Less than a week after departing Lagos
State, President Goodluck Jonathan will visit the state again on Sunday
to meet with about 5,000 youths in a programme titled, ‘Meet the
President.’
A former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, announced this on his Facebook page.
He wrote, “Nigeria’s most youth-friendly
President ever, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will be meeting with Nigerian
youths in Lagos this weekend. Power to the youths!”
Jonathan had, last week, spent five days
in the state where he seized the opportunity to visit Yoruba monarchs
and also meet with market leaders to seek their support
Lagos State, which is the most populous state in the country, has almost six million registered voters.
According to leaders of the Peoples
Democratic Party, in order to win the March 28 elections, Jonathan will
need to gain the majority of the votes in the South-West particularly
Lagos because the North-West, where the presidential candidate of the
All Progressives Congress, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), hails from
has over 18 million registered voters.
The North-West comprises Kano, Katsina,
Kaduna, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states. Buhari won in all the
North-West states in 2011.
However, the South-South and South-East,
where majority of Jonathan’s supporters are, have the lowest number of
registered voters in the country.
The APC has been in control of Lagos
since 1999 but the state has a large number of non-indigenes which the
President is banking on for support.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State chapter of
the APC has slammed Jonathan for allegedly distributing dollars to the
people of the state in an attempt to buy their votes.
The party in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, described the act as shameful.
It said while Jonathan was busy doling
out cash to all and sundry in Lagos, Vice-President Namadi Sambo was
busy in Kaduna doing the same thing.
The statement read, “Dollars and local
currencies were doled out by the President in millions to market
leaders, town unions, traditional rulers, actors, artisans,
transporters, government workers and local chiefs, without any modicum
of respect to the exalted office he occupies. No wonder our foreign
reserves have just been depleted by $1.6bn.
“Never in the history of this country
has a sitting President displayed this kind of desperation and financial
irresponsibility in a country that lacks basic infrastructure and
common indices of human development. It is now crystal clear to
Nigerians why the PDP and President Jonathan shifted the February 14
presidential elections to March 28.
“This is the money the President would
have used to create jobs for millions of young jobless Nigerians. This
is the millions that would have been used to rebuild our decayed and
moribund universities. This money would have been used to rebuild our
teaching hospitals to become centres of excellence.
“Funny individuals, scammers and people
with questionable character besieged the Presidential Lounge, Marina
Lagos to collect their own largesse. Those who do not deserve even half a
penny lined up to deceive the President.”
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