By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The kinsmen of former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan have warned politicians against distorting historical facts on the timeline of Jonathan’s presidency in order to score cheap political goal ahead of 2023.
The views of Jonathan’s kinsmen came from the paramount ruler of Otuoke community, Jonathan’s country home, King Ariwareni Paul, in a statement issued in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, and was made available to newsmen.
The king was reacting to a TV documentary anchored by Don Pedro Obaseki titled “PDP 2023: The Arithmetic of Zoning” which stated that Jonathan had governed Nigeria for six years as a president.
The monarch observed that it was a wilful propaganda concerning Jonathan’s tenure which “some political hirelings and propagandists have wrongly and treacherously claimed to have lasted six years, ostensibly to agree with their predetermined selfish narrative”.
He frowned at it, describing it as lies and misinformation against their son, Jonathan, just to gain undue advantage in the forthcoming 2023 elections.
According to him, “We have read in the news and watched on TV the deliberate misinformation of the public on the political timeline of former Presidents, especially concerning the number of years spent by President Jonathan in office.
“The narrative that Jonathan spent six instead of five years as President is a distortion of historical fact and it is expedient that we correct this misinformation for the sake of posterity”, he stated.
The king is taken aback that Obaseki “who is supposed to have a reasonable knowledge of historical events in Nigeria would willingly opt to distort and misrepresent recent significant occurrence in the political evolution of our dear nation.
“We believe this was not an error on the side of Obaseki but a deliberate mangling of Nigeria’s political history in pursuit of the political desires of his paymasters.
“It is on record that Jonathan took his oath of office and was sworn in as President on May 6, 2010, following the death of his boss, President Yar’Adua. He later contested in 2011 polls and was subsequently sworn into office on May 29, 2011, and he handed over to his successor on May 29, 2015. So how does May 2010 to May 2015 amounts to 6 years.
“Assuming but not conceding that one wants to add the three months Jonathan served as acting President, from when the doctrine of necessity was passed by the National Assembly specifically on February 9, 2010, it will amount to five years and four months and definitely not s
“Individuals and groups are free to promote any candidate of their choice but Nigerians should not be misinformed for their personal reasons.
“We have observed that an otherwise credible television station has been promoting this falsehood in the form of advert and documentary and we are advising them to retract this error. We also admonish sponsors of the advert to get their facts right and stop misinforming Nigerians”, the monarch advised.
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