President: Atiku’s Statement Treasonable

President Goodluck Jonathan blew hot yesterday at two different fora, warning politicians against unguarded statements.

He said anyone making statements that threaten the sovereignty of the country would be deemed to be engaging in treasonable felony.

The president’s warning is a veiled response to a statement by former vice-president and consensus candidate of the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who two days ago at a political forum quoted Frantz Fanon, saying "those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable".

Also, the State Security Service (SSS) warned that politicians who make inflammatory statements capable of causing division within the country would no longer be tolerated.

But the former vice-president in a statement titled “I’m Ready for Arrest” said yesterday that tolerance for dissenting views and opponents remained an integral component of democracy.
He said his statement should be taken in its historical context in terms of bitter experiences injustice has caused around the world, and as evidenced in the looming crisis in Cote d’Ivoire.

Jonathan spoke during the decoration of senior officers of the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force and later at the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) both in Abuja.
According to the president, “Any office one is aspiring to in this country does not worth a blood of any Nigeria.  I am saying so because the utterances of some of us recently are very unpalatable.

“And government will no longer tolerate a situation where an individual or a group of individuals will threaten the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. These people make statement that is treasonable, they will face the law and nobody should say that somebody is being persecuted because of politics.

“And that is why I am pleading with the chairman (PDP) that probably that we should have a code of conduct. Those of us who are aspiring for office should guide our utterances of what we say or do, because especially those of us from the same PDP family, because if 10 people are aspiring for an office, only one person will win at the end of the day, and we expect the remaining nine to work with that person.

“The same thing at the presidential level and when one person emerges, others will come and work with him, but if you are making statements that are, its you or nobody else, then you have a difficult and different agenda. You will not destroy PDP and as much as you want that position, you will not destroy the platform that will field you, because if you do that, where will you climb.”

“Anybody that contravenes it (code of conduct) will be disqualified. If I do that I should be disqualified. The whole world is looking up to us. We should guard against our conduct and not play politics with everything,” he added.
At the decoration of the military officers, Jonathan warned that the Federal Government would not allow anybody to take this country for granted or challenge the country’s sovereignty.

He commended the efforts of the military men whom he said had sustained the unity of the country through their “loyalty, professionalism, patriotism and sacrifice”.
SSS Spokesperson Marilyn Ogar said the service was alarmed by inciting utterances made in recent times by prominent political figures, describing the statement as unacceptable.

She said: "A situation where some of those aspiring to rule this nation have resorted through their utterances to make ‘the country ungovernable’, or calling for ‘a violent change’, is very despicable and unacceptable to this service.  This, to this service, is beyond politics."

The SSS spokesperson went on to say that it is reckless and utterly divisive to put out those words in the public domain.
She added that "the service has also noted that these utterances, apart from being very inflammatory and extremely inciting are of deep and grave national security concern."

However, Atiku said while quoting the statement originally made by Frantz Fanon but often repeated by former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, he had also added that “this (violent change) is not what we want for Nigeria.”

In a statement by his campaign organisation in Abuja, the former vice-president said he and his supporters would not be intimidated or deterred in the commitment to ensure that the PDP abides by its zoning arrangement in line with the party’s amended constitution.

Atiku said he is a democrat “who has at all times toed the path of constitutionality and rule of law in advancing the cause of democracy and therefore cannot be recommending a path that is at variance with his long life struggles to deepen democracy in Nigeria”.

He said his comment at the National Stakeholders’ Confere-nce on Wednesday was borne out of historical reality when the late U.S. President Kennedy warned against the consequences of making peaceful change impossible.
He noted that it was a patriotic admonition to all stakeholders to exercise maximum restraint and avoid desperate actions which might spell avoidable consequences for Nigeria’s corporate entity.

“As a responsible and dignified statesman, Atiku will never resort to scare-mongering or any anti-social action which can undermine Nigeria’s co-existence,” the statement added.

He argued that accusing him of causing tension is like putting the saddle on the wrong horse.
The former vice-president claimed that no Nigerian leader in recent memory “has caused so much bitterness, division, suspicion and animosity among Nigerians like President Jonathan because of his ambition to run in 2011”.

Atiku recalled that a serving federal minister in the present administration once threatened that Nigeria could face dire consequences if President Jonathan was forced out of the presidential race.

He wondered how a president that “tore the PDP apart and caused so much bitterness within his own ruling party because of his ill-advised ambition could turn round and accuse anyone else of causing tension”.