By Chris Nomjov
Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark has voiced his own version of events, stating that former President Goodluck Jonathan ‘loved’ him, while alleging that veteran journalist, Reuben Abati failed the former President.
Chief Clark was responding to Abati’s scathing article of him. Clark showed he’s equal to the task, with a lengthy response, which was made available to the Press. Bother have been on each other’s case, since the unsuccessful bid of former President Jonathan’s re-election.
Clark’s full statement reads thus:
“My advice that a publicity committee made up of eminent journalists be put in place in Aso Rock and that media proprietors and senior journalists should be invited to Aso Rock were jettisoned by Abati because of what I suppose is his covetousness, particularly when many journalists and media houses always complained to me that he was not carrying them along.”
“Dr. Reuben Abati has risen to the defence of his last employer too late. He owes the former President apologies for his (Reuben Abati) failure to perform while in office. I should not be used as a scapegoat. I love Goodluck Jonathan and Goodluck Jonathan loves me.”
“I do not recall any favourable remark made by Abati all those years when he was the chairman of the Editorial Board [of the Guardian] and syndicated columnist about the former president, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan.
“If I recall correctly, they were always the butt of ridicule by Dr. Reuben Abati. In fact, he became so notorious and fearless a critic of former President Jonathan and his wife in the Guardian Newspaper that I had to draw the attention of my cousin the proprietor of the Guardian newspaper to his excesses.
These vitriolic attacks on former President Jonathan and his wife only stopped when he was appointed the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity by the former president. I do not know the background of Dr. Abati but for him to lie and devilishly imagine that I should have remained a PDP card carrying member if President Jonathan had won the election is satanic.”
“He tarred more roads than any of his predecessors; he turned agriculture to agro-business, a multibillion dollar business; he built the Almajiri schools in the Northern parts of this country. He established new federal universities across this nation; he allowed for free speech across this nation, and did not mind when he was criticised or, even, abused. People were not arbitrarily locked up in jail or prison, as he truly respected the rule of law.”
“He signed the Freedom of Information Bill into law, which was not done by his predecessors; he modernized the aviation sector; he convoked a National Conference that brought Nigerians together and proffered recommendations on how to better bind Nigerians together as one.
“He sanitized the electoral system of this country, unlike what we had before him, when elections results were announced without actually voting, when ballot snatching were rampant and common place.
“He brought transparency into the electoral process – when people could vote and the votes actually openly counted without violence. Today he stands as the first African president to concede an election to an opponent, even before the final counts. In keeping with my character, I cannot say in private what I cannot say in the public. I do not therefore, reject or disown Jonathan as my beloved political son.”
