Ex-aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri; and a human rights activist, Ann-Kio Briggs, on Wednesday berated the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for seeking Jonathan’s support in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
The PUNCH had reported that Tinubu, on Tuesday night, paid a scheduled visit to Jonathan in Abuja.
The meeting, which was held behind closed doors in Jonathan’s residence, was in continuation of Tinubu’s nationwide consultation with critical stakeholders ahead of the elections.
Reacting via a tweet, Omokri claimed that Tinubu insulted, attacked and lied against Jonathan between 2010 and 2015 when the former President was in office.
He alleged that the former Lagos State Governor continued the attack after Jonathan left office.
Omokri tweeted, “H.E @GEJonathan, the best leader that Nigeria ever had. Look at his Godly gesture. Bola @officialABAT spent the five years between 2010-2015 insulting, attacking and lying against Jonathan. Even after GEJ left office, he continued. Yet, Jonathan never bore a grudge!”
On her part, Briggs, who spoke with The PUNCH on Wednesday, said Tinubu should be ashamed of himself for consulting Jonathan over his presidential ambition few years after heaping verbal attacks and insults on the former president and his wife, Patience, because he was a president from a minority group, the Ijaw in Niger Delta.
She said, “Politics in Nigeria is a filthy game about personalities, not about the people. If not, Tinubu should be too ashamed to visit Jonathan and sit down on his chair in his house.
“This is a man (Tinubu) that cannot differentiate between politics of ideology and shameful politics. They hurled insults at him (Jonathan), they hurled insults at his wife, describing him as hippopotamus and clueless.
“They constructed effigies to mock Jonathan; they organised ‘Occupy Nigeria’ and paraded coffins and did all kinds things against Jonathan. Today, they are shamelessly visiting Jonathan, sitting on his chair in his house.”
Briggs described Jonathan as “a kind-hearted man and Ijaw son” who had been vindicated on many fronts, stressing that he had acknowledged while in office that he was the most insulted and abused president.
Earlier on her Facebook page, Briggs had expressed similar views, saying that all anti-Jonathan elements, including the APC presidential candidate, would have their payback time.
She argued that Tinubu could not hate Ijaw people in 2015 when Jonathan lost his re-election bid and hope to emerge victorious in the forthcoming presidential polls in Ijaw land.
