By Reno Omokri: My dear brothers and
sisters, a number of you have asked me,
particularly on Social Media, why I think
President Goodluck Jonathan deserves
your vote. I will use this space to answer
that question headlong and
unequivocally, because I believe with
every fiber of my being that reelecting
President Jonathan is the best course of
action that Nigerians can take if we do not
want to go back to the old ways in which
the government dictated to us rather than
related to us.
|| Nigerians want to know what a
candidate will do for them. They do not
want to listen to candidates bicker like
motor park touts. Even those that do
not support the President or the PDP
have at least heard of the
Transformation Agenda. Have you
heard of the opposition's agenda?
Everything about the emergence of
President Jonathan as the candidate of
the PDP shows his party and it's candidate
as the only truly national candidate. The
National Convention in the Federal Capital
Territory, which is known as the 'Center of
Unity' was auspicious and befitting as the
PDP is the only political party that projects
one united and indivisible Nigeria.
Nigerians can take pride in the PDP and
its pan Nigerian credentials. The party
does not have regional bases. The whole
nation is its base.
The ruling has a unique ability to unite as
a party that goes on to unite Nigeria as a
nation.
The PDP is the largest party in Africa and
under this banner, we have grown our
economy to the point where it is now the
largest economy in Africa proving that as
the PDP grows stronger, Nigeria grows
stronger.
And with all due respect, the choice
between the PDP's candidate, President
Goodluck Jonathan and the opposition's
candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari
is clear.
Lagosians who are today escaping Lagos
traffic via the air conditioned Goodluck
train must be under no illusion that this
service just appeared from nowhere. No.
It came about via a visionary long term
plan whose ultimate goal when fully
implanted will see a Lagos-Ibadan High
Speed metro line that will enable people
live in Ibadan and work in Lagos. The
contract was signed in August 2012 for
$1.5 billion and the management of the
Chinese Firm CCECC has mobilized to site.
The project itself, being part of the
Interstate Rail Project, has been listed by
KPMG as one of the world's top 100
infrastructure projects!
This is a fulfillment of the idea that Alhaji
Lateef Kayode Jakande had way back in
1982-3 but which was delayed when the
military thought they had murdered that
idea by canceling the project. But that
project has been given new life today by
the President Goodluck Jonathan
administration because as Thomas
Sankara said "you cannot kill ideas".
Some people erroneously think that
President Jonathan will not do well in the
2015 election in Katsina State, but the
people of Katsina will vote for President
Jonathan because he built the only
Federal University in Katsina state as well
as the only 6 Almajiri schools in that state.
Before the ascension of the President to
power, Katsina and 11 other states had no
Federal Universities.!
The 2015 election is about records. The
President has his record and the
opposition have theirs.
The days of selling a candidate based on
his ethnicity, region and religion must go
forever. 2015 must be about issues,
records and ideas!
I, Reno Omokri, am proud to say that
President Jonathan has never publicly or
privately called for violence or bloodshed.
President Jonathan's has bequeathed a
good Human Right Record to Nigeria. No
political Prisoners exist in Nigeria. No one
is imprisoned for their views under
President Jonathan. What is the
opposition's Human Right record?
When President Jonathan took office in
2010, it used to take an average of 7-8
hours to go from Benin to Lagos. Today,
after the reconstruction (bot repair) of the
Benin-Ore road, that same journey can be
done in 3 hours and the President sent
the Coordinating Minister for the
Economy, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
to undertake the journey and verify the
Estimated Travel Time on that road.
Some people say the opposition is coming
to fight corruption and I ask them if they
have seen the latest Corruption
Perception Index released by
Transparency International 2 weeks ago?
Under President Jonathan, Nigeria
progressed 8 points upward in the scale
proving that the President is tackling
corruption headlong.
The major progress Nigeria made in the
2014 Corruption Perception Index
released by Transparency International
are the result of the clinical surgical
incision made by President Jonathan at
the root of corruption in Nigeria.
Gone are the show trials that glorify style
over substance with media prosecutions
that do not lead to convictions. Under
Jonathan, Nigeria has had more
corruption convictions than at any other
time and Transparency International
noticed.
Remember that the Fertilizer
Procurement and Distribution sub sector
of the Agricultural sector was a veritable
channel of corruption. Billions of dollars
went into private pockets as middlemen
inflated costs and supplied adulterated
products to farmers. But under President
Jonathan's watch, 14 million farmers
were registered by the Ministry of
Agriculture who connected them directly
to the product through an e-wallet system
by which the Agriculture ministry send
texts to farmers to go and pick up their
fertilizer and seeds direct from their
locality.
What greater anti corruption credential
can you have than to weed out 50,000
ghost workers from the Federal Civil
service saving Nigeria almost 350 billion
Naira per annum?
As I speak to you, the Abuja-Kaduna Rail
project has been completed, under
budget and under the time frame for
which this administration promised which
is as a result of the new efficiency of the
Federal Civil Service which, through the
Federal Ministry of Works, had been able
to supervise the contractors efficiently
because no kickbacks exchanged hands.
My brothers and sisters, as I unveil my
candidate to you, I am confident not only
that he will win the 2015 Presidential
elections based on his record, I will
further call on you and other well
meaning Nigerians, that If you value
human life, please urge INEC to make
candidates take an oath not to incite
violence when they lose in 2015.
I sometimes wonder if the opposition
think that President Jonathan is a time
traveller. Why do I say so? When the
opposition says Nigeria's problem is
Jonathan perhaps they should explain
why we had problems when some of
them where in power. Is it that President
Jonathan travelled back into the past to
create the problems they faced?
They say that President Jonathan has not
achieved anything.
In that case is it that President Jonathan
bribed the UN to say that Nigeria's
average Life Expectancy rose from 47 to
52 years under his administration, or he
bribed the International Monetary Fund,
IMF, to promote Nigeria to a Middle
Income Nation in 2013 from a Low
Income Nation before that? Or he bribed
KPMG to list our interstate High Speed
Rail project as one of the world's top 100
infrastructure projects? Did he
compromise the International Food Policy
Research Institute to say that hunger has
reduced in Nigeria under Jonathan from
16% to 14.1%?
I am not saying that Nigeria's problems
are all solved. How could they be? It took
us 50 years to get to the point we were
before President Jonathan became
president in 2010. Surely it will take us
more than four years to get out of the
problems we faced for half a century.'
But one thing I can say is that we are
making progress under President
Jonathan. Elections are now free and fair
and we have bade farewell to do or die
elections.
People can say what they like and be
assured of freedom of speech and
freedom after the speech.
The era of politically motivated
assassinations are gone.
Our railways have been revived, our
major highways have either been revived
or are in a state of being revived.
All those 12 states that did not have
universities prior to Jonathan's ascension
now have universities.
In today's Nigeria, you cannot name a
state in Nigeria where Jonathan has not
built either a brand new university, a
secondary school, a hospital or a new
road!
President Jonathan knows that a mind is a
terrible thing to waste thus Jonathan built
150 schools for Almajiri. And then some
say that he has only scratched the
surface. My response to them is that if
previous administrations had likewise
scratched the surface, we won't have 12
million children out of the formal
education system in Nigeria!
President Jonathan is building schools in
every state because if disadvantaged kids
had schools in the 80s they would not
have grown up into adults that believe
that books are haram!
Those regions that did not have
international airports before Jonathan
now have.
Today, Hyundai, Kia and Nissan have
opened up vehicle manufacturing/
assembly plants in Nigeria even as the
government, most especially the
Presidency, is patronizing Innoson cars as
official cars.
Nigerians want stability in their leader.
You won't marry a person who jumps
from relationship to relationship, so why
support a Presidential aspirant who
jumps from party to party?
From 1999 till today, President Goodluck
Jonathan has remained in one party
come rain come shine. Who in the
opposition can make such a claim?
As elections approach, expect more panic
attacks from a party that spent its time
insulting and criticizing the President
instead of selling its ideas to Nigerians.
They say that they will form a parallel
government if they lose in 2015. Under
Jonathan, elections held in Edo, Anambra,
Ondo, Ekiti and Osun. Which of them were
rigged? Why is APC rejecting 2015
elections in 2014?
My brother and sisters, never allow those
who swore that they were determined to
make some parts of Nigeria
"ungovernable" shake you and turn your
focus from the verifiable progress Nigeria
is making under President Goodluck
Jonathan. I can assure that just as he said
when he declared his interest to contest
the 2015 Presidential elections, under
President Jonathan's leadership, Nigeria
"will never go back to the old ways"!
Reno Omokri is the Special Assistant to President Jonathan on New Media
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