Jonathan Resigns?

Resign now or be impeached, northern leaders tell Jonathan
By Olusola Fabiyi   Wednesday, 6 Oct 2010
Mallam Adamu Ciroma Northern leaders under the aegis of the Northern Political Forum have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to resign from office or face impeachment. The group, in a statement by a former minister of finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, said if the President failed to resign before the end of this week, then the National Assembly should commence impeachment proceedings against him. In the statement, the leaders insisted that the presidential aspiration of Jonathan could only be likened to the third term ambition of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The statement reads, “We would like to state, for the umpteenth time, that President Goodluck Jonathan’s desperation to be President again in 2011 can only take Nigeria back to the dark days of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term, with all its attendant instability and the wasting of innocent civilians’ lives. “Now that the President has proven that he is incapable of leading the nation justly and fairly and that he is desperate enough to want to hang mass murder around the neck of unnamed Northerners to achieve his second term, we, as citizens of this country, have totally lost confidence in his leadership and hereby call on him to immediately resign. “If he fails to do so by the end of the week, we call on the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against him with immediate effect. “We state, without any equivocation that, as Northerners and as citizens of this country, we no longer feel safe and secure under his leadership.” On the Friday, October 1 bomb attacks in Abuja, the group said though the act was condemnable, its members wondered why it took place shortly after the recent changes in the leadership of the nation’s armed forces, the police and State Security Service. The group said ex-militants who failed to accpet the Federal Government’s amnesty programme must not be allowed to hide behind unlawful agitation to take innocent lives. It added that such persons must be considered as terrorists. Attempts to obtain comments from presidential spokesman, Mr. Ima Niboro, failed. But the spokesman of the Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation, Mr. Sully Abu, said on the telephone, “Adamu Ciroma is one of the prominent Nigerians who have served this country well both as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and as minister of finance. “We would like to remember him as a role model for the younger generation. We believe that this statement will not remove this perception of him which the younger generation would have of him and the kind of legacy he would like to leave behind. “That is why we find this statement to which he appended his name as totally uncalled for.”