6th April, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
A former Security Adviser to ex-governor of Rivers state Peter Odili of Rivers state and an Ijaw Rights activist, Chief Anabs Sara-Igbe has dismissed the allegations that President Goodluck Jonathan lost the presidential election due to conspiracy of major ethic groups against his second term bid.
Sara-Igbe, who is also a former officer of the State Security Service, SSS, and founding member of PDP said in the last days of President Jonathan he made costly mistakes that led to his ouster. He said Jonathan employed and surrounded himself with people he called “funny characters” who created more enemies for than friends.
He questioned the wisdom by President Jonathan in employing somebody like Femi Fani-Kayode who has case of corrupt charges in court as spokesman for his campaign. “This is somebody whose public image is not worth being a spokesperson of the President in a very serious presidential election that involved a gallant opponent like General Buhari. He ridiculed General Buhari, who was trained in some best military academies in United kingdom and other foreign countries as an illiterate.
“They were by extension indicting countries like USA and UK of running military institution that were substandard and for illiterates”.
He blamed the President for allowing the economy to be tatters before the election.He said the Naira was terribly devalued and no rational investor would want that administration to continue because that means lose of value investments.
On the investment in the power sector, Sara-Igbe said despite the huge investments in the sector, those who invested in the name of privatisation and commercialisation sabotaged the sector. Nigerians groan over lack of power and spend so much revenue to fuel their generators.
The security expert said under the president’s watch, the country was thrown into massive insecurity caused by Boko Haram. He accused the government of playing politics with insecurity.
The Ijaw chief blamed the president for not controlling his wife’s excesses and some of his aides of who created more enemies for the President who worked against his remaining in power.
“How can the wife of a sitting president canvass for votes across the country and say that Northerners are ‘born throw way’ in the streets and that is why her husband built Almagiri schools for them”.
Sara-Igbe also blamed the President for allowing some Ijaw ex-militants to insult elder statesman and former head of state like General Olusegun Obasanjo, who against all odds handpicked him and made him vice president and Sanni Abacha (who created Bayelsa state) and Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida in whose house PDP was formed and Theophilus Danjuma who is well known in security circles internationally. He described them as the guardian angels of Nigeria and so does not deserve such insults.
Ijaw Rights activists accused the President of becoming an oppressor of the Niger Delta. He said the amnesty the Niger Delta ex-militants were enjoying was started by the Late President Umuru Yar’Ardua. He refused to implement Ledum Mittee Technical Committee on the Niger Delta and also refused to implement the UNEP report that recommended the cleaning up the polluted Ogoniland.
Sara-Igbe, a native of Soku in Rivers State, accused Jonathan of ceding off Soku Oil wells to Nembe, Bayelsa state to cause communal war between Ijaw brothers.
He accused him of abandoning Bonny-Bodo road, refusing to ensure the Petroleum Industry Bill,PIB,Nembe-Brass road and Trans Kalabari etc.
He also commented on the role the President played the rgging of the election of Governors’ Forum that endorsed 16 votes were greater than 19. He said the president’s action ridiculed Nigeria in the eyes of the international community.