The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said it is mortally concerned
that, with what may be the tacit support
of people in the highest echelon of power, the ongoing fuel subsidy
issue is increasingly being turned to a sectional
matter, raising concern about the agenda being pursued by President
Goodluck Jonathan and his clueless Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) with their so-called fuel subsidy removal.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said
going by the myriad of newspaper advertisements placed in recent times
by several Ijaw and South-South groups (which we hope
do not represent the general opinion in the region), and the
inflammatory rhetoric spewing out of the mouth of respected leaders in
the region, there may be a hidden agenda in some quarters to push the
country to the brink, or even bring the house crashing down on all, as
we have warned earlier.
It said the increasing attack on other geo-political zones and ethnic
groups as well as individual politicians by these
apparently-sponsored adverts, simply because Nigerians have said ‘NO’
to what they considered an insensitive, oppressive
and senseless fuel subsidy removal, shows what can happen when a
leader, through sheer ineptness and unfathomable
headiness, fails to consider the socio-political impact of what he
perceives merely as an economic policy.
ACN said it is nothing short of a monumental insult for any person or
group to infer that the spontaneous and unprecedented
nation-wide mass action that has greeted the removal of fuel subsidy
is being sponsored by the so-called failed politicians, or
for any person or group to make such an irresponsible statement that
the bulk of the fuel subsidy is consumed in
Lagos, even when it is clear that Lagos is a melting pot that is home
to people of all ethnic groups.
The party said one of the groups even said it would not mind if the
fuel subsidy removal – which it (the group) supports by the
way – ends up making President Jonathan the last President of a united Nigeria!
”Imagine, for a moment, that this inflammatory and inciting statement
had been made by a group other than the one from the
South-South! Those behind such group would by now have been threatened
with treason charges, that is if they have not yet been
arrested. Yet, this is the kind of rhetoric that these South-South
groups have been ditching out since the fuel protests started, and the
Presidency has not deemed it necessary to distance itself from such
dead-enders or to repudiate them.
”Suddenly, a President that was purportedly given a pan-Nigeria
mandate only a few months back is now being made to look more
and more like a South-South President, who must be ‘protected’ by his
‘supporters and kinsmen’ against failed politicians from the
other regions, forgetting that the same President won the last
election because of the support of the other regions that are now been
demonized.
”Progressively but sadly, the Jonathan Presidency is being defined as
a South-South Presidency by those who have failed to see that
the mess the country has been thrown into under his watch – over the
fuel subsidy and the Boko Haram issues – is a fallout of a leadership
that has lied to and cheated its people on the subsidy issue, and a
presidency that has allowed the Boko Haram issue to fester for too
long without a decisive and creative initiative to nip it in the bud.
Simply put, Nigerians feel betrayed by this President by the way he
has handled these issues, hence he has lost their trust and
confidence. This is neither a South-South Vs the rest of the regions
issue, or the result of an incitement by imagined enemies,” ACN said.
The party reiterated its earlier call on all people of goodwill,
including former leaders acting together, to call President Jonathan
to order before he allows those who have other agenda, or those who
are championing neo-colonial interests, to doom his presidency and
push the country into perdition.
It advised President Jonathan that in a democracy, the people are
supreme and their voices and opinions must matter on every issue, more
than the self-serving postulations of a benevolent few who happened to
have found themselves in government.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
National Publicity Secretary
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)
Lagos, Jan. 15th 2012
