By Juliet Ebirim

Jimi Disu, a veteran journalist with print and electronic media experience, Thursday added his voice to the condemnation of the statements credited to former Niger Delta militants who warned that there would be war if President Jonathan lost next month’s Presidential election. Always the guest at Classic FM’s Front Page News, a daily review of newspapers, Disu has always been commended for his objective analysis on national issues. These were his words on the threat by ex militants:

“They threatened to declare war on the nation if President Goodluck Jonathan loses the February 14 election. This threat came up at a meeting that was attended by Governor Dickson and Chief Kuku, an SA to the president. I consider all these quite unfortunate. It is sad that we have gotten to this point.

Their statement was that ‘The Niger-Delta militants will declare war if the president loses the election’. How does that sound to you? If they’re going to declare war if the president loses, why don’t they just come out and say there should be no election and let’s have a selection. I consider this very unfortunate, because overtime, the president has not come out to contend with these people specifically. I have a feeling that the president has the power to rein them in and ask them to stop all these, but that hasn’t happened. We ask ourselves, ‘could this threat be real?’

As irresponsible and incredible as it sounds, could it be real? I maintain that if for any reason President Jonathan loses this election, he shouldn’t hold anyone responsible but his aides. Look at the attack on Buhari for example, they attacked the man up to the point that they even talked about his daughter who died of sickle cell and it is running on a TV station. The more they attacked him on that same TV station, the more the polls shot up from 70% to 79% in his favour, because in the first instance, it attracted sympathy to him.

But in the second instance, it’s the most callous thing. I’ve never seen such desperation for power in my life. Why some people believe they must bring the country down because they want one man elected is something I can’t live with. It was the same Nigerians that voted President Jonathan four years ago. When the likes of Dele Momodu and the rest of them risked their lives to go to Aso Rock, were they from the Niger Delta? When the likes of Pastor Tunde Bakare fought that he must be made president, were they members of the Niger-Delta? So why should there be war now if he doesn’t win? The election will go on and it’s going to be free and fair and there shall be peace and whoever wins, wins!

There’s nothing in the constitution that says anything(Presidency) should be turn by turn. It’s all about competence. Those who have the responsibility to nip this thing in the bud have not said anything.

I don’t see the reason why some people will have the nerves to come out and make such a threat…?

It’s because Nigeria has gradually become a corporate jungle. We’re almost becoming animals in the zoo. I don’t know what’s wrong – I don’t know if it is in our DNA or in something that we eat.

Look at the response of the APC to Soludo and look at the response of Okonjo-Iweala to him as well. The first four paragraphs were to run him down, rather than go straight to the point and face issues.

Let me quickly add something, this Asari Dokubo is a militant fighting for the liberation of his people. The bulk of his business is in the Republic of Benin and he has opened a school and university there. What does that tell you?

The Afenifere Renewal Group has declared that it’s not a party to the endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid as misrepresented in the first media report….

The level of mischief and misrepresentation of people and all sorts of dubious things going on is appalling. There are some adverts we see on newspapers that are as bad a Fayose’s advert. All these just because we want someone to be president, why do we do these things this way? If you want to see what a decent campaign is like see the election campaigns going on in the UK. Let’s call a spade a spade. If anyone says publicly that he’s going to declare war if his candidate loses, he should be arrested, because it’s a matter of national security. What could be worse than that?