President Jonathan to visit Lagos again

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.”