{"id":3905,"date":"2015-01-08T02:41:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T02:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3905"},"modified":"2015-01-08T02:41:36","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T02:41:36","slug":"obasanjo-a-motor-park-tout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=3905","title":{"rendered":"Obasanjo: A motor park tout"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cYou are ordinary motor park tout because if you are a senior citizen, you will act like one. \u201cIt is not because of the offices we occupy. \u201cIt\u2019s by divine grace and providence that some of us occupy these offices. B\"Obasanjo\"<\/a>ut what role are you playing to build this country?\u201d President Goodluck Jonathan<\/div>\n

Apparently enraged by frequent criticisms of his administration by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari, President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday replied them indirectly, likening them to motor park touts.<\/p>\n

Speaking while receiving members of the Northern Elders Council at the State House, a visibly angry Jonathan said some past leaders are not qualified to be called \u201csenior citizens\u201d or \u201celder statesmen\u201d but just ordinary politicians.<\/div>\n
He accused them of making provocative statements aimed at causing ethnic divisions and setting the country ablaze.<\/div>\n
The President, however, assured Nigerians that very soon, they will know more about the past leaders and will then be able to judge.<\/div>\n
His words: \u201cSome people call themselves statesmen but they are not statesmen, they are just ordinary politicians.<\/div>\n
\u201cFor you to be a statesman is not because you have occupied a big office before but the question is what are you bringing to bear?<\/div>\n
\u201cAre you building this country?<\/div>\n
\u201cOr are you a part of people who tell lie to destroy this country?<\/div>\n
\u201cTo create enmity and make people who ordinarily would have been living together to fight themselves?<\/div>\n
\u201cAre you planning to set the country ablaze because you did not get that particular thing you want?<\/div>\n
\u201cAt the appropriate time, Nigerians will know all of us even though I know most of you know us, but the younger ones do not know.<\/div>\n
\u201cSome people are hiding under some clogs, some big names and creating a lot of problems in this country.<\/div>\n
\u201cMaking provocative statements in this country, statements that will set this country ablaze and you tell me you are a senior citizen.<\/div>\n
\u201cYou are not a senior citizen.<\/div>\n
\u201cYou can never be.<\/div>\n
\u201cYou are ordinary motor park tout because if you are a senior citizen, you will act like one.<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is not because of the offices we occupy.<\/div>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s by divine grace and providence that some of us occupy these offices. B<\/div>\n
\u201cut what role are you playing to build this country?\u201d<\/div>\n
Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation, Tanko Yakassai, submitted that the Council believed the southern part of the country must also be allowed to lead, in line with zoning arrangement commenced in 1999.<\/div>\n
Yakassai said: \u201cMr. President, Nigeria is passing through political transformation and it is important to all Nigerians and indeed Northerners to appreciate the fact that this country was crafted in such a manner that no one section if the country can rule the country without support of the other.<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is unpatriotic for anybody to instigate people against any person or peoples because of a temporary gain.<\/div>\n
\u201cPolitics of insult, blackmail and castigation of individuals shall not take this country anywhere.<\/div>\n
\u201cWe therefore believe in peaceful co-existence among Nigerians and by working together shall we move the country forward.\u201d<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou are ordinary motor park tout because if you are a senior citizen, you will act like one. \u201cIt is not because of the offices we occupy. \u201cIt\u2019s by divine grace and providence that some of us occupy these offices. But what role are you playing to build this country?\u201d President Goodluck Jonathan Apparently enraged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[156,151],"class_list":["post-3905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-general-olusegun-obasanjo","tag-president-jonathan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Obasanjo.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-10Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3906,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3905\/revisions\/3906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}