B/Haram: Jonathan didn’t act for three years –PDM chairman

The National Chairman of the people Democratic movement (PDM), Alh. Bashir Yusuf  Ibrahim, on Friday blamed President Good luck Jonathan  for the  escalation of the  activities of Boko Haram  insurgents in the North East, saying that the President  slept over the issue for three years without action.
He also said that President Jonathan misread the insurgency as a religious war rather than the result of lack of good governance, poor leadership, misinterpretation of the teaching of Islam and poverty in the North East as the main factors responsible for the spontaneous crisis.

Bashir who spoke to journalists on the 2015 general elections noted that Boko Haram insurgency was not based on religion or to frustrate anybody’s political ambition but rather it is essentially a socio-economic problem that is tainted with religion.
“Initially, President Jonathan’s understanding of the sects’ phenomenon emanated from the wrong perception and wrong imputation that  actually plunged the country into where it is today.
“The worst part of it is that it even took Jonathan more than three years to appreciate and understand that Boko Haram is a terrible mix of lack of education, misinterpretation of what Islam and the Quran teaches and stands for,” the party boss said.
According to him, today, every aspect of the nation’s national life is riddled and engulfed with corruption while the military has been politicised with few Nigerians standing out and vehemently refusing to succumb to the illegality that Jonathan administration accepted and embraced.
Bashir also expressed regrets that corruption was one of the priorities of President Jonathan administration, adding that poverty, unemployment, injustice, gun-trafficking, frustration, struggle against inequality, and general poor governance became the order of the day.
The veteran journalist also spoke on youth unemployment, the economy and leadership deficit in the country, saying that gross domestic product GDP in the country does not reflect on the living condition of most people, adding that government inability to protect the citizenry was largely responsible for the crisis especially in the North-East.
He said that killings in the North-East was a justifiable reason for a change in Nigeria, adding that a situation where over $1 billion is being stolen monthly in Nigeria  by some cabal was not obtainable anywhere in the world.

On the success of the Buhari administration, the PDM chairman hinges his apprehensions on the high expectations by the Nigerian people, saying that the only thing that would salvage the administration is a deliberate campaign for attitudinal change at all levels of governance among Nigerian.
He said that it will not be easy for the Buhari administration to fix the country but was,  however, optimistic that with the track-records of the incoming president, there would be changes.
While regretting that over $6.7 billion was being lost to crude oil theft yearly coupled  with the over $3 billion missing from NNPC, the party boss said unless the security situation and other major factors militating against the development of Nigeria were addressed,  the growth of the nation’s  economy might continued to be a mirage.
Daily Independent