18/07/2013
MRS PATIENCE JONATHAN ASSAULT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND DEMOCRATIC
RIGHTS OF RIVERS PEOPLE
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| Dame Patience Jonathan |
It was Nobel Laureate Professor
Wole Soyinka who titled one of his works, “The man died” in him who keeps
silent in the face of tyranny and injustice. I would not have bothered to put
pen on paper, but have been compelled to do so in the larger interest and
because on this great day, today 18th July 2013, the whole world is
commemorating the 95th birthday of God’s gift to humanity, icon of
anti apartheid struggle and a role model to the Black race, Dr. Nelson Mandela
of South Africa. So one owes it to his honour to speak up when ones society is
drifting in the wrong direction and must be corrected lest one be an accomplice
through the act of silence. This write up is also in observance to the clarion
call by the United Nations (UN) that we should observe 67 minutes of our time today
to a social cause like Mandela sacrificed with his life for 67 years.
It is also an indisputable fact,
that a major reason why Africa has remained poor despite Gods abundant blessings materially, humanly, etc is because of the
abuse of power by its rulers who are overwhelmed by the expectations and
responsibilities of office. The abuse of power is manifested in all facets of national
life that is characterized by unbridled indiscipline.
For some time now, the Nigerian
people and the rest of the world have been treated to a show of shame in Rivers
State which is already undermining national security and our democracy and portraying
us in negative light in the eyes of the global village.
Just this morning, the media
reported that Nigeria’s first lady Mrs. Patience Jonathan opened up and confessed
to some Christian clerics from the South South who visited her in Aso Rock, Abuja
that truly she is the voice of Jacob and hand of Esau in the crisis rocking
Rivers state which has been the long held suspicion of most Nigerians since the
despicable undemocratic acts started manifesting and of which our shameless
Presidency like in its character denied, which was expected.
That our God is wonderful and marvelous
is stating the obvious. This is in view of the fact that some time ago in 2012,
a confession by President Goodluck at
the church dedication ceremony in his native Otueke village in Bayelsa state revealed
that he abused the constitution and office of the President of Nigeria by
soliciting the building of a church in his village as a gift from a government
contractor. Who else could have extracted such voluntary confession but the
Almighty God, not even the existence of the EFCC and other anti corruption
agencies both locally and internationally could have done it with such ease.
Also when she returned to the
country after several months abroad of which a lot of insinuations and reports
were churned out about her health condition from several quarters and despite
the shameless denials and counter denials by spin doctors in the Presidency,
our God proved himself above all mortals by making Mrs. Patience Jonathan voluntarily
confess publicly at a thanksgiving service that truly she went for medical
surgery of which she gave thanks to God for being alive.
Now by this latest confession, Mrs.
Jonathan must be applauded because our security agencies don’t have to look any
further for the cause of the crisis bedeviling Rivers state because the Yoruba
adage says “Kokoro ton je efo, idi efo lo wa” Literally meaning, that the ants
eating the vegetable in within the vegetable. One only hopes the security
agencies will muster the courage to invite the first lady for questioning immediately.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Goodluck Jonathan
the wife of the President of Nigeria and who is supposed to offer succor and
soothing balm to the pains round the husband’s neck in the herculean task of
administering this multi ethnic nation is rather the one undermining his
discharge of constitutional responsibilities by causing a breach of public
peace in her home state for personal reasons and in a needless show of power.
Mrs. Goodluck Jonathan by her
action has also shown that the wives of our elected public officials are in
dire need of education on the meaning and workings of democracy in order for
them not to abuse their personal and unconstitutional position as spouses to
undermine the prevailing societal peace and our democracy by engaging in
needless power show with other elected state officials who are not on the same
page with their husbands.
If Mrs. Jonathan had been
schooled in the tenets of democracy, she would have realized that resorting to
undemocratic, uncivilized, unconstitutional, crude and barbaric tactics of
hiring thugs and oil pipeline vandals to cause a breach of public peace for any
reason is demeaning to her personality as the wife of Mr. President and is a
blemish on the office of the President of Nigeria which is representative of
all that Nigerian people stands for. This irresponsible action of hers has gone
a long way in portraying her in the opposite image of her priviledge position of
a motherly figure for the country.
According to Mrs. Jonathan, “This
matter started four years ago at Anyugubiri in Okrika when I begged him not to demolish
part of Okrika but that he should dialogue first with the people. After that
incident, he called the chairman of Okrika Local Government and sacked him for
holding a reception in our honour; …….”. By the way, the governor was elected
by the generality of Rivers people and not by one person no matter how highly
placed. if you advise the governor and he does not listen because whatever
decision he takes should be in the larger interest and not in ones people’s
interest, madam, that is talking about dialogue should have approached the
courts to stop the governor if truly she believed in civilized engagement
rather than this show of force which is undemocratic and uncivilized.
She also quoted copiously from
the bible in the books of Hebrew 12:14 which urge us to embrace peace with all
men without which we cannot see God. Amaechi is my son, I cannot fight him and
I cannot kill him ……” How very hypocritical of you Dame Patience. If you
understand what you have just quoted with your lips but of which your heart is
very far away from God, you will realize the enormity of what you said, what
you are doing is beyond fighting Amaechi because presently you are abusing your
position to cause a breach of public peace in Rivers state which is like
fighting God if we take cognizance of the saying that the voice of the people
is the voice of God.
Mrs. Jonathan should rather have
used her position of mother of some (5) rebellious members of the Rivers state
house of assembly to lobby other members to buy into her position as championed by the members to
legitimately and constitutionally fight her cause if indeed they were
altruistic rather than the despicable show of shame she is presently engaged in.
As for the clerics, since one wasn’t
there when they visited Dame Patience Jonathan, one hoped they told her the
truth which is that by abusing her position to cause a breach of public peace
in Rivers state and undermine our democracy, she has sinned against man and God
of which they should have prayed with her for forgiveness and a change of heart
since God had used them to make her confess of this national embarrassment she
has caused the country.
By this voluntary confession, one
would expect Mr. President to first of all apologize to the country for this
show of shame from the first family and then sit down the wife and engage her
in frank talk about her embarrassing behavior to his office which is
unacceptable since she is misdirecting her energy. Mr. President should
admonish her to devote her time to worthy causes since there are lots of
societal issues that she could help draw attention to for government attention.
Lest we forget, in the mean time and for future purposes, Mrs. Jonathan should
be availed educative materials on the meaning and workings of democracy.
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