IGBO SLAUGHTERED THEMSELVES
The Fallacy Of Ethnic Gang Up Against
President Jonathan?
First it was Asari Dokubo who said President
GOODLUCK Ebele Jonathan’s defeat was a
‘gang up’. In his words “the voting pattern has
clearly shown that the Gambari North and the
Yoruba are united in the conquest of the Niger
Deltans and the Igbo of defunct Biafra with the
Middle Belt now used as pawns”. Then Daniel
Elombah in his very bias piece titled “Goodluck
Jonathan,the coward that led the Igbos to the
slaughter” said there was no elections on May
28 and the whole elections was just a decision
that President Jonathan be replaced by a
Northern Muslim. For all they care the
southwest voted for APC because of Osinbajo,a
yoruba man and the North voted APC because
of Buhari, a fulani man. Doyin Okupe gave the
‘gang up’ theory another dimension when he
wrote on his facebook wall that President
Jonathan lost because of “national and
international conspiracy”. To them President
Jonathan’s failed re-election bid has nothing to
do with his poor scorecard as an incumbent.
When do they intend telling Mr President the
truth? Chinua Achebe said in his last book that
“…part of the way to respond to confusion in
Nigeria is to blame those from other ethnic
groups or the other side of the country”.
Let’s not mislead people or try to misrepresent
this historic moment because we find ourselves
on the wrong side Of history. President
Jonathan failed everybody including the Niger
deltans and Igbo people. Can anybody in these
places sincerely say they are better off as a
people since Goodluck became President? The
Niger deltans and the Igbo people could easily
forgive him to continue because he is “their
brother” [sincerely I don’t understand how he is
the brother of the Igbos] but the rest of Nigeria
couldn’t and that is the summary of the
Presidential Elections. Let us quickly look at the
voting pattern in the 2011 and 2015 Presidential
elections in some geo-political zones to put to
bed all the noise about ethnic gang up.
In 2011 Presidential election,General Buhari
didn’t even come second in the southwest with
a yoruba man as his running mate,so why will
the yoruba people suddenly decide to vote
Buhari because of Pastor Osinbajo? President
Jonathan lost in the north-central states of
Kogi,Benue and Kwara,these are places he won
last term with a landslide. It’s hard to believe he
lost all these states because of a gang up. While
in 2011,President Jonathan won in Taraba and
Adamawa,he lost one of the two states this time
around and then went ahead to win with a
landslide in south-south and South-east geo-
political zone. If he won with a landslide as
expected in his stronghold then he shouldn’t
complain if General Buhari won with a landslide
in his stronghold of North-east and Northwest.
If the President lost in many states he won last
time to become President,the first thing to ask
is if he fulfilled his campaign promises to them
and if he did, that’s where a ‘gang up’
conspiracy can sell. President Jonathan failed to
fulfil his campaign promises. He didn’t show
sympathy or empathy when boko haram
kidnapped,butchered and burnt school children in
the North-east but expected to get their votes
and the votes of other Nigerians? In a country
with 112 million poor people,our President was
spending N1billion on food alone and he
expected people to vote for him. Under his
watch,young people were exploited and killed in
the name of NIS recruitment exercise. Did Mr
President think we have forgiven him for
increasing the price of petrol in the name of
subsidy removal? How can we forgive a
President that went partying in less than 24hrs
after the Nyanya terrorist attack? While Mr
President was telling us about almajiri
schools,the number of illiterates increased to
35million. Mr President told us we are now the
largest economy in Africa but states are finding
it difficult to pay salaries and unemployment is
still very high. He sacked a government official
who said huge amount of money was missing
and gave presidential pardon to a treasury looter
but expected us to believe he is fighting
corruption. Mr President lost because he failed
to discharge his responsibilities as a President.
The many sins of President Jonathan are too
numerous to mention.
In 2011,he came to Nigerians as a very humble
man,telling whoever cared to listen that his
ambition is not worth the blood of anybody but
in 2015 he came back to us for re-election with
the burden of broken promises,squandered
goodwill and gross incompetence. Maybe he
thought it was possible for him to manipulate
his way by using ethnicity,religion and dollars.
The ethnic card was always going to work
against him because he was from a minority
ethnic group. He couldn’t use religion again as
APC were a step ahead of him by choosing Prof
Osinbajo(a pastor of the Redeem Christian
Church of God) as the running mate of General
Buhari. By the time he started dollarizing the
political landscape,it was too late. If tomorrow
President Jonathan wants to know why he failed
in his re-election bid,he should look within and
not outside. His government was too business
as usual and as the looting of our common
wealth increased to an unimaginable level,so
also did poverty,hunger and frustration increased
on the side of the masses. The people couldn’t
take it any more and APC capitalised on this.
Those 15,424,921 votes that sent President
Jonathan packing were not votes against ijaw or
the south-south,there were votes against an
incompetent President.
I find it difficult to believe that anybody
supported President Jonathan because of his
performance. They supported him out of
selfishness or ethnic sentiments or both. He was
no Lee Kuan Yew,he was neither Nelson
Mandela nor a Martin Luther King,he is the
perfect example of a failed President. No matter
how you try to twist this historic moment,it will
not change the truth. Under President Jonathan
Nigeria was heading for destruction and the only
way to restore hope was to vote him out and we
did exactly that. This is the beginning of a new
dawn. Let’s stop preaching unnecessary hate
and division,its time to join hands and build a
great nation.
