CLARK TO Obasanjo: What do you really want from Jonathan, Ijaw people?

A former national commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, has called on ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo to say what he really wants from the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan and the Ijaw people of Niger Delta region.

The Ijaw leader who accused Obasanjo of deliberately inciting Nigerians against Ijaw leaders and Jonathan, described him as being uncharitable to the immediate past president and his people.

Clark stated this in an open letter he addressed to Obasanjo, in response to his remarks in the recently published “Against the Run of Play”, a book by Olusegun Adeniyi.

He said Obasanjo’s comments in the book were not only false but very despicable, particularly as it concerns him and other Ijaw leaders.

Clark said, “For instance, some of the statements you made against me in your book ‘Under My Watch’ were the same statements you repeated in Olusegun Adeniyi’s book which is an arrangement between the two of you to condemn the Ijaw and to incite other Nigerian leaders to disparage the Ijaw leaders particularly myself and the younger ones like Asari Dokubo whom you kept in prison for two years without trial until we begged you to release him.”

He then asked the erstwhile leader, “What do you really want from Jonathan and the Ijaw people? Most of the various issues you raised in collaboration with Olusegun Adeniyi’s book ‘Against the Run of Play’ are mere re-visitation of the many things you did and failed to do in your eight years of mis-governance.”

Denying Obasanjo’s allegation that Jonathan was clannish and surrounded himself with his Ijaw kinsmen, Clark accused him of being responsible for the many woes Nigeria has had to contend with since after Obasanjo’s administration.

On how Jonathan treated the issue of Boko Haram, which Obasanjo also cited in the book, Clark said, “Another criticism you made against Jonathan was Jonathan’s way of handling Boko Haram and that Jonathan was not interested in accountability and that if Jonathan was therefore allowed to continue in 2015 it would no doubt damage the whole country.

“And that Jonathan and his people turned Boko Haram into an industry for making money. I think this is very uncharitable…, you should name how Jonathan and his people turned Boko Haram into a money-making industry and who are his people that benefited from that industry?”

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