Ex President Goodluck Jonathan has denied claims by former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, that he traded off Bayelsa State to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
He described Lamido’s claims as incorrect and a blackmail.
Jonathan’s rebuttal was contained in a statement issued by his Media Adviser, Mr. Ikechukwu Eze, on Monday.
According to Eze, it was not only in Bayelsa State that the country had experienced a situation where Peoples Democratic Party or even the All Progressives Congress had lost elections to another party.
He said that holding Jonathan responsible for the PDP’s loss in Bayelsa without first investigating the issues that determined the fate suffered by the party in the state was not only disingenuous, but also detrimental to the image and aspirations of the party.
Eze noted that it would be tantamount to playing God for anybody to expect that the former President should command a vice-like grip on every Bayelsan in all the local government areas in his state.
“Jonathan would want to counsel Lamido and others in his shoes to look at their national passports. They would see that their citizenship is Nigeria. We are first Nigerians before we are members of any political party or social organisation. If Lamido does not know that, then it is a pity.
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“We chose to make this clarification just to set the record straight, especially as a number of the former President’s close associates have been asking questions about the blatant statement credited to Lamido.
“Where was Lamido when Jonathan campaigned vigorously and helped the PDP to win Bayelsa governorship election in 2015, under the same President Buhari?”
Also reacting to the claims by Lamido that Jonathan traded off Bayelsa to avoid being implicated in the Malabu oil scam, Eze said: “Jonathan is convinced that Lamido’s intervention in this matter was deliberately designed as a form of blackmail. Having tried many other ways to discredit the former President to no avail, Lamido is now scheming to project Malabu as Jonathan’s Achilles heel.
Here again he has failed because the true story of Malabu is already very well known to Nigerians.”
Insisting on the former President’s innocence, Eze said: “We call on anyone, including Lamido, who has any shred of evidence linking former President Jonathan to any wrongdoing in the case of the Malabu incident to waste no time in publishing such evidence or forever remain silent.
