Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan reacted to the criticism given to him by the Kano State Governor, and the presidential candidate on the platform of the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) Musa Kwankwaso who said the president lacked the capacity to serve as commander in-chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces.
Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso has again criticized the management style of President Jonathan and his government’s handling of the problems of insecurity and corruption.
Presidential candidate advised Nigerians to vote in a better president in 2015 who would offer effective leadership needed to arrest the threat of the terrorism intimidating the country.
He said, “I always feel terribly bad as a member of the extended family of the military in this country that today we cannot protect ourselves. I always remember those days when our military was in Liberia, Sierria Leone, Dafur and other parts of Africa. These were soldiers that did extremely well by even the world standard. Those days, we were not even talking of protecting ourselves. We were protecting others on this continent.
“Many years before then, this country had the capacity to support other African countries to even remove them out of apartheid and other serious international issues but today we have seen a situation where countries that were coming to beg for one thing or the other, now we have to go and beg them to help us protect our lives and properties.”
Kwankwaso considered that this mess would certainly stop by the Grace of God in 2015 when Nigeria would have the right Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces.
“All of us here are very much aware of what is happening in this country. Today, as we are sitting, we have thousands of Nigerians in Chad Republic, in Cameroon and in Niger as refugees. We also have about 4 million people that are being internally displaced. These are to some extent, the lucky ones because so many innocent people are being killed in this country. And this is a very sad development for all of us.
The candidate said that Nigeria needed a strong, politically-willed President to surmount the insecurity challenges, saying that he was the right man for the job.
“What we are lacking in my opinion is a Commander-in-Chief who has the capacity and political will to stop what is happening today in this country. I want to assure you that as somebody who has been very conversant with the security of this country, I have no doubt in my mind that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso will be the right person to handle the security issues of this country.’’
In his reply through his Media Aide Mr. Reuben Abati who spoke to Premium Times President Jonathan said the Kano state Governor is an incompetent and clueless presidential candidate.
“The point must be made very clearly that the kind of comment Governor Kwankwaso made at an occasion where he was doing a fund raiser for his gamble to become the presidential candidate of the APC shows that he is a very incompetent and a clueless presidential aspirant,”
“One would have expected that at an occasion where he was raising funds to promote his gamble to become the presidential flag bearer of the APC, he would project himself as a man who has a vision and an agenda for moving Nigeria forward.
“Instead, what he has done at every turn in this his new found gamble and hallucinatory ambition to become the president of Nigeria is to rundown President Jonathan at every opportunity.”
“Any intelligent aspirant will see very clearly that insurgency affects all of us and what is required is for all Nigerians to walk together. Governor Kwankwaso wants to be the president of Nigeria in his dreams,” Mr. Jonathan said.
“He doesn’t understand the nature of our security challenge and I think it is most unfortunate that a person of such low level of understanding can seek the office of the president.”
Jonathan’s government has recently been caught showcasing projects carried out by the Kano State Government as part of the legacy projects accomplished by President Jonathan’s administration in the North-West geopolitical zone of the country.
