Former President Goodluck
Jonathan has challenged Sule Lamido, ex-governor of Jigawa state, to prove that
he was involved in the Malabu oil deal.
In an interview with The Sun,
Lamido had said Jonathan traded off the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the
last governorship election in Bayelsa state because he was trying to avoid
being prosecuted by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari over the
Malabu deal.
The deal involves the award of
oil prospecting licence (OPL) 245 to Malabu Oil and Gas.
OPL 245 is an oilfield in the
Niger Delta. It has about nine billion barrels of crude oil, estimated to worth
half a trillion dollars. The sale of the block, which is considered as one of
the most lucrative on the continent, has been replete with allegations and
lawsuits.
Lamido had said the federal
government used the Malabu case to blackmail Jonathan into supporting the All
Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa.
“They are holding him by the
balls because he (Jonathan) sure knows his problem with Buhari and with this
government. And the issue of Malabu, I think, played a key role, I said so. So,
the election were won and lost by PDP. PDP history, PDP tradition and Jonathan
were behind him. That I can say anywhere because the issue of Malabu is an
issue I know very well. I had cause to discuss it with him,” Lamido had said.
But reacting in a statement
Ikechukwu Eze, his spokesman, issued on his behalf, Jonathan accused the former
governor of Jigawa of peddling falsehood.
“Our attention has been drawn to
a Sunday Sun publication of October 25, 2019 in which Alhaji Sule Lamido
claimed that former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan traded off the Bayelsa
elections in order to escape being investigated over the controversial Malabu
oil deal,” the statement read.
“We chose to make this
clarification just to set the record straight, especially as a number of the
former President’s close associates have been asking questions about the
blatant statement credited to Mr. Lamido.”
Jonathan asked Lamido where he
was when he supported the PDP in the 2015 governorship election in Bayelsa.
He accused the two-term governor
of PDP of spreading “cheap lies to confuse the public”.
The statement below:
Our attention has been drawn to a
Sunday Sun publication of October 25, 2019 in which Alhaji Sule Lamido claimed
that former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan traded off the Bayelsa elections in
order to escape being investigated over the controversial Malabu oil deal.
In an interview granted the
newspaper, Lamido was quoted to have said: “The leadership of the APC and the
government are blackmailing Jonathan and I think I can say it anywhere that he
traded this for his own freedom.”
Ordinarily we shouldn’t be
responding to an interview of this nature because it is obvious that given his
amiable nature, former President Jonathan does not consider the idea of joining
issues with individuals on the pages of newspapers a decent conduct. We are also
well aware of the former President’s belief that truth always has a way of
catching up with statements rooted in lies and propaganda, such as this one.
Furthermore, we considered that when former President Jonathan was in office
Mr. Lamido was one of the governors that worked closely with him.
However, we chose to make this
clarification just to set the record straight, especially as a number of the
former President’s close associates have been asking questions about the
blatant statement credited to Mr. Lamido.
We really do not know why Mr.
Lamido, chose to speak like he did, especially with such hostility, contempt
and lies against former President Jonathan. However, one thing is clear: In his
anger and apparent bile-filled disposition, Mr. Lamido, an otherwise astute and
erudite politician, obviously dropped the ball by electing not to speak
responsibly like a statesman. He actually came off the interview sounding like
a sulking skunk, to whom logic or reason meant nothing. It didn’t matter to him
that, as a well respected member of the society, he shouldn’t make such weighty
claims against a former President if he was only guessing, like he admitted.
Hear him: “And the issue of Malabo, I think, played a key role.” So hugely
pathetic!
Apparently seized by some
inexplicable resentment, Lamido held on to the lie currently being pushed by
few mischief-makers to the effect that former President Jonathan helped the All
Progressive Congress (APC) to win the last gubernatorial election in Bayelsa
State. Unfortunately, the former Governor jumped into this convenient bandwagon
of grovellers without first thinking of the burden of substantiating his claim.
What to do? Orchestrate a raft of incongruent drivel of cheap lies to confuse
the readers. In one breathe, Lamido alleged that Jonathan worked against his
party “because he was very, very angry with (Governor) Dickson,” in another he
claimed that it was “because he (Jonathan) sure knows his problem with Buhari
and his government. And the issue of Malabu, I think, played a key role.”
This absurd claim definitely
would have gained more traction in the public space if it really made any
sense. But it didn’t. What, if we may ask Mr. Lamido, is the correlation
between Jonathan supporting APC because he was angry with Governor Dickson and
Jonathan supporting APC to avoid prosecution over Malabu?
Where was Lamido and his ‘Malabu
problem’ when Jonathan campaigned vigorously and helped PDP to win Bayelsa
governorship election in 2015, under the same President Buhari?
It is important to establish at
this point that Mr. Lamido probably knows very little about the Malabu case,
for which he was not supposed to have commented blindly. In the first place,
the Malabu oil block was not given out by Jonathan. It was a deal that was
sealed during the time of late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha. We feel that
Mr. Lamido is in a position to know that the business of oil exploration has an
international dimension, as such, it is clear that it is not only the Nigerian
Government that is looking into the Malabu case. If that is the case, he should
also have known that there are atleast three other countries outside Africa
that are investigating the matter. Assuming without conceding that the former
President Jonathan is culpable as Lamido alleged, would a trade off deal with
the Nigerian Government also free him from blame in other countries like Italy,
United Kingdom and the United States?
His Excellency Goodluck Jonathan
is convinced that Mr. Lamido’s awkward intervention in this matter was
deliberately designed as a form of blackmail. Having tried many other ways to
discredit the former President to no avail, Mr. Lamido is now scheming to
project Malabo as Jonathan’s Achilles heel. Here again he has failed because
the true story of Malabo is already very well known to Nigerians.
Mr Lamido, we believe, is too
smart not to realise that when the pot conveniently calls the kettle black, it
is a grand design to confuse, deceive and cover up the truth. Lamido served as
Governor of Jigawa State for two terms under the platform of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) after which the ruling APC took over his state. Is he
then telling Nigerians that he cut a deal with APC, helped the ruling party to
procure victory at the polls and take over his state?
The fact is that it is not only
in Bayelsa State that the country had experienced such a situation where PDP or
even APC had lost elections to another party. Holding Jonathan responsible for
PDP’s loss in Bayelsa without first investigating the issues that determined
the fate suffered by the party in the state is not only disingenuous but also
detrimental to the image and aspirations of the party.
It is true that Jonathan who is a
former deputy Governor and Governor of Bayelsa States as well as former Vice
President and President of this country is well loved and respected by his
people. However, it will be tantamount to playing God for anybody to expect
that the former President should command a vice-like grip on every Bayelsan in
all the local government councils in his state.
Rather than cast aspersions and
throw shades because of pre-existing animosities and prejudices against the
former president, what is expected of party leaders like Mr. Lamido is to seek
to interrogate whatever went wrong in Bayelsa, to avert a repeat in another
state.
We believe that further
interrogation of Lamido’s other weird claims is not necessary in this space,
lest it gives the unfortunate interview more attention than it deserves.
However, we feel that it is important to reiterate, as we have always done,
that former President Jonathan did nothing wrong as far as the Malabu deal is
concerned. He therefore doesn’t need to cut a deal with anybody within or
outside Nigeria.
For the umpteenth time, we
restate the following facts to proclaim Dr. Jonathan’s innocence:
Former President Goodluck
Jonathan did not ask for or collect any bribes over the Malabu deal, neither
has he been charged for asking or collecting bribes, neither will he ever be
charged with asking for or collecting bribes, because such never happened.
The fact remains that as recent
national events continue to vindicate former President Jonathan, and as the
world continues to celebrate him, those who are insecure will feed such
propaganda to their media agents to serve their narrow interests.
We have always made it clear that
beyond this wave of conjecture, former President Jonathan was not linked,
indicted or charged for collecting any monies as kickbacks or bribes by any law
enforcement body the world over.
It bears repeating that the
documents relating to the transactions and decisions of the Federal Government
on the Malabo issue, during the Jonathan administration, are in the relevant
Government offices, where they are accessible.
We would like to point out that
all the actions taken by the Jonathan administration in relation to activities
in the oil industry were legally conducted by relevant Nigerian Government
officials and were carried out in the best interest of the country
We call on anyone, including Mr.
Sule Lamido, who has any shred of evidence linking former President Jonathan to
any wrongdoing in the case of the Malabu incident to waste no time in
publishing such evidence or forever remain silent.
While we wait for such an
impossible task to be undertaken by Mr. Lamido and his co-travellers, we would
also want to draw their attention to the following fact:
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as an elder
statesman, is a father figure to all Nigerians. His door is open to all who
wish to pay him courtesy visits or seek his counsel. That should not mean that
he automatically subscribes to whatever political agenda his visitors subscribe
to.
While he was president, former
President Jonathan had the largeness of heart to receive then members of the
All Progressive Congress at Aso Rock Presidential villa, including Muhammadu
Buhari, who he conferred an award on in 2014. Ahead of the last governorship
election, most of the gubernatorial aspirants and candidates from different
political parties in Bayelsa state visited Jonathan as a father of the state
and that is a role the former President will continue to play.
We wish to state categorically,
that Dr. Jonathan remains a faithful member of the PDP and had no reason to
have worked against his political party in the last election. That the PDP lost
in the gubernatorial election to APC is unfortunate, but attributing the defeat
to the former President is to be gratuitously obsessed with blackmail and red
herring.
Finally, Dr. Jonathan would want
to counsel Mr. Lamido and others in his shoes to look at their national
passports. They would see that their citizenship is Nigeria. We are first
Nigerians before we are members of any political party or social organisation.
If Mr. Lamido does not know that, then it is a pity. A big pity indeed.
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