Jonathan Storms Lagos, Blames Buhari, Obasanjo of Weakening Military

President Goodluck Jonathan today flagged of his presidential re-election campaign in Lagos blaming former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari for doing little to equip the military.

A charged Jonathan accused the former leaders of high-handedness and running Nigeria like a “jungle.”

He urged Nigerians, especially persons under the age of 20 to support his administration with a promise to “do more”.

At the capacity-filled Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos, Jonathan, who described first-time voters as his target audience, predicted that the next election will focus on young people.

“2015 election is about the young people. Either you vote young people to be relevant, or vote for irrelevance. I believe all of you want to be relevant. You can see how many of our governorship candidates and see they are in your age bracket,” he said.

“Let me tell you about the voters card. Only yesterday, I directed INEC that all Nigerians should be allowed to vote. Before 2011, no Nigerian complained about voters card.

“Since we came, we empowered Nigerians to have voters cards. Unfortunately, we have heard of people who are cloning voters cards so that our votes will be irrelevant.

“Nobody can take us back. Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia and India, countries that we used to be at par with have since left us behind. Do you want to go backwards?” he quizzed.

On the insurgency, Jonathan blamed past leaders of not training members of the armed forces over the years.

“Ask them, when they were Head of State, how many rifles did they buy? How many attack helicopters did they buy? Even if you have $10 billion, you can’t equip the military overnight.

“”They refused to build capacity, they instigated crisis, now they claim they want to come back and stop the crisis. If they had dealt with corruption we wouldn’t have corruption with us today.

“We stopped corruption in the fertilizer sector. Isn’t that a way to stop corruption? Is shooting stopping armed robbery? Arresting people and parading them on national TV can’t stop corruption,” noted the president.

He listed the “You Win” programme, Sovereign Wealth Fund, mortgage schemes and the federal government scholarship schemes as some of the programmes that have transformed Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa.

Top PDP shots at the event included Vice President Namadi Sambo, Senate President David Mark, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Emeka Ihedioha, governors and principal officers of the National Assembly.

At the event, the party’s national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu presented party flags to PDP governorship candidates in the states.

One high point of the rally was the public reconciliation of PDP flag bearer for Lagos State, Mr. Timi Agbaje and Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, who lost to the former in the party’s governorship primary election.
Agbaje, who spoke on behalf of all the governorship candidates described his colleagues as the “new face of PDP.”

He urged Nigerians to vote for President Jonathan in the February 14, and the PDP candidates in the February 28 elections.

Sambo urged Nigerians to vote massively for PDP in all the elections. He described President Jonathan as a very fair leader, who has brought even development across the country.

Also speaking, PDP national chairman appealed to Nigeria to vote massively for his party in all the elections.

He described PDP as a party that has been tested and trusted for over 16 years.