FORMER President Goodluck Jonathan said on Friday that President Muhammadu Buhari has been using fear as tool to rule Nigeria. He also said that President Buhari’s spokesman, Mr Femi Adesina, lied on the real reasons Nigerians did not protest the hike in the pump price of petrol by the current administration.
Jonathan, in a statement endorsed on behalf of his media office by his Special Assistant, New Media, Reno Omokri, said it was not because Nigerians trusted Buhari that they didn’t rise up against the government when it increased the pump price of petrol from N87 to N145.
The statement reads: “First of all, it was not Nigerians that rose up against the Jonathan administration when that government increased the price of petrol on January 1, 2012. It was actually members of the All Progressives Congress who sponsored the protests.
“Nigerians have not so soon forgotten how Malam Nasir el-Rufai led other chieftains of the opposition to the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, where they attracted crowds by inviting top musicians to perform and giving out free food and drinks.
“If anyone cares to Google the pictures of that event, they will see pictures of people who are currently on President Buhari’s media team directing ‘protesters’ at that event.
“To now pass that sponsored protest as a sign that Nigerians trust Buhari but did not trust Jonathan is another propaganda in the long line of lies and deceit that the APC has come to be known for.
“The truth is that the reason Nigerians did not come out to protest against the fuel price hike by the Buhari administration from N87 to N145 was because of fear. Pure and simple.
“On December 15, 2015, the Nigerian Army, under President Muhammadu Buhari’s command, killed 347 unarmed Shiite men, women, children and infants and buried them in a mass grave as revealed by the panel of inquiry instituted by the Kaduna State government.
“The excuse given by the military for this massacre was that the Shiites had blocked a road during one of their processions and this allegedly affected a trip by the chief of army staff.
“After killing his followers and destroying their place of worship, Sheikh Ibrahim Zak Zaky, the spiritual leader of the Nigerian Shiite community, was illegally and unconstitutionally detained and has not been seen or heard of in public since December 15, 2015.
“So, when the Buhari administration increased the pump price of petrol, Nigerians wisely reasoned that if the Buhari administration can kill 347 unarmed Shiite men, women, children and infants for blocking a road, it would be suicidal to give them an opportunity to do the same thing to them on a wider scale.
“Under the Buhari administration, human life has become so cheap that the military and security services routinely kill innocent Nigerians whether it be Shiites, peaceful demonstrators or IDPs at the Rann IDP Camp.
“To say Nigerians trust an administration that publicly boasted that it would not tell Nigerians how much of their own money the President spent in treating himself in London when the State House Clinic cannot boast of ordinary panadol (by his own wife’s testimony) is to speak a lie.
“Nigerians can judge the nature of the man whose number one campaign promise was that ‘no Nigerian public official should receive medical treatment overseas at public expense’. For him, lies are cheap even if they are expensive for the Nigerian public who have to pay the price.
“Nor have Nigerians forgotten the promise to end corruption when the $25 billion Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation scam is ringing in their ears along with the denials by the Vice President that he never approved any contracts.
“How can they trust a government that has still not released or acted on the SGF’s grass cutter contract probe after six months?
“In the five years that he governed Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan spent N16 trillion. The economy grew. The Naira was stable. We had the greatest expansion of infrastructure since the Gowon years and inflation was in single figures.
“In the two years that President Muhammadu Buhari has ruled Nigeria, he has spent N15 trillion. We have had recession. Naira collapsed. Inflation has gone back to double digits and the only infrastructure that he has started and completed is the Daura helipad.
“So, Femi Adesina should spare us his propaganda and accept the truth that he is the mouthpiece of a regime sustained by propaganda and surviving on corruption.”
