… Holds Town Hall Meetings
BEVERLY HILLS, March 18, (THEWILL) – Ahead of the March 28 general elections, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State has again expressed his commitment to the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan as he embarked on senatorial district town hall meetings to shore up support for the President and Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the state.
This followed speculations that the governor had not shown much commitment toward the party in recent time and particularly towards the state party governorship flag bearer.
Present at the town hall meeting held at the Governor’s House in Warri, the commercial nerve centre of the state, were the leadership of professional bodies like Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), as well as civil society organisations drawn from Delta South and Central Senatorial districts of the State.
The party candidates for various positions were absent from the meeting.
The governor had on Monday held a similar town hall meeting with leadership of professional groups and civil society bodies drawn from the Delta North senatorial district of the state at Asaba, the state capital.
The meeting was convened to canvass support for Jonathan and all PDP candidates ahead of the March 28 and April 11 general elections.
Uduaghan, who set the ball rolling for the interactive session, said his mission was to convince the participants to vote en mass for Jonathan and other PDP candidates in the state.
”I am here to convince you to vote massively for Jonathan and other PDP candidates and I hope I succeed in convincing you,” Uduaghan told the participants.
According to him, the meeting is tailored to enlighten the electorate ahead of the polls, particularly professional bodies and civil societies, on the need to vote President Jonathan.
According to him, President Jonathan has done a lot for Nigerians and would do more for Nigerians and the country in the interest of peace and unity of the nation.
He however lamented the negative attitude of Nigerians towards the forthcoming general elections, saying the political bickering, campaign of calumny going on now was not good for the polity.
“This is a critical period in the history of Nigeria. There are people who have witnessed politics from the beginning of Nigeria, but have never seen these kinds of campaigns before. But it is not palatable. Instead of focusing on issues, politicians are inciting their supporters
“We should be asking that if Jonathan has been there for four years, what has he achieved and what can he achieve in the next four years. That is the way campaigns should go.”
He urged Nigerians to learn from the Rwanda experience and stop hate campaign and incitement, adding that the effect of inciting the people could be disastrous.
According to him, it is so bad that ethnic groups are being incited and people are being incited against the government of the day, a development which, he said, is impacting negatively on the economy.
According to him, investors are holding back their funds as a result of the tense atmosphere and frightening situation being created by political figures.
“We have seen the result of incitement in Rwanda. It was so bad that husbands would wake up in the night and kill their wives because they were from different ethnic groups. Incitement is dangerous and should be avoided,” he said.
He therefore urged politicians to make their campaign issues-based instead of resorting to calumny and violence, adding that the rate of campaign of calumny in the country was sending wrong signal to the international community.
Specifically, Uduaghan said that value of the dollar had rose far above the naira because Nigerians were giving out the impression that there will be violence after the general elections which had sent the wrong signals to the international community particularly to investors.
“There is this erroneous impression that we are giving to the international investors that there will be violence after the elections and it has affected the inflow of money from businessmen,” he said.
“We must work very hard to ensure that our elections are violence-free, whoever loses should wait for another election. Whichever way the election goes, we must maintain the peace and ensure that the naira appreciates.”
In his lecture, Prof. Monye said that all the hate campaigns and campaigns of calumny by the opposition party was targeted to discredit Jonathan’s administration and his re-election ambitious before Nigerians.
He said instead of embarking on issues-based campaign, the opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC) always make Jonathan their campaign issue instead of telling Nigerians what they would do if elected.
According to him, the President has worked more than his predecessors by delivering on his electoral promises rather than engaging in propaganda.
“I don’t know any past President that has performed as Jonathan in the history of Nigeria,” he said, adding that the purpose of the meeting was to provide evidence-based assessment of Jonathan performance so far.
Monye who reeled out the performance of Jonathan’s administration to include the revamping of the railway system, the agricultural sector, transportation sector and the economy, said Jonathan has fought corruption more than his predecessors in office against the impression that the president was doing nothing about corruption.
He said that the nation’s economy has thrived under Jonathan more than never before, adding that it was the reason Nigerians are yearning for the continuity of the transformation drive of Jonathan instead of the backward change which the APC is clamouring for.
“We don’t want backward change, what we want is continuity of governance, continuity of transformation, and forward ever,” he said.
Monye said that Jonathan has fought corruption not by dramatising the fight by throwing people into jail arbitrarily without recourse to rule of law like the opposition party, APC, wants him to do but by reforming and re-engineering the institutions like the EFCC.
He expressed confidence that based on the facts presented which shows a progressive country, the professionals and members of the civil society groups would vote for President Jonathan based on his performance and not where he hails from.”
