Ignore Jonathan’s promises on confab report – Buhari campaigners

The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation on Wednesday urged the South-West to ignore President Goodluck Jonathan’s repeated promises to implement the National Conference report.

The APC campaign said the President’s promises contained nothing that approximates to the zone’s collective interest.

According to the organisation, whilst it was not averse to any group supporting any candidate for the forthcoming general elections, it considered it important to state that a recent purported endorsement of Jonathan by former Confab conferees from the South-West was predicated on spurious and utterly dishonest reasons.

This was contained in a statement by the Director of Media and Publicity of the campaign, Malam Garba Shehu.

He noted that the points of the Yoruba agenda that could have favoured the South-West, in­cluding regional autonomy, restructuring, devolution of power and parliamentary system, could not sail through at the conference.

Shehu alleged that “the real reason” for the endorsement was the because of personal economy.

The statement read, “Some of them have had their personal finances transformed by way of juicy but dubious security contracts and handsome cash largesse by the government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan at the expense of Nigerian people.

“We consider it asinine that any group can predicate its support for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan on his promise to respect any agreement. The antecedents of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan speak eloquently of a serial promise breaker, unreliable keeper of gentlemanly agreement and unabashed turncoat!

“It will be recalled that the first real show of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s immense capacity for not keeping to pacts was when he, in 2010, conveniently walked away from his party’s North/South zoning arrangement, of which he was signatory to, with indescribable villainy.”

The campaign argued that of all the 492 members of the National confab members, none was elected by the people.

It noted that a comparison of this arrangement with that of the Constituent Assembly of 1977 revealed a conference that had most of the members elected by the people and which naturally midwifed the 1979 constitution.

The APC campaign said despite the pretences of members of this group to democracy, they thought it fit to attempt to stampede a nation to giving assent to a piece of document that bore the imprimatur of a negligible minority.

The campaign also said there was virtually a litany of reports from committees, which he empanelled, that have remained unimplemented in his four-year presidency thus far!

“Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as President, who refused to assent to the Bill that will empower Nigerians with disabilities, is doubtful would ever contemplate supporting better life for Nigerians without disabilities,” the statement stated.