Niger Delta groups take issue with Nnamdi Kanu for describing Goodluck as naive and incompetent

THREE Niger Delta human rights groups have warned the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) leader Nnamdi Kanu to be mindful of his words after he publicly berated former president Dr Goodluck Jonathan calling him incompetent and naive.

Over the last two years, Mr Kanu has come to national prominence emerging as the public face of the agitation for the recreation of the sovereign state of Biafra. He has been addressing large crowds of late and at a rally last week, he castigated the former president for not doing enough while he was in office for Ndigbo.

In response, yesterday, the Niger Delta Security Watch of Nigeria, the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative and the Foundation for Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusade, led by Dickson Bekederemo, Austin Ozobo and Alaowei Cleric respectively, cautioned Mr Kanu to be mindful of his choice of words in public in order not to be misconstrued. They took exception to him calling Dr Jonathan names.

“Why we want to totally disagree with Nnamdi Kanu is that due to the inordinate ambitious northern elite, no matter one’s selfless sacrifice to assuage their yearnings, as long as political power is not in their hands, they will still hate the south. President Jonathan was neither ignorant, nor naive but was caged and he spent his tenure placating a region that see power as their birth right.

The Arewa Consultative Forum love and adopt any southerner as their son if the southerner is a willing tool against his own people. While we are in agreement with Kanu on the issue of the north hating the south, we however, take exception to his assertion that President Jonathan was incompetent," the three groups said in a joint statement.

They asked what Mr Kanu wanted from Dr Jonathan, asking whether the former president should have ruled with brute force like President Buhari. They also asked whether Dr Jonathan should have concentrated all his developmental efforts only in the south as a result of their hate for the south?

“While we appreciate Kanu’s disposition towards the northern political elite with born to rule attitude, we want to say here that hate for hate multiplies hate. We are all witness to the 95% and 5% dichotomy introduced by President Buhari into our democratic lexicon, which has snowballed into irreconcilable misunderstanding between the north and south.

"At the moment, President Buhari's hatred for south which he demonstrated through his lopsided appointments has taken Nigeria to the cliff and the only remedy for the country not to fall over the cliff is the immediate implementation of confab report of 2014. We expected Kanu to equally appreciate the contributions of Niger Delta towards his release and the Biafra agitation as counterparts and we never expected of him to make outbursts that will undermine the friendship of the east and Niger Delta region,” the groups said.

They noted that although there were some shortcomings in the Jonathan government, it is wrong to say that he was not friendly to the east, or ignorant and naive. According to the groups, there was no average politician in the east that did not benefit from Dr Jonathan's administration.