{"id":934,"date":"2017-12-02T17:00:39","date_gmt":"2017-12-02T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/?p=934"},"modified":"2025-07-01T11:52:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T10:52:30","slug":"ex-president-jonathan-replies-gov-shettima-on-chibok-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/02\/ex-president-jonathan-replies-gov-shettima-on-chibok-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-President Jonathan Replies Gov. Shettima on Chibok Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Former President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The media adviser to former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Mr.\u00a0Ikechukwu Eze has responded to a statement by Borno Governor Kashim\u00a0Shettima where he accused the ex-President of bad governance and poor\u00a0choices, dismissing the Governor\u2019s claims as parochial and jaundiced.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued on Friday Jonathan\u2019s spokesman strongly debunked\u00a0the allegations of poor governance and highlighted Jonathan\u2019s key\u00a0achievements which he said were yet to be matched. He further\u00a0challenged the Governor to come clean over the roles he played in the\u00a0kidnap of the Chibok school girls, stressing that it goes beyond the
\ndismissive claim that \u201cJonathan thought I kidnapped Chibok girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement said: \u201cHe should be able to tell us if it was Jonathan\u2019s\u00a0poor choices that led the Governor to expose students of Government\u00a0Girls Secondary School in Chibok to avoidable danger, in total\u00a0disregard of a Federal Government directive to the Governors in the\u00a0three states most affected by Boko Haram to relocate their students\u00a0writing the West African School Certificate Examinations to safe
\nzones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement further disclaimed the book entitled \u201cOn a Platter of\u00a0Gold- How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria\u201d written by Mallam Bolaji\u00a0Abdullahi, as sore grapes and full of lies and gossip.<\/p>\n

Below is the full text of the statement:<\/p>\n

“Our attention has been drawn to the claims made by the Governor of\u00a0Borno State, Kashim Shettima on Thursday at a book launch to the\u00a0effect that former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan wasted the goodwill\u00a0he commanded because of bad governance and poor choices in office. He\u00a0was also said to have accused Jonathan of believing that he was behind\u00a0the kidnap of the Chibok girls.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a man who had never seen anything good in the administration of\u00a0former President Goodluck Jonathan on account of party and other\u00a0differences, it has remained our considered view that in a democracy,\u00a0Governor Kashim Shettima and others like him are entitled to their\u00a0opinion, no matter how jaundiced.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, it is a sad commentary on the character of some of our\u00a0politicians that they go to any length to make spurious statements, in\u00a0pursuit of the sad narrative to remain politically correct. We cannot\u00a0be deceived by his crocodile tears and patronizing claim that\u00a0\u201cJonathan is essentially a decent man\u201d, which is a ploy he deployed to\u00a0justify his false allegation of a lost glory.<\/em><\/p>\n

The man who today speaks of squandered goodwill should be able to tell\u00a0Nigerians what percentage of the votes Jonathan got in 2011 from Borno\u00a0State at the height of that his envisaged glory according to Shettima,\u00a0and what it became in subsequent elections. What was obvious yesterday\u00a0and has remained so today is that Governor Shettima and those who\u00a0think like him never liked Jonathan based on some parochial and\u00a0paternalistic sentiments.<\/em><\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t expect anything less from Governor Shettima, knowing the\u00a0ignoble roles he played in frustrating the war waged by the past\u00a0administration against Boko Haram, even in his own Borno State.<\/em><\/p>\n

He should be able to tell us if it was Jonathan\u2019s poor choices that\u00a0led the Governor to expose students of Government Girls Secondary\u00a0School in Chibok to avoidable danger, in total disregard of a Federal\u00a0Government directive to the Governors in the three states most\u00a0affected by Boko Haram to relocate their students writing the West\u00a0African School Certificate Examinations to safe zones.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Governor is now denying that he had no hand in the kidnap of the\u00a0Chibok girls even before anybody accused him of culpability. However,\u00a0we share the view of those who insist that the Governor had other\u00a0things up his sleeve when he promised the West African Examinations\u00a0Council (WAEC) that he would secure the girls, and ended up doing the<\/em>
\n very opposite, by deliberately abandoning them to their fate, without\u00a0any security presence in their school.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is instructive that while other Governors in the zone heeded the\u00a0security advice, Shettima remained the only one that flagrantly\u00a0flouted it. Should we also fail to point out that his decision to\u00a0reward the principal of Chibok Secondary School, who was\u00a0uncharacteristically absent on the night terrorists stormed the\u00a0school, with the post of a commissioner, did throw up more questions\u00a0than answers?<\/em><\/p>\n

Talking about accountability, perhaps, Shettima should also do well\u00a0to explain to the good people of Borno State and Nigerians what he did\u00a0with the over N60 billion Local Governments fund, left by his\u00a0predecessor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff.<\/em><\/p>\n

We understand Governor shettima and those who spoke like him accused\u00a0Jonathan of bad governance and poor choices, and we would like to know\u00a0if it was bad governance that led Jonathan to assemble a-yet-to be\u00a0matched crop of dynamic cabinet and economic management team made up\u00a0of tested technocrats like Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Finance\u00a0ministry, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman in Planning, Mr Olusegun Aganga in\u00a0Trade and Investments as well as Dr. Akinwumi Adesina leading the\u00a0charge in Agriculture. The efforts of the Jonathan administration in\u00a0repositioning Nigeria\u2019s economy remain self-evident and it must have\u00a0in deed been poor choices at their best for Jonathan and his team to\u00a0have recorded the following key achievements:<\/em><\/p>\n

* Nigeria\u2019s Gross domestic Product rose to $503bn in 2013 and became\u00a0Africa\u2019s largest economy and 26th in the world; from 3rd and 46th\u00a0respectively.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Nigeria became the number one destination for Foreign Direct\u00a0Investment in Africa under former President Jonathan, with the numbers<\/em>
\n rising from US$24.9 million as at 2007 to over US$ 35 billion in 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Jonathan Government delivered over 25,000 kilometres of motorable<\/em>
\n federal roads from just a quarter of that number in 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n

* The Jonathan Administration resuscitated the railways in the country<\/em>
\n after about 30-years of hiatus<\/em><\/p>\n

*Jonathan\u2019s Agricultural Transformation Agenda ended fertiliser\u00a0racketeering, encouraged more young Nigerians to take to farming,\u00a0boosted local food production and took the country closer to\u00a0self-sufficiency in food production by recording more than 50%\u00a0reduction in food imports. It was as a result of this that the Food\u00a0and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, for the first\u00a0time, voted Nigeria the largest producer of Cassava in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Power generation under Jonathan was boosted to about 5,000 megawatts\u00a0in 2014 up from 2,000 megawatts in 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Prices of food and other household items remained stable and\u00a0inflationary pressure was down to a single digit.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Under Jonathan, Nigeria controlled clinically Ebola outbreak to the\u00a0admiration of the whole world, became Guinea-worm-free and also\u00a0eradicated polio, with United States billionaire and renowned\u00a0philanthropist Bill Gates, praising Nigeria\u2019s successes against polio\u00a0as one of the great world achievements of 2014. Sadly polio has\u00a0returned to the country with the likes of Shettima in charge of the\u00a0endemic states.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Under Jonathan Life expectancy in Nigeria rose from 47 years in 2010\u00a0to 54 years in 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

*Just before Jonathan left office, CNN Money projected that Nigeria\u2019s\u00a0economy in 2015 would become the third fastest growing economy in the\u00a0world at 7% behind China at 7.3% and Qatar at 7.1%.<\/em><\/p>\n

Was it bad governance and poor choices that reformed the political and\u00a0electoral processes to the extent that the United Nations is now\u00a0pleading with the government of the day to strive to maintain the\u00a0standards established by Jonathan?<\/em><\/p>\n

Fortunately, Nigerians know where they stand with all of their\u00a0leaders. All those who are calling Jonathan names today, and accusing\u00a0him of having become quite unpopular, should simply take a walk on the\u00a0streets of any Nigerian city as real leaders do. That way, they will\u00a0accurately gauge their own approval and test their popularity with the<\/em>
\n Nigerian people.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the book entitled \u201cOn a Platter of Gold- How Jonathan won and lost\u00a0Nigeria\u201d written by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity\u00a0Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, we have watched for some\u00a0time as some outrageous fabrications are extracted from its pages day\u00a0after day by the media. When the publication of the book, with an\u00a0ominous title was first mooted, we knew it will be full of bile and\u00a0sour grapes. We didn\u2019t expect truth, sincerity and accuracy of\u00a0narration, given that the author who was sacked from his ministerial\u00a0position by the subject of the book, is now the spokesman for the\u00a0ruling APC.<\/em><\/p>\n

We will therefore like to dissociate former President Jonathan from\u00a0the book\u2019s salacious contents, with all the obvious distortions, lies\u00a0and exaggerations. Its pages are populated with gossip, politically\u00a0influenced newspaper articles, uncoordinated raw data and unproven\u00a0claims. Sadly, the author did not help matters, as there was no rigor<\/em>
\n or in depth investigations towards establishing the veracity of the\u00a0allegations the book contained. For instance, it is ridiculous for the\u00a0author to have claimed that the President was forced to sack a certain\u00a0minister by another cabinet member when the obvious truth known to all\u00a0key members of the administration was that the President acted based<\/em>
\n on the recommendation of an internal committee that investigated the\u00a0matter. This, unfortunately, is the kind of baseless claims and\u00a0narrative that run through the entire book, and it would be pointless\u00a0devoting our time towards making a case by case response to all its\u00a0ridiculous allegations.<\/em><\/p>\n

We will like to remind Nigerians of what former President Jonathan\u00a0said earlier in the year when a similar book was published, that only\u00a0the key actors in his Government and in the 2015 Presidential\u00a0elections could give an exact account of what transpired, not\u00a0speculations and conjectures by third party spectators. That time will come someday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ikechukwu Eze<\/em>
\n Media Adviser to Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The media adviser to former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Ikechukwu Eze has responded to a statement by Borno Governor Kashim Shettima where he accused the ex-President of bad governance and poor choices, dismissing the Governor’s claims as parochial and jaundiced. In a statement issued on Friday Jonathan’s spokesman strongly debunked the allegations of poor governance and highlighted Jonathan’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[186,182,183,184,157,181,185],"class_list":["post-934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-boko-haram","tag-borno-state","tag-chibok","tag-chibok-girls","tag-goodluck-jonathan","tag-kashim-shettima","tag-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}