The founding Director General of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Governors Forum and a leading political communications consultant, Earl Osaro Onaiwu has cautioned former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on the danger of dancing to the beat of the uncertain sound of the political drumming urging him to dump his party and join the opposition party, ostensibly with the intention of contesting to be president again after the end of the tenure of the current government.
According Earl Onaiwu, the political eyes of the nation has been turning in the last few days to a viral conversation about the former president Jonathan being wooed by the opposition to decamp from PDP, the party that brought him to power, to the opposition party that butted him out of power. Many political commentators, concerned friends and loyal supporters of the former president are divided on the true position of the rumour. But to analysts of political developments, the power of a rumour of this nature cannot be easily discounted.
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Explaining the relative consequences of such a move, the former DG of the PDP Governors’ Forum said, that will be a bad presidential precedent and a record on the reverse gear of civility. He said that all over the world, it has never been heard where a President in a democratic government jumped ship from his own party to the opposition for whatever reason, saying that the office of the President is different in outlook and reverence from the Governors and Assembly members who have form the habit of changing parties for their selfish interests or for a lack of ideology.
Earl Onaiwu explained that if truly the former President is considering such a move, the import is that he would have completely surrendered and kowtowed to the reactionary forces that pushed him out of the presidency and thereby, putting his reputation and global acclaim to jeopardy.
Jonathan is now a global brand and should not sacrifice that hard earned recognition at the altar of partisan politics.
Onaiwu called him to apply the brakes because the political climate today is completely different from his previous time in office.
He cautioned that a second missionary journey is foreboding because the tempo of politics in Nigeria today vis-à-vis the reality on ground is a sore testimony that this present government cannot be cosmetically made over with a Jonathan charm, as they do not subscribe to democratic values.
He added that, the deduction if President Jonathan succumbs to the pressure is that, he would have become a backslidden apostle of democratic principles of freedom and free choice.
The PDP Governors Forum Director General expressed that nation’s politics is going through a shameful and topsy-turvy phase of representative democracy that calls for serious deep thinking.
He said, if the former President joins in a hazardous second missionary journey to the presidency of his own freewill, it is his fault if he gets hurt and rubbished, hence according to him, “I urge him to rethink, re-examine and reappraise this poisoned carrot being dangles before him to decamp and get a chance to re-contest the Presidential election, whose outcome he cannot predict.
