Former
President Goodluck Jonathan has raised the alarm that his life is under threat.
Jonathan
said a list, which named him and other South-South leaders as Niger Delta
Avengers sponsors, was another attempt by a group, Movement for the
Emancipation of Niger Delta, to eliminate him.
A
group, which split from the NDA – Reformed Niger Delta Avengers – had named
Jonathan as the grand patron of the NDA.
The
statement read in part, “Since it is not in our place to speak for all those
named in the obvious fabrication, we are only intervening to the extent that
its hidden intent poses a violent threat to the life of former President
Goodluck Jonathan, a committed patriot.
“We
are seized by the feeling of déjà
vu occasioned by the resurrection of one dim character masquerading
as Cynthia Whyte, who had in the past served as the spokesperson for a
notorious group that had all along shown its hand to be going after the life of
former President Jonathan.”
The
former President recalled that in 2007, after he emerged as the running mate of
the late President Umar Yar’Adua, the group invaded Yenogoa in an effort to
assassinate him.
He
added that the members of the group later bombed his compound in Otuoke,
Bayelsa State, on a night he was scheduled to attend to an important matter in
his country home.
He
said, “Do we need to remind anybody that the so-called Cynthia Whyte is the
self-declared spokesperson for the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger
Delta, a violent and murderous underground group led by one Henry Okah, which
has not hidden its intention to destroy the former President?”
According
to him, the bombing that took place on October 1, 2010 at the Eagle Square,
Abuja, showed that the group was violent.
He
stated, “We have no doubt in our mind that MEND, as a group contracted to go
after Jonathan with the mind of assassinating him, has yet to abandon this
criminal and ignominious craving. It is in this light that we view the
purported statement issued by Cynthia Whyte as not only a sadistic continuation
of this sick desire, but also a futile attempt to instigate the Federal
Government to needlessly go after the former President.
“Those
who have been following the unsavoury developments in some parts of the country
since the last general election would have noticed that MEND, its paymasters
and other unscrupulous elements in the South-South region have been striving
fruitlessly to exploit the ensuing confusion by surreptitiously working for the
fulfilment of its yet-to-be declared political agenda.
“We
are not under any illusion that more accusations and allegations of this nature
would not be hurled Jonathan’s way in the future. But we are very positive that
he can never be fazed by such negative energy.”
Tags
Politics