Presidency: Tinubu is not a patriot

The presidency Thursday launched a broadside against Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, for allegedly disparaging Nigeria in a lecture he delivered at the British House of Commons on Monday.
According to the presidency, Tinubu’s comments portray him as unpatriotic and are not substantiated with facts of what President Goodluck Jonathan has done in the last two years.
Tinubu at the lecture told the United Kingdom parliament that except there was strict observance of certain positive dynamics, democracy could implode in Nigeria.
In the lecture titled: “Leadership, National Development and the People,” being the theme of the British African Diaspora Conference, which invited him as keynote speaker, the former Lagos State governor referred to the failed policies of the President Jonathan administration to include such critical areas as power, employment, management of the economy and national security, as evidence of bad leadership.
He added that Nigeria has a bad leadership and would need a new one that could take bold steps and initiate time-tested policies.
However, Tinubu’s party also attacked presidential spokesman, Dr. Rueben Abati, whom it accused of making more enemies for the president by employing foul language in replying critics of the administration.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said Tinubu was never a patriot as no patriot would go abroad to disparage his country.
“As everyone well knows, patriots are concerned with the image, the well-being and survival of their country and will do everything in their power to protect same even if they have political differences with their home governments.
They do not condone terrorism neither do they travel around the world denigrating their country.
“It is noteworthy that even though President George Bush Jnr is not in sync with some policies of the present American President, led by Barrack Obama, he (Bush) does not go around the world disparaging him. Also, several notable Black American leaders, including Ambassador Jetter, Andrew Young and Rev. Jesse Jackson have visited Nigeria and other African countries quite often, yet none of them will speak evil of their home governments in spite of the various challenges facing the African-American community in the United States. This is the hallmark of true patriotism,” Okupe said.
Lampooning Tinubu and other opposition parties’ leaders for their opposition to the state of emergency in the North-east, Okupe said: “Nigerians know for a fact that were it left to Tinubu and his party, the terrorists would be having free rein in the North-east of Nigeria. It is public knowledge that whilst peace-loving Nigerians fully supported the declaration of emergency rule by President Jonathan in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States, the ACN and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of its merging partners, opposed the move going as far as calling on the National Assembly to reject the declaration.
“It is clear to any clear-sighted and right-thinking Nigerian that this administration is firmly in control of the security situation. The Boko Haram terrorists have been routed and expelled from their camps and enclaves by the Nigerian military and life and commercial activities continue uninterrupted in the states currently under emergency rule
Okupe accused Tinubu and ACN of lacking in democratic temper and were in no position to lecture the Jonathan administration on democratic ethos.
“To assert as he did in that paper that Nigeria under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan is a dysfunctional democracy is not only the height of ignorance but equally of unbridled mischief,” he added.

Culled from Thisday