2015: Jonathan Has No Credible Opposition

Insideafrik
POLITICS
NIGERIA
By Vincent Obia

Against the backdrop of President Goodluck Jonathan’s yet-to-be announced re-election bid, a Lagos-based social critic, Prince Kayode Olowu, has said that the president would be his own greatest inhibition, as there is a dearth of trustworthy opposition across the political spectrum.

Olowu regretted that Jonathan had left the masses after riding on their popular support to power, saying, however, that he still has a chance to “return to the people through honest performance.”

According to Olowu, a former chairman of Lagos State Property Development Corporation, “There is no credible opposition now. Those in the PDP are merely ‘People Deceiving People’, and outside PDP, the opposition elements cannot be trusted. For now, those calling themselves opposition are not credible people. President Jonathan still has the chance to do it in such a way that Nigerians will just tell him to carry on.

“He should stop telling us he is not our problem. After all, what did he promise? Did he not promise that those not having shoes would be given to wear? “He should reorder his priorities to make the common people the target of his political agenda and development programmes. He still has time.”

Olowu said it was unfortunate that the federal government was finding it difficult to prosecute erring fuel marketers.
He stressed that instead of wasting public resources on such prosecutions that have little prospect of really punishing thieving marketers, to serve as a deterrent to others, government should device other ways of recovering the stolen funds.

“These oil marketers are holding everybody to ransom because the president has boxed himself into their hands. The masses were with him, but he left the people.