nigeria. You reeled out 91 electoral promises and we thought you really did intend to fulfill at least 75% of those promises. Unfortunately, you fulfilled only 8 out of the 91 electoral promises you made during your campaign as you moved from state to state, raising the expectations of millions of Nigerians, only for you to dash our hopes. Do you want me to allow the continuity of the stealing in your administration that you said is not corruption?


Where is Nigeria's missing $20b generated from crude oil sales? Where is the audit report indicting your administration for stealing $20b? Where is the N4 trillion you have spent on security in the last 4 years? Where is the $50m per day that you have generated for yourself since 2010 from crude oil theft in conjunction with the 12 oil tankers, PEACE 1-12 belonging to your wife under the protection of the Nigerian Navy? Where is the $1b that you and Stella Oduah stole in the aviation sector under your fake airport remodeling and aviation transformation agenda? Where is the N3-N4b per year that you budgeted for food at Aso Rock?

Where are the reports of all the fake committees that you have set up so far? There should be close to 100 committees.

Why did you hire soldiers and policemen to drive your campaign buses to the Northwest and Northeast because Nigerians have refused to do so at any price?

Why are you using soldiers and policemen to paste your campaign posters across Nigeria simply because ordinary Nigerians have refused to do it for you?

Why are you bastardizing our soldiers and policemen and misusing them?

Why did you transport thousands of people from 17 southern states to Lagos for your campaign rally to deceive Nigerians that Lagosians support you? Why did you induce them with bribes to come to Lagos for your campaign rally?

Where are the almost 300 Chibok girls that your service chiefs told us they had initially rescued, only for them to tell us that they had not rescued them.  To make matters worse for your electability, your ministers and service chiefs told us numerous times that you know where the Chibok girls are; yet 8 months after they were kidnapped, you have not rescued them. Where are the remaining women, girls and boys running into the thousands who have been made sex slaves and suicide bombers by terrorists who should have been exterminated by you in a war on terror poorly executed by you?

Why did you dance over the graves of the almost 100 Nigerians that were killed at the Nyanya Abuja Bus Park by refusing to postpone your political rally as a gesture of respect towards the dead? Why did you do the same thing after over 200 Kano residents were killed by Boko Haram at the Kano Mosque close to the palace of the Emir of Kano? Why did you repeat this act of dancing "azonto" and "skelewu" at a PDP political campaign rally after over 50 boys were slaughtered by Boko Haram at a Federal Government-owned boarding school in Borno State? This is why I was really surprised to see you postpone your meeting with the PDP campaign council because of your sister's death. Your actions show that lives of ordinary Nigerians mean nothing to you. As long as you family members are fine, you don't care who dies. Nonetheless may the soul of your sister rest in perfect peace.

Why have your ministers and PDP spokespersons been engaging in doublespeak on the APC and General Buhari's purported support for insurgency? Why have they been saying after each bomb blast that APC and General Buhari are behind the planning and execution of each bomb blast only for the same people to say recently that all panels set up to investigate the APC and Buhari found no evidence whatsoever linking the APC and General Buhari to Boko Haram and terrorism? Why do you like engaging in petty politics? Why are you playing politics with the lives of Nigerians? You said that you know those who are supporting Boko Haram and that they are in your government but how come you are yet to fish them out and arrest them?

How come you said, before any investigation was carried out after the Oct. 1st 2010 bomb blast, that MEND had nothing to do with the the bomb blast only for you to state on the 8th of January, 2015, almost 4 years after, that MEND was responsible for the Oct. 1st bomb blast? Why are you inconsistent?

Why did you say that you have no enemies when you know that as Nigeria's Chief Executive, your job is to step on toes as you sign legislative bills passed by the National Assembly into law and enforce them? Why did you say that your style of leadership is to engage only in the prevention of corruption but not in punishing it by sending criminals to prison? What should we do with our criminal and penal code that prescribes various terms of imprisonment for various crimes? Should those laws be discarded? Could this be responsible for why almost every prison under your administration has experienced jail breaks on a weekly basis? Would you please tell us why you engage in and condone corruption, criminality, militancy, terrorism, theft, and impunity? 

Bunmi Awoyemi, Ph.D,  the author of this opinion piece, writes in from New Orleans, Louisiana and is a public affairs analyst, lawyer and entrepreneur.