Former President Goodluck\u00a0 Jonathan has reportedly gone into exile.<\/p>\n
The former President, who had in the past few weeks visited the United
\nStates and United Kingdom was said to have been tipped off by security
\nsources and other sympathizers in different arms of government of his
\nimpending arrest as soon as he stepped into the country.<\/p>\n
The planned arrest which had been in the works for some time forced the
\nformer president to contact some West African leaders for a safe haven.<\/p>\n
President Alasanne Quttara of Cote d’Ivoire is said to have agreed to
\nallow Jonathan stay in the country until it is safe for him to return to
\nNigeria.<\/p>\n
The development is said to have spiked the bombing of oil pipelines by
\nmilitants in the Niger Delta region leading to the loss of between 800,000
\nto 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd).<\/p>\n
The militants are said to enraged that President Buhari reneged on his
\npromise during the handover ceremonies that President Jonathan had
\n“nothing to fear”.<\/p>\n
Since coming to power, President Buhari had swooped on associates of the
\nformer president on the allegations of money laundering, diversion of
\npublic funds and contract scams linked to defence contracts for the
\nprosecution of the war against Boko Haram in the North-east.<\/p>\n
Several public office holders that served under the Jonathan
\nadministration have been arrested and are facing persecution and
\nprosecution the latest being his former Principal Secretary, Haman Tukur
\nand his cousin, Aziobola Robert, in connection with a $40 million pipeline
\nsurveillance contract.<\/p>\n
A report by THISDAY said militants in the region have vowed to shut down
\noil output completely by intensifying the bombings of oil and gas
\ninstallations in the region.<\/p>\n
Sources close to the president said since the information of the
\ngovernment\u2019s resolve to arrest Jonathan swept through the Niger Delta,
\nIjaw militants have gone berserk and stepped up their attacks on oil and
\ngas installations in the region. They are said to be hell bent on shutting
\ndown oil output completely.<\/p>\n
One source said the militants are targeting all onshore and shallow water
\ninstallations, from where<\/p>\n
“Nigeria derives the bulk of 90 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings
\nand may head for the deep offshore oil fields if the federal government
\ndoes not back down.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps the only installations that may not be affected in the interim by
\nmilitant attacks are those in the deep offshore basin because they are
\nmore difficult to reach and would require large vessels to access,\u201d said
\nthe source who, however, added that \u201cduring the last militant crises we
\nwent as far as shutting down the Bonga deep water oil field\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former President Goodluck\u00a0 Jonathan has reportedly gone into exile. The former President, who had in the past few weeks visited the United States and United Kingdom was said to have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n