President Goodluck Jonathan has said that he will witness a Nigerian government headed by a female in his lifetime. Jonathan in a series of tweets by his Special Assistant on new media, Reno Omokri, said the predication was achievable because the Peoples Democratic Party had demonstrated the willingness to give women opportunities in governance. He and his aides had repeatedly scored his administration high on women empowerment, saying no other regime had done better in the area.
On Saturday, Omokri quoted the President as saying, “I would want to see a female President in my lifetime. This is the only administration that is ready to give any position, including the one I’m asking for, to the women. “PDP is the only party that has shown commitment to develop the youth. Our priority is to build schools, not prisons.”
Omokri, on his Tweeter handle, has also stressed that PDP is more youth-friendly than its rival All Progressives Congress. Referring to a statement credited to Gov. Babatunde Fashola where he expressed concern that the Lagos PDP Governorship Candidate, Jimmy Agbaje, is too old to lead the state, Omokri said the statement was a mockery of the opposition party. Omokri, on Twitter, lashed out at Fashola for what he considered as an act of hypocrisy. He wondered why the same person who had said in December that Maj.-Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, the APC Presidential Candidate, was not too old to rule Nigeria could fault Agbaje’s aspiration on the basis of age.
“If you can name even one APC governorship candidate who is a youth, then vote Buhari. If not, then take a look at the PDP and choose Jonathan,” he urged the youth. The aide said both youths and women were better represented in the ruling party than the opposition. Referring to Buhari, he said Nigerian youths had been deceived that they were “the leaders of tomorrow” since 1983 while the present reality does not show that the same person has any regard for them. Displaying a video of Jonathan in a gym, he said the President trained and played squash regularly to keep fit.
A loyalist of Jonathan, Ikhide Ikeloa, also claimed that the youth were not represented in the Buhari campaign team, a situation, she said, betrayed the party’s lack of interest in the development of young people. “In the APC presidential campaign team, only four out of 50 members are women. There are no youths; I am sure they cannot even spell ‘youth’,” she posted on her Facebook page.
Interestingly, Ikheloa, who appears to have launched an attack on the opposition party, had earlier described PDP as an irredeemable group of people. “I care about my APC, the party of alleged progressives who want to bring positive change to our country. I will hold them in very high standards for they insist on that and because it is the right thing to do. We will not sweep out the PDP and replace them with criminals,” she said.
Meanwhile, Gbenga Sesan, an Information and Communication Technology and Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, has tipped Buhari/Osibanjo ticket as the only option before Nigerian youths who truly desire a better country. “Buhari and Osinbajo have demonstrated leadership and capacity to lead Nigeria out of our current predicament. Security is high on the list, and I’m sure you’ve heard of the blows dealt to insurgents by Buhari in the past. Boko Haram should not be something a leader will tell his people to endure because ‘it happens all over the world’, it should be crushed decisively.
“Let Buhari do something that he is not afraid to do – make Nigeria safe. It’s the first responsibility of any government. President Jonathan has failed in this area, and we need not get used to stories of the death and/or kidnap of fellow citizens. “The Buhari/Osinbajo ticket will wage war against corruption, as any sensible government should. For the many years that Buhari has been a subject of political attacks, no one has been able to stick the label, ‘corrupt’, on him,” Sesan observed in an opinion published by several blogs on Sunday.
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