The All Progressives Congress has slammed the response President Jonathan authored to former President Obasanjo in a statement describing it as beer parlour in nature and the stuff found in gossip magazines.
The statement issued by Lai Mohammed said, “Dr. Jonathan’s decision to engage former President Obasanjo in a hot exchange of words in what may now be described as ‘lettergate’ is the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Jonathan Presidency.”
It said in other climes, the President would have issued a terse response and then engaged the former President in private.
‘’Instead, the President’s response read like the stuff of gossip magazines, and the exchange of words felt like what one would have expected in a beer parlour. At the end of the day, the Presidency allowed Obasanjo to take the higher moral ground by simply insisting on the allegations he made in his letter and saying he would not respond to the Presidency’s reply.
‘’The President, who accused Obasanjo of doing him a great injustice, has himself done a great injustice to the Presidency, which is an institution in which he is only a tenant. In the end, the President of Africa’s most populous nation, the leader of the foremost black nation on earth and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria simply desecrated his own Presidency and allowed those who can only be likened to gravy train passengers, rascals and knaves to seize the initiative from him.”
The APC added: ‘’This is what happens when a President is surrounded by self-serving, boot-licking and dishonest people, at the expense of seasoned technocrats and veteran policymakers, who would have reminded the President that while critics can afford to fire all sorts of darts at him, as the custodian of the Presidency at this point in time, he cannot afford to respond in kind because, in doing so, he would be debasing the presidency as an institution.’’
‘’The President himself knows that he ought not to have engaged in such exchange when he wrote early on in his letter: ‘It is with the greatest possible reluctance that I now write this reply. I am most uneasy about embarking on this unprecedented and unconventional form of open communication between me and a former leader of our country because I know that there are more acceptable and dignified means of doing so’.
The APC statement continued: ‘’However, he quickly jettisoned such reluctance and, in an unfortunate debasement of the tone and quality of statecraft, went full blast, calling the former president a liar, a conflict instigator and an unreliable ally, among other inferred derogatory labels that may have now shut the window to reconciliation between him and his political Godfather, in addition to portraying Nigerian leaders as delinquents.
‘’To worsen matters, President Jonathan could not restrain himself from using even the revered and ecclesial platform provided by his appearance at a church service on Christmas Day to further lambast his critics and spew out hot words. This, surely, is not what is expected of a President, a leader and anyone who wants to be a nation builder. It is time to call a truce!’’