Jonathan’s Book Receives More Knocks

Jonathan’s Book Receives More Knocks

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

Two days after the public unveiling of his book, ‘My Transition Hour’ the political account by former President Goodluck Jonathan, detailing his last days in office, has continued to receive knocks from the public.

The latest individual to criticise the book is a former presidential aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general election, Prof. Zainab Duke Abiola. She described the book as “a pseudologia fantastica” and a monumental manipulation of historical facts and figures.

In a statement issued Thursday in Abuja, Abiola, the wife of the Late MKO Abiola, the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 election, wrote off Jonathan’s book, saying “It is riddled with potholes and innuendoes aimed at a scandalous endangerment of the highway of our country’s history”.

In the same vein, she described as ludicrous the claim by the ex-president that former US President Barack Obama and former UK Prime Minister, David Cameron were liable for his defeat by President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 Presidential election.

Abiola accused President Jonathan of fixation on the presidency and not wanting to believe that Nigerian voters swept him out of power because of his gross incompetence and ineptitude, though he conceded defeat to President Buhari after he lost the elections.

“For the records, Jonathan lost the election because he made himself the sole candidate of the PDP despite his abysmal failure in governance. He directed the party to print only one presidential nomination form 001, which I paid for; but because of his blind ambition, he confiscated my Form 001 and went into the political battlefield in borrowed robes, thereby meeting his political waterloo accordingly.”

However, the instrument that removed ex-president Jonathan from office was my presidential nomination form 001 and not Obama.”

Prof. Abiola, an alumnus of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS) said attempts by Jonathan to reverse history by casting aspersions on everybody for his failed presidential adventure cannot be sustained.

She rapped the former president for plunging the country into an avoidable security and humanitarian crisis, in his handling of the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok on April 14, 2014, while placing the blame on certain state governors and security apparatus.

She also accused the former president of turning the national treasury into a piggy bank for his family and cronies.

“I think the only option left for Jonathan is to plead with God and Nigerians for forgiveness and until we forgive him, he should remain in his purgatory of lethargy. No amount of write-up can erase the fact that he took this great nation for granted.

The indeprecabilis question for Jonathan to answer is ‘what did he do with the power Nigerians entrusted him with?’ Did he ameliorate the sufferings of Nigerians or even the marginalised Niger Deltans? Did he even put drinking water in his own village? Are Jonathan’s village mansions accessible by road? Why does he charter helicopters to travel to his own village? Jonathan said corruption is not stealing and thereafter flagged off the looting spree of the treasury, which ultimately plunged Nigeria into recession when he left. Jonathan will go down in history as Nigeria’s worst political mistake” she said.

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