Patience Jonathan’s attitude, anti-gay law cost us defeat – Bayelsa PDP spokesman

While it is no longer news that President Goodluck Jonathan lost and conceded defeat in the March 28 presidential election to President-elect, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the All Progressives Congress, APC, what might come a bit surprising is the claim that he lost to international and domestic conspiracies.

Chief among that domestic conspiracy is the purported over-bearing attitude of the president’s wife, Dame Patience Jonathan.

This was the position of the Bayelsa State publicity secretary of Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Osom Makbere.

Makbere, who is also a lawyer, stated this in an exclusive interview in Yenagoa, the capital of the outgoing president’s home state at the weekend.

The PDP spokesman in the state said the divisions in the party, Mrs. Jonathan’s unbridled influence, Nigeria’s seeming arrogance to the West and the anti-gay law among other factors, contributed to President Jonathan’s loss.

Giving insight on the failure of the president at the poll, Makbere said, “History has stated that no failure, defeat or loss is a product of a single factor. Jonathan’s loss could be blamed on a multiplicity of interwoven causes.

“Jonathan was a victim and target of international c*m domestic esoteric codes and conspiracies. On the international level, the passage of the anti-gay legislation led to criticisms and face-off with the US, and the West.

“The strides made in the economic sphere, especially domestic rice promotion, calculated by the Jonathan administration to flip economic growth, and boost import substitution, also negatively alerted the West. The shift to China for our railway transformation, and recently, the migration to Russia for arms and ammunition to quelling the insurgency also signalled to the West that Jonathan had started constituting a self-reliant and dependent nation-state, a feat seen too tall by the US and their allies in the West.

“The aforesaid international factors found room to flourish given the obstinacy and impudence on the part of Mrs. Jonathan. The end result of her personal ambition to plant ‘self-made’ governors triggered face-offs with some governors”.

Makbere also opined that the APC will perform worse than the PDP at the centre.

He said, “I can tell you that this APC will be worse than the PDP as there is already imminent fear of implosion.

“In Kano, for instance, the APC got all 40 constituencies. This meant that none of the PDP candidates were popular enough to emerge but, the PDP maintained their calm and stoicism.

“We do not know what the APC wants. Whenever they win, the PDP congratulates them, but whenever the PDP wins, the APC would induce the election observers and the electoral officers to call for a re-run or cancellation. That is the zenith of desperation”, Makbere added.