No rift with OBJ —Jonathan

THE Presidency has dismissed the recent outburst by Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo, leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, who had suggested in an interview that President Goodluck Jonathan was fighting his benefactor and former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The former militant had also posited that President Jonathan might not rule beyond 2015 because he was surrounded by greedy people.
But speaking with State House correspondents in Abuja at the weekend, Presidential spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, described Asari’s position as a crab mentality expression, based on a wrong premise.
He said it did not reflect the innermost feelings of Nigerians about the present administration and the president.
Dr Abati denied the existence of any quarrel between President Jonathan and the former Nigerian leader, noting that Obasanjo “is a man for whom President Jonathan has the utmost respect and they have an excellent relationship.”
Dr Abati, who observed that the militant’s tirade came as a surprise, advised Asari-Dokubo to remain consistent, see the big picture and worry less about greedy people who he thought were preventing other Ijaws from reaching the president.
He recalled that the ex-militant was a well known supporter of the president’s administration, who has said a lot of positive things about the administration.
According to him, “I read that interview granted by Asari-Dokubo and I was quite surprised that he would talk like that because as he himself admitted in that interview, he is close to government. And his interview was full of proverbs.
“So, I don’t know whether it is a wise thing for you to be a member of the house and then for you to stand outside and urinate into that same house. Doing so may serve the purpose of sensationalism and it may please some mischief makers, but the truth of the matter is that wise people may think that that it is not really the right way to go.
“In spite of the content of his interview, in which he was saying the president has a rift with former President Obasanjo, I keep saying it; there is no rift between President Jonathan and former President Obasanjo. The president has the utmost respect for the former president whom he regards as his father.
“He even calls him Baba. And I don’t think anybody can say he has any evidence anywhere where the president has been disrespectful to the elderly man.
“So, those things that you see in the newspapers about people saying President Jonathan and former President Obasanjo are quarreling are exaggerated. They do not reflect the truth.
“He (Asari-Dokubo) claims that there is a rift between President Jonathan and former President Obasanjo; so, you can see that the whole of that commentary is based on a wrong premise”.
On the allegation that President Jonathan surrounded himself with greedy people who have refused other Nigerians access to the president, the presidential spokesman said, “there is also a comment from him (Asari-Dokubo) about people who surround the president whom he says are greedy and who have cut him off from his roots and all that.
“What you just take from all that is this crab mentality theory of human relationship and I think that there is a lot of this crab theory at play in Nigeria both in terms of interpersonal relationship and in terms of how people respond to public issues.”

Tribune