Jonathan – Advent Cable Network Nigeria

PDP Leaders Pay Jonathan A Visit , Begs Him To Stay

ACNN ADMIN — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 15:17:12 +0000

THE acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Yemi Akinwonmi, on Tuesday, led a delegation of party leaders to visit ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan, in his Abuja residence.

Those on Akinwonmi’s delegation were Daisi Akintan, former caretaker secretary of the PDP in the South-West and the secretary of ex-officio forum and a member of the National Executive Committee, Mrs Helen Taiwo.

Although the three-member team met with the former President behind closed doors, it was gathered that the visit was designed to acquaint Jonathan with current happenings within the party and seek his advice on how best to find an amicable solution to the crisis.

A source privy to the meeting said, “The South West team were with the former President to appeal to him not to abandon the party.

“They also appealed to him to show more than a passing interest in the affairs of the party by becoming more actively involved in the activities of the party. The former President assured the team that he would not abandon the party.”

Source: The Punch

Jonathan Says Only South West Has Properly Managed Its Diversity

ACNN ADMIN — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 09:41:03 +0000

Former President, Goodluck Jonathan, has said the rest of Nigeria can learn something about the management of ethnic and religious diversity from the South West.

He attributed Nigeria’s current problems to its failure to properly manage its diversity in a way that gives minorities a sense of belonging.

The former president said this in an address at the 13th Joe-Kyari Gadzama Public Lecture with the theme: ‘Redefining Democracy: Yearnings of the Minority in a Democratic Setting,’ which was held virtually.

Jonathan said, “That is the only part of Nigeria where we feel has been able to manage religion and development very well.

“So, we must look at our own unique circumstances and come up with the right form of government.”

Jonathan explained that he honoured the invitation to the event out of his respect for the host, Mr. Joe-Kyari Gadzama (SAN), and the rule of law.

The former president noted that in the case of Nigeria, the complications associated with the marginalisation of minority groups and tribes were identified decades ago and that efforts were made across generations to solve the problems.

He described the setting up of the Willinks Commission by the colonial government as one of such efforts.

Jonathan expressed sadness that although the Federal Character Commission was established as part of efforts to address the issue of marginalisation, it was yet to fully achieve its set objective.

He said, “The Federal Character Commission over many decades may have been doing its best to give everyone fair representation and a fair sense of belonging, but there are still many who feel that this agency of government has not fully addressed the challenges of accommodating minorities.”

Goodluck Jonathan Gets Another Appointment

ACNN ADMIN — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 13:44:48 +0000

Former Nigerian President, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan has been recently recognized and appointed as Chancellor of Cavendish University Uganda (CUU).

The appointment is one of the numerous international recognitions given to the former Nigerian President.

Cavendish University Uganda which is a private University is one of the leading Universities in Uganda and among the list in world ranking.

The university started operating in 2008. At the opening ceremony, the former Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda (now late) was the Chancellor of the university.

Cavendish University Uganda is affiliated with Cavendish College London, Cavendish University Tanzania and Cavendish University Zambia. CUU held its first graduation ceremony in November 2011.

The university has different campus across the country including a campus in the capital city of Kampala.

Congratulations!!!

Buhari Calls For Resolution Of Mali’s Political Crisis As He Meets Jonathan

ACNN ADMIN — Fri, 28 May 2021 14:16:10 +0000

The President, Muhammadu Buhari, has urged settlement between disputing parties in the ongoing political crisis in Mali encouraging that all differences be sorted out and unite for the peace and unity of the country.

President Buhari said this at the Aso Rock, Abuja, on Friday 28th of May while hosting Nigeria’s Ex President and his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, who currently serves as Special Envoy and ECOWAS mediator to Mali.

Femi Adesina, who is the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, disclosed this in a statement titled ‘President Buhari, Jonathan confer on crisis in Mali.’

According to the statement, “President Muhammadu Buhari Friday in Abuja called on the actors in the political crisis in Mali to come together for the peace and unity of the country.

“The President spoke when he received in audience former President Goodluck Jonathan who is Special Envoy and ECOWAS mediator to the West African country.”

Quoting the President the statement said that “a situation where most parts of the country are in the hands of insurgents calls for a consensus and restoration of peace, not a further escalation of the crisis.”

The Ex President Dr. Jonathan reportedly briefed the President on the current situation in Mali after meeting with the key political actors ahead of the meeting of ECOWAS leaders under the Chairmanship of President Nana Akufo-Addo of the Republic of Ghana.

Amnesty International Indicts Jonathan, IBB, Gowon, Obasanjo, Buhari: Rights Violations

ACNN ADMIN — Fri, 28 May 2021 13:56:41 +0000

NIGERIAN leaders from 1967 till date are allegedly complicit in human rights violation and accused of allowing perpetrators to practically walk away.

Global watchdog, Amnesty International on Thursday celebrated its diamond jubilee, knocking past and present Nigerian leaders over alleged sustained impunity in the violation of human rights of Nigerians.

Also, days to the 54th anniversary of its operations in Nigeria, Amnesty International disclosed in a statement on Thursday that it was poised to expand its agenda to start bringing rights violators to trial.

The human rights organisation’s Country Director, Osai Ojigho, in the statement, said: “At 60, Amnesty International is geared to do more for the protection and promotion of human rights. The organisation will broaden its work in Nigeria to ensure that suspected perpetrators of human rights violations face justice, and that victims enjoy access to effective remedies.

“The organisation will continue to insist that authorities respect the rights of everyone. People deserve to live with dignity and to enjoy the right to due process of law. Our research work from 1967 shows a pattern of disregard for human rights. This must change.”

The organisation said it hadn’t found any difference between military juntas and democratically-elected leadership in more than five decades of monitoring rights violations in Nigeria, noting that perpetrators always get to walk away, without as much as a slap on the wrist.

She said: “From the 1960s to date, the work of Amnesty International Nigeria shows that while some successes have been recorded in some areas like Child Rights Act and Anti-Torture Act, suspected perpetrators continue to enjoy a sense of impunity for human rights violations.

“Attacks by Boko Haram insurgents continue to pose danger to lives, as they now intensify attacks in Borno State and beyond. Failure to address violations by the military in the fight against Boko Haram has denied the hope of getting justice for hundreds of victims. “Nigeria consistently failed to bring suspected perpetrators to justice. In most cases, victims of human rights violations hardly get justice. Failure to bring violators to justice is a stain on Nigeria’s image. Nigeria’s law enforcement and judicial system must be empowered to deliver justice.

“Not much has changed about human rights in Nigeria since 1967 and the concerns remain flagrant disregard for human rights, failure of authorities to protect the people, threats to human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, suppression of dissenting voices and lack of accountability.

“Incessant killings and the stunning failure of the authorities to end them and bring suspected perpetrators to justice have been and continues to be a threat to the right to life in Nigeria.

“From the days of military’s heavy-handed rule to the years of civil rule and up to today violation of human rights by both state actors and abuses by non-state actors continue to be matters of concern.”

The global organisation said Nigerians always resort to protest when their rights are breached, adding that the said space is now being appropriated by the authorities, which won’t still get the victims justice.

The statement reads in part: “Alarming escalation of attacks, abductions for ransom and frequent killings across Nigeria have left people feeling more unsafe, showing utter failure of the Nigerian authorities to protect lives and properties.

“Amnesty International started working on Nigeria on June 1 in 1967 with an intervention on the Nigerian civil war which ended in 1970. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka was declared a prisoner of conscience, for being detained solely for his dissenting opinions. Between 1968 and 1969, the annual report documented and expressed concern over suspension of human rights in the context of the civil war.

“On April 10, 1978, six Nigerian students were killed and many were detained while protesting staggering increase in student fees. From then on Nigerian youths continued to face violent crackdown for exercising right to freedom of peaceful assembly. From June 12, 1993 pro-democracy protests, occupy Nigeria protest of 2012, to the #EndSARS protest of 2020 Nigerian authorities continue to violently repress peaceful protests.

Source: Nigerian Tribune

Jonathan Warns Against Taking Sides In Israel, Palestine Conflict

ACNN ADMIN — Mon, 17 May 2021 10:06:44 +0000

ACNNtv

Updated May 17, 2021

Former President Goodluck Jonathan (File).

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has warned the international community against taking sides in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.

In total, 197 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including at least 58 children, and more than 1,200 wounded since Israel launched its air campaign against Hamas, a terrorist organisation on May 10 after the group fired rockets. The heaviest exchange of fire in years was sparked by unrest in Jerusalem.

But taking to Twitter on Monday, the ex-President said the conflict can only be resolved when those living within the borders of Israel and Palestine take the time to understand each other until they come to a place where they can coexist, co-prosper, and eventually cooperate.

He also called for peace on both sides, adding that the international community should work towards ensuring a ceasefire.

“I sue for peace in both Israel and Palestine, and urge that every international support should be towards deescalating the conflict, rather than escalating it,” he said.

“The present conflict in that part of the world can never be resolved by nations and institutions taking sides. It can only be resolved by those living within the borders of Israel and Palestine taking time to understand each other until they come to a place where they can coexist, co-prosper and eventually cooperate.

“For that to happen, what is needed, in the immediate term, is a ceasefire, followed by massive confidence building on both sides. That is what the international community should aim for. Peace. It is achievable.”

I have been to both Israel and Palestine, and as a result, I have some understanding and appreciation of the human angles on both divides.

Borders are often human constructs, but the Divine instruction we have is to love our neighbour as ourselves.

— Goodluck E. Jonathan (@GEJonathan) May 17, 2021

Overnight Sunday to Monday, Israel launched dozens of strikes in the space of a few minutes across the crowded coastal Palestinian enclave controlled by Islamist group Hamas, according to AFP journalists and the army.

Flames lit up the sky as explosions shook Gaza city.

The strikes caused widespread power cuts and damaged hundreds of buildings, local authorities said. No casualties were immediately reported.

Fire and smoke rise above buildings in Gaza City as Israeli warplanes target the Palestinian enclave, early on May 17, 2021. Anas BABA / AFP

West Gaza resident Mad Abed Rabbo, 39, expressed “horror and fear” at the intensity of the onslaught.

“There have never been strikes of this magnitude,” he said.

Israel’s army said in a statement that it hit the homes of nine “high-ranking” Hamas commanders, without providing details on casualties.

The overnight bombardment also included the third round of strikes on what the army calls the “Metro,” its term for a Hamas underground tunnel network.

Fifty-four fighter jets pounded 15 kilometers (nine miles) of tunnels, which the army has previously acknowledged runs in part through civilian areas.

Gazan Mani Qazaat said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “should realise we’re civilians, not fighters”, adding “I felt like I was dying”.

‘Legitimate’

The renewed strikes come a day after 42 Palestinians in Gaza — including at least eight children and two doctors, according to the health ministry — were killed in the worst daily death toll in the enclave since the bombardments began.

In Israel, 10 people, including one child, have been killed and 294 wounded by rocket fire launched by armed groups in Gaza.

Israeli soldiers gather at their position along the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip on May 16, 2021. JACK GUEZ / AFP

Israel’s army said about 3,100 rockets had been fired since last Monday from Gaza — the highest rate ever recorded — but added its Iron Dome anti-missile system had intercepted over 1,000.

Netanyahu said in a televised address Sunday that Israel’s “campaign against the terrorist organisations is continuing with full force” and would “take time” to finish.

The Israeli army said it had targeted the infrastructure of Hamas and armed group Islamic Jihad, weapons factories and storage sites.

Israeli airstrikes also hit the home of Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas’s political wing in Gaza, the army said, releasing footage of plumes of smoke and intense damage, but without saying if he was killed.

On Saturday, Israel gave journalists from Al Jazeera and AP news agency an hour to evacuate their offices before launching airstrikes, turning their tower block into piles of smoking rubble.

Netanyahu on Sunday said the building also hosted a Palestinian “terrorist” intelligence office.

“It is a perfectly legitimate target,” he said.

Inter-communal clashes

The violence between Hamas and Israel is the worst since 2014 when Israel launched a military operation on the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of ending rocket fire and destroying tunnels used for smuggling.

The war left 2,251 dead on the Palestinian side, mostly civilians, and 74 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.

An Israeli army F-15 figher jet flies above the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon after conducting an air strike on the Gaza Strip on May 12, 2021. JACK GUEZ / AFP

Opening the first session of the UN Security Council on the renewed violence on Sunday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the fighting “utterly appalling”.

“It must stop immediately,” he said.

But the UN talks, already delayed by Israel’s ally the United States, resulted in little action, with Washington opposing a resolution.

President Joe Biden’s administration says it is working behind the scenes, and that a Security Council statement could backfire.

Israel is also trying to contain inter-communal violence between Jews and Arab-Israelis, as well as deadly clashes in the occupied West Bank, where 19 Palestinians have been killed since May 10, according to a toll from Palestinian authorities.

Major clashes broke out at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound — one of Islam’s holiest sites — on May 7 following a crackdown against protests over planned expulsions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Sheikh Jarrah has been at the heart of the flareup, seeing weeks of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

On Sunday, a car-ramming attack in Sheikh Jarrah wounded seven police officers, police said, adding that the attacker had been killed.

Police also said “a number of suspects” had been arrested during clashes in another east Jerusalem neighbourhood overnight Sunday to Monday.

Guterres warned the fighting could have far-reaching consequences if not stopped immediately.

“It has the potential to unleash an uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis and to further foster extremism, not only in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel but in the region as a whole.”

Source: Channels tv.

PATIENCE JONATHAN DARES BUHARI: TELL MAGU, EFCC TO LEAVE ME ALONE

ACNN NEWS — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 21:02:19 +0000

Former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, has told President Muhammadu Buhari to call Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to order.

Mrs. Jonathan, in a statement signed by her chief press secretary, Belema Meshack-Hart, also accused Magu of being desperate to destroy her family.

Former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, has told President Muhammadu Buhari to call Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to order.

Mrs. Jonathan, in a statement signed by her chief press secretary, Belema Meshack-Hart, also accused Magu of being desperate to destroy her family.

She also claimed she was being targeted for the role she played in the 2015 election.

“We believe that she is being systematically persecuted and punished because of her unflinching support for her husband during the 2015 elections,” the statement read.

“President Buhari should be reminded that his wife also supported him in all the elections he contested against her husband, former President Jonathan, but Dr. Jonathan did not at any point in time, carry out personal vendetta or go after Buhari’s wife.

“That is the standard practice in all democracies around the world. For instance, Michelle Obama campaigned vigorously for her husband’s party during their last Presidential election, but we are yet to see President Donald Trump move against her. One thing is clear: No matter what they do to Mrs. Jonathan, she will continue to stand by her husband, the father of her children, even if it means paying the supreme price with her life,”‎ she said.

She accused Magu of desecrating the image of the presidency, saying “it would be good to bring him back to the path of sanity and reason”.

Jonathan’s wife added that she is the most vilified first lady in the history of Nigeria.

She said it had got to the extent where all the “magnificent edifices in Abuja, Yenagoa or Port Harcourt” are presented to her.

“We wish to place it on record that in the history of this country, no wife of any President had been so far investigated in such flagrantly vindictive and disgraceful manner, as has been the fate of Mrs. Jonathan, in the hands of Magu’s EFCC,” the statement read.

Former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, has told President Muhammadu Buhari to call Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to order.

Mrs. Jonathan, in a statement signed by her chief press secretary, Belema Meshack-Hart, also accused Magu of being desperate to destroy her family.

She also claimed she was being targeted for the role she played in the 2015 election.

“We believe that she is being systematically persecuted and punished because of her unflinching support for her husband during the 2015 elections,” the statement read.

She accused Magu of desecrating the image of the presidency, saying “it would be good to bring him back to the path of sanity and reason”.

Jonathan’s wife added that she is the most vilified first lady in the history of Nigeria.

She said it had got to the extent where all the “magnificent edifices in Abuja, Yenagoa or Port Harcourt” are presented to her.

“As a tradition, every first lady in this country has had one pet project or the other, with which they sought to intervene in the lives of the less privileged. Mrs. Jonathan started her NGO in Bayelsa State 11 years ago when her husband was the Governor of the State.

“With it, she has, over the years, touched the lives of many Nigerians in different ways. It is then surprising that while other First ladies and their pet projects were left alone, it is only her activities and that of her NGOs that are being subjected to indefinite probe and microscopic scrutiny by the Buhari administration.

“In a method that clearly bears out the axiom of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it, Magu’s EFCC had maliciously linked Mrs. Jonathan to all kinds of fake possessions and properties around the country, including the Local Content Office in Yenagoa which is an arm of NNPC, Shoprite Complex, Nigerian Customs Guest House and Park View Hotel, both in Port Harcourt, as well as the residence of her neighbor who is a serving Senator. It has now come to a point where all the magnificent edifices in Abuja, Yenagoa or Port Harcourt are presented to the media as belonging to Mrs. Patience Jonathan. Not done, they also accuse her of owning several plots of land in many cities across the country, including places she has never visited. The most astonishing of all is that her close relatives are viciously being victimized, as their personal properties are also being investigated.

“It is either the EFCC is now led by people who cannot conduct proper investigations, or they are deliberately feeding the public with false information, in line with their sinister script to embarrass and browbeat the former first family.

“We wish to remind President Muhammadu Buhari that what Magu and other agents of his government are doing is tantamount to desecrating the hallowed and dignified office of the President, and exposing it to public ridicule before the rest of the world. As the elected President, Muhammadu Buhari has become a father to all Nigerians. He should, therefore, resist the snare of those vile advisers who portray him as a sectional and vindictive leader, out to disgrace his predecessors.

“We implore President Buhari to call Magu and his goons to order so he does not further defile and do more damage to the dignity of the seat of the nation’s President. The seat of the President of any country is sacred and the occupant must be respected. As a former First Lady, Mrs. Jonathan has been falsely called all manner of names, including drug peddler, by Magu’s well-oiled propaganda machinery.”