PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN, MORPHING INTO A PETTY DICTATOR?

The traits are there and recent developments suggest that the Nigerian president by providence, President Goodluck Jonathan, has been bitten by the bug which afflicts most African leadership and transform them into sit-tight, never leaving dictators. First he is running for president in 2011 against the odds of his party's zoning system which currently places that office in the north; next he declared Raymond Dokpesi a persona non grata in the Niger Delta just for pitching his tent with Babangida; then he would not allow some Igbo elders to peacefully meet and deliberate at an Igbo hotel in an Igbo city of an Igbo State simply because his security details erroneously informed him that the meeting was to benefit Babangida's candidacy.

Now, the latest of his dictatorial shenanigan is the putting of his cross-hairs on the back of Babangida through the proxy of his campaign director, Raymond Dokpesi; whom he has just arrested based on a phantom allegation of some bomb blast in Abuja. Icheoku says, President Goodluck, show Nigerians the evidence; otherwise back-off from the present course of political intimidation of the opposition as Nigeria is now democratic and no longer under the jackboot of a petty military dictator.

Icheoku could care less if Babangida is served his cold strange dish, being the bomber numero uno of Nigeria and the man to first introduce bombing in Nigerian lexicography - Dele Giwa. But justice and fairness demands that Babangida should be allowed to contest the forthcoming election without unnecessary and unusual road-blocks being thrown his way, such as the present arrest and detention of his campaign director. Icheoku says, President Jonathan should have nothing to fear about Babangida's chances in the forthcoming election as Nigerians know better and will vote wisely; hence he must desist from his present approach of trying to hound Babangida out of contesting simply because he can, using the enormous powers of incumbency. President Goodluck, Icheoku implores you to please back off your oppositions or present Nigerians with the incontrovertible evidence as to Dokpesi's and by extension, Babangida's complicity in the Independence day celebration bombing at Abuja.

As far as Icheoku is concerned, the text message "Have you collected the balance from Dokpesi" is fantastical and the work of an amateur; as in typical Nigerian parlance and the tense situation considered it would have read "Have you collected the balance from Oga?" To mention Dokpesi in such a way is simply fishing the evidence that is desired. Also the other alleged text message "Lets meet at IBB campaign office" is just a rude joke as no reasonable conspirator would so blatantly give itself up in this manner. The ideal text should have read "Lets meet at the place or the office or even the campaign office; but excluding IBB." Such unintelligent forgery smells of the phantom coups with which Babangida killed Mamman Vasta etc and should not find a place in today's Nigeria. Icheoku says if this is the only evidence the Jonathan government has, then they have not found the real culprits as they may, like the president asserted, be still somewhere outside the country! What a pitiful cheap forgery and we hope that the telephone operators whose phones were used would with the help of transcripts, throw more light on whose phone sent what message. Icheoku is not buying into this two text messages as being the smoking gun for Babangida's involvement in the bomb blast, nope!