\u00a0Judging from President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan\u2019s response to the letter of 2nd December, 2013, by former President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), it was obvious that the allegations he considered to be most worrisome were those in the areas of corruption and security.\u00a0 The President, in his letter, sought to dismiss each of OBJ\u2019s allegations as either wholly untrue or malicious or politically motivated.\u00a0 I think he was, to a large extent, successful in doing this. At any rate, he pushed the onus of proof on OBJ.\u00a0 \u201cIf you are sure of your allegations, show Nigerians the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nReading through most of the allegations raised in OBJ\u2019s letter, it was, perhaps, unnecessary for the president to have responded, as the issues did not even arise in the first place.\u00a0 Such, for instance, was the reference to the letter by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, alleging that \u201cthe sum of $49.8 billion was unremitted by the NNPC to the CBN\u201d and, therefore, that the funds were missing. Within days of OBJ\u2019s letter, a Technical Committee, earlier set up to reconcile the accounts of NNPC, came out with the finding that no funds were missing, compelling Sanusi to apologise before the Senate Committee on Finance, and to admit openly that he made an error.<\/p>\n
What character and what manner of persons would trump up such baseless allegations and yet feel no emotional twitch or embarrassment?\u00a0 OBJ is no ordinary person as, indeed, he said himself in the same letter: \u201cI have passed the stage of being flattered, intimidated, threatened, frightened, induced or bribed.\u201d Certainly, the man no longer has the capacity to entertain any sense of guilt, embarrassment and such cognate human feelings.<\/p>\n
Only a character like OBJ can put in black and white an unfounded charge such as President Jonathan \u201ckeeping over 1,000 people on a political watch list … and training snipers and other armed personnel secretly and clandestinely acquiring weapons\u201d for the assassination of Nigerians.\u00a0 Is he referring to the same Jonathan that we all know, the soft, humane and amiable Jonathan who declared before the Nigerian electorate in 2010 that: \u201cMy election is not worth spilling the blood of any Nigerian\u201d, as against OBJ\u2019s perception of election as a \u201cdo-or-die\u201d affair?<\/p>\n
President Jonathan has, of course, strongly denied the existence of a watch list and the training of a killer squad.\u00a0 Beyond that, he has also, through the Attorney-General of the Federation, directed the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate OBJ\u2019s alleged human rights violations, as contained in his letter.\u00a0 Even then, would it matter to OBJ, if at the end of all the investigations, it is found that the allegations are nothing but baseless rumours?<\/p>\n
It would be an error to think that OBJ is alone in this character mode of people inclined to paint Jonathan in the portrait of a violent and repressive leader, who would harass and victimise political opponents.\u00a0 Since OBJ\u2019s letter, a number of opposition politicians have latched on to his so-called watch list in explaining their anxiety and declining political fortunes.\u00a0 Already, there is a long list of them on the imaginary list, each claiming to be either on top or close to the top of the list, as if their ranking is a measure of their political weight.<\/p>\n
Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the opposition All Progressives Party (APC), gleefully announced while addressing a huge crowed in Port Harcourt, that he was number one on the Jonathan \u201chit list\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cThey want to kill me,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Malam Nasir el-Rufai, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and now a leader in the APC, claims that he is number seven.\u00a0 Others on the list, according to him, include former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu and former Osun State Governor and Interim Chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande.<\/p>\n
If the Jonathan watch list were authentic, it raises the puzzle as to how, in a list containing heavy political weights such as Buhari, Tinubu, Akande and other APC leaders, Amaechi\u2019s name could possibly be number one.\u00a0 On what criteria? Certainly, both Governor Amaechi and Malam el-Rufai may need to reassess their own valuation in terms of political importance.<\/p>\n
The only reason why someone like Malam el-Rufai would indulge in self-inflation of any sort, as a psychologist would explain, is that it is a natural tendency of diminutive persons to always inflate their own ego.\u00a0 But, as for Amaechi, his is a more pathetic situation that calls for the assistance, not of a psychologist but of a psychiatrist who is familiar with the ailment called paranoia.\u00a0 Any patient with this affliction fears almost everything and every person.\u00a0 He would conjure any object of fear, whether or not it is real.\u00a0 Otherwise, how can a State Governor, surrounded and protected by over 120 policemen, wherever he goes, complain that his life is threatened? Does this not explain why Amaechi believes that he is number one on a hit list that does not exist?<\/p>\n
West-Greene sent this piece via Tamunowg@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Judging from President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan\u2019s response to the letter of 2nd December, 2013, by former President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), it was obvious that the allegations he considered to be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n