More Knocks For Jonathan Over N6b Church Fund

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President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria has continued to receive knocks for taking very unpopular decisions, the latest being an event organised to raise funds to build St. Stephen’s Anglican Deanery and Youth Development Centre in his birthplace, Otuoke, in Bayelsa State, southsouth Nigeria.

The N6 billion was donated last Saturday at a fund raising at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, by state governors and wealthy Nigerians who are government contractors among others.

Reacting to the development, Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo said the president’s move was against the anti-corruption crusade as it was wrong for individuals and government contractors to donate money for the president’s project.

“It is wrong for Jonathan to seek donation from such people and Nigerians should condemn this act. The people should organise protest against such act,” he said.

Comrade Bamidele Aturu decried Jonathan’s action, saying he has taken over from former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he received donations for his presidential library.

“It is immoral to collect money from contractors and the act is indefensible. It is an act that corrupts the whole system. It is annoying and I cannot believe this is happening. Everybody should condemn it,” he said.

Founder, Coalition Against Corrupt Leader, CACOL, Comrade Debo Adeniran said it was improper for the president to receive donations, saying Jonathan is running a profligate government.

“His government only engages in white elephant projects. He does not mind if the rest of us are angry or not. It is not proper for the president to use his influence to get such donations, it is unnecessary,” he stated.

Publicity Secretary, Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Lagos State chapter, Joe Igbokwe, said Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are treating Nigeria as a conquered territory with brazen impunity.

“Everything about this project is wrong, the timing, the donors, the present state of our economy, the insecurity in the land, unemployment and political crisis currently tearing the nation apart. The president’s handlers are not doing their work and this will backfire soonest. We get into deeper crisis everyday and I fear that PDP may derail this hard earned democracy if care is not taken,” he stated.

President of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, Yerima Shettima, said the majority of Nigerians had lost confidence in the present administration, adding that a lot of things had happened in the last two years that have caused regrets on the part of the electorate.

For the governors who made donations, the activist asked: “how can you donate taxpayers’ money to churches and mosques? Where is it in the constitution that our governors should squander funds in the name of religion?”

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He said the activities of the president had become a threat to the country’s existence, wondering if his mission in government was to tear the country apart.

Shettima said it would be a figment of the imagination of anybody within and outside the country to think that President Jonathan is poised to fight corruption in the country, adding that “some people have said he may be the last president the country would have and this scares me.

“See how much his government has squandered on militants with nothing to show for it. See how the beneficiaries are buying properties everywhere. We must all begin to see the handwriting on the wall.

“Nigerians don’t deserve this kind of leadership. It is a terrible thing, but I know that certainly, posterity will judge and a leader who would one day ask questions would emerge. The question I’m left with is: are those around him really giving him the right advice, telling him the truth or is there a spirit working out their mindset?”

Assistant General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Comrade Denja Yaqub, expressed frustration at the way the country is being run, saying many of them lack the vision of what they need to do in government.

According to him, Nigeria is a country of waste governed by people with no mission or vision, while recalling that people also made such donations to the library that was being built by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, “but since he left office, many of these same people don’t even remember his birthday.”

Constitutional lawyer, Professor Itse Sagay, had earlier condemned the donations by governors and some Nigerians describing it as morally wrong.

Sagay had said the president’s involvement amounted to extorting money from sycophants who are unjustly benefiting from government, saying that “as far as I am concerned, the development fell below ethical standard and was not supposed to happen.”

Ex-member of the House of Representatives and civil rights activist, Dino Melaye, said those who donated did not do it for God but because of President Jonathan.

He said: “ask these people if they have built any church in their localities and the answer will be no,” calling it an open display of corruption.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga & Eromosele Ebhomele

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