Jonathan, Buhari didn’t have Nigeria’s interest at heart in 2015, says Lamido
By Jeffrey Agbo
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sule Lamido, has said that neither President Goodluck Jonathan nor Muhammadu Buhari had Nigeria’s interest at heart in 2015.
The former Jigawa State governor said in Chapter 16 (pages 416-417) of his autobiography, “Being True To Myself,” which was launched in Abuja on May 13, that Nigeria was the ultimate loser following the 2015 polls.
Lamido said that apart from the “propaganda” of the All Progressives Congress (APC), key members of the PDP were alienated for unjustifiable reasons.
He wrote, “I moved to draw the attention of our PDP candidate, President Jonathan, to the realities on the ground: ‘Mr. President, sir, the election of 2015 is not about Nigeria or political parties, but between two contending people – Buhari and Jonathan.
“‘Neither of you really has the overall interest of the country as his ultimate objective, but your own individual aspirations. Thus, whoever wins between the two of you, the country will lose. Yes, Nigeria will lose.'”
He explained that “Buhari was not there for Nigeria; it was the amalgamation of political interests that promoted him.
“Jonathan had also reneged on the agreement he had earlier undertaken, after the death of President Yar’Adua in 2010, to complete that tenure only and was now seeking to contest again in 2015.
“It was a breach of the agreement that was mutually reached.
“In 2015, there were people within the PDP who had been alienated and unduly accused of being against Jonathan, even if they were not.
“The party simply pushed them away and never trusted them or got them involved in its affairs.
“Secondly, the propaganda of the APC was also so intense that it became very difficult for us to promote him successfully in the state.
“It was so choking and suffocating that even a Muslim member of PDP felt ashamed to identify with the party because of the emotional blackmail.
“When they deployed religion to confuse the mind, individuals had to be careful not to act in a manner that was anti-Islam or anti-North.
“There was a solid conspiracy to decampaign the PDP and destroy its legacies, with the issue of the Boko Haram insurgency being unduly amplified.
“Pictures of people and places bombed by the insurgents were widely posted on social media, with pictures of buses, marketplaces, motor stations, mosques, and churches burning in blazing fires.
“The crisis was so manipulated that it touched the minds of the Muslim clerics, who took to the pulpits to preach sermons that strongly condemned the federal government for its indifference to the plight of its citizens.
“The net consequence was to make it difficult even for PDP supporters with very strong conviction to sell President Jonathan to voters.”
