NEWS & UPDATE:Lai Mohammed, leave me out of your tales by moonlight on IPOB – Goodluck Jonathan

Former President Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan has called on the Minister of
Information and Culture Lai Mohammed to
quit blaming him for all of the inadequacies
of the Buhari-administration.
He said this in a statement shared on his
official Facebook page.
Jonathan, in the post shared by his
aide Reno Omokri , has said that the current
administration is peddling propaganda.
He asked that if the sponsors of
the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are
known, then they should be identified,
arrested, and prosecuted.
The former president also advised the
current administration to tread with caution
on the issue of deploying the military to the
south.
Nigerian is not under military rule, the
statement said, and the military should be
fighting a nation’s external enemies, not
taking up the police’s responsibility of
fighting criminality within the nation.
Read the full statement below:

Lai Mohammed, Leave Former
President Jonathan Out of Your
Tales by Moonlight on IPOB
The insinuations in the press
conference given by Minister of
Information, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, on Sunday the
17th of September 2017,

accusing the opposition of
sponsoring the Indigenous
People of Biafra, IPOB, and the
fact that he mentioned that
Nnamdi Kanu preached
Nigerian unity during the
administration of former
President Goodluck Jonathan is
another clear indication that
the present administration has
not left propaganda mode for
proper agenda mode two and a
half year into their tenure.

If the government in which Lai
Mohammed serves, knows
which opposition members are
sponsoring IPOB, then they
should identify them, arrest
them and then prosecute them.
Ever since Lai Mohammed made
his ill advised statement, a
principal member of the All
Progressive Congress
government and the Senate
President, Senator Bukola
Saraki, has come out to say
that the actions in the
Southeast are troubling and
some of it are unconstitutional.
Is he also sponsoring IPOB too?

It is our suspicion that Lai
Mohammed is talking from
history seeing as he criticized
the Jonathan government for
banning Boko Haram in a
statement he released on June
10, 2013, even though the
Jonathan government had gone
through due process before
proscribing that murderous
sect.
Perhaps Lai Mohammed thinks
everybody is like him and those
he represents.

I also commend the governors
of the Southeast for
cooperating with the military
and in the process saving lives
and property. It is a noble act
that should not be ignored.
However, we want to advise the
Buhari administration, which
has announced plans to extend
the military show of force to
the Southsouth and the
Southwest through Operation
Crocodile Smile, to tread with
caution.
Nigeria is no longer under
military rule. In a democracy,
you separate the military from
the police. The military is not
meant to fight criminality
within a nation because they
are trained to fight a nation’s
external enemies.

It is the police that are trained
to fight crime Internally.
When the military starts doing
the job of the police and starts
fighting or doing what they call
a ‘show of force’, the effect will
not be to reduce crime. The
effect will be to intimidate
people.

Let me say again to Lai
Mohammed, the time for
propaganda is gone. The time
for blaming Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan for all the unfulfilled
promises of the APC
government is over. Nigerians
are no longer buying it

Rome may not have been built
in a day, but from day one you
could see evidence of builders
building up Rome. But what
have we seen in the last two
and a half years of the
Muhammadu Buhari
administration? We see a
government that from day one
has been blaming instead of
building

Finally, I seize this opportunity
to remind Lai Mohammed that
under the Jonathan
administration the ministry of
information had annual
ministerial briefing where the
media and civil society groups
interrogated cabinet ministers
on the activities of their
departments. 100 days briefing
was given to Nigerians on the
government’s vision and one
year briefings was given to the
nation on government
activities. An elaborate mid
term briefing was also given by
that government to the country
on the achievements of the
administration.

Lai Mohammed should think
about these as information
minister and should know that
he is minister for information
not minister for propaganda.
Reno Omokri, for (Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan)