Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, Ijaw leader, in this encounter, explains why he was absent at the Tuesday event where President Goodluck Jonathan declared his re-election. He speaks against the backdrop of the position of the All Progressives Congress, APC, that the president ought not to have declared a day after the massacre of students in Potiskum, Yobe State?
By Henry Umoru
You can imagine my joy. I was not there. Even though I was not feeling too fine, I felt I would be too emotional to be present at the arena.
I could remember that on my 85th birthday, I went to the St James Anglican Church to give thanks to God. In my speech at the occasion, I thanked God for making it possible for everybody in Nigeria to aspire to the highest position in this country by making every Nigerian to vote voluntarily and willingly for Mr President in 2011. And Mr President has one more term to go according to the Constitution.
For you to be disqualified as a presidential candidate, you must have contested two elections. So I prayed that God should hear our prayer that Jonathan completes his term. So you can therefore imagine my joy that Nigerians from all walks of life, party men, non-party men, on their own, crowded the Eagle Square to celebrate the declaration of President Jonathan.
The minority issue
I want to use this medium to express my profound gratitude to our people, the minorities who felt they will never become the President of this country, and Nigerians who have made it possible. And the crowd that we saw at the Eagle Square on that day was wonderful, unprecedented. And I hope that Nigerians, as they did in 2011, will also give Mr President their massive vote because Mr President has performed, he has shown that he is a humble President and he has not created crisis on his own. And even though some people felt they will make Nigeria ungovernable for him, he has continued governing this country. He has not treaded on anybody’s toes.
People have abused him, the opposition who felt they should be the President of Nigeria have stopped at nothing.
They have carried their campaign outside of this country to the United States of America, to Great Britain and other parts of the world.
To imagine that nationals of a country could leave their country for other countries to condemn their country simply because they want power is the height of lack of patriotism. But I am happy that Nigerians are not listening to them. If they were listening to them, the crowd that came to the Eagle Square that day couldn’t have been there.
Curious bombings
The issue that children died a day after he declared, they know that the main purpose of insurgency, terrorism is to create a situation where government would be paralyzed, where the President would be frustrated, where the President would get angry, where the President will not be able to do anything and to do that that means you have surrendered government to them.
And that is what they are looking for. Killing of little children, what have the children done to them? They only want to draw the attention of the people to what they are doing, their evil. At the Eagle Square, the President felt it and asked Nigerians to observe one-minute silence for them. There was a time the President was going to Kano to attend a public rally, then the Nyanya bombing happened. Anytime the President wants to do anything, they will do something to make the country ungovernable for him. But thank God Nigerians are understanding.
The insurgents will be wiped away in the name of God so that we will have peaceful elections come February 2015.
And I want to once again to thank Nigerians for the love they have for Jonathan, for seeing Jonathan that he is a peaceful President, a man of the people, the man who has performed, the records are there.
So like I said, I was in a dream world that day, my dreams were fulfilled like many other Nigerians.
I want to specifically thank northerners who have been given the wrong impressions about Jonathan. I am happy that majority of northerners, Nigerians are with Jonathan; we have no quarrel with anybody.
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