‘We’ll disgrace Patience Jonathan at Bayelsa rally’

Again, some Bayelsa State youths have issued a stern warning to the wife of the President, Patience Jonathan, not to visit the state during the Peoples Democratic Party presidential rally on February 5.

The youths from Bayelsa creeks, under the auspices of the Mangrove Boys of Bayelsa, warned on Tuesday that if the First Lady failed to heed their warning, she would be thoroughly disgraced and have herself to blame.

The warning came a few days after the Bayelsa Youth Vanguard issued a similar statement barring Patience from attending the proposed rally.

Reinforcing the position of the BYV, the creek youths asked Mrs. Jonathan to steer clear of the rally in her own interest.

The youths, in a statement by their President, Mr. Opuyo Engobara, and Secretary, Mr. Warrman Aderi, accused the First Lady of aiding his anointed governorship aspirant, Mr. Waripamowei Dudafa, to recruit youths to boo and stone Governor Seriake Dickson, at the proposed rally.

They lamented President Goodluck Jonathan’s silence over the alleged excesses of his wife, wondering whether he intended to join in the stoning of the governor.

They said, “In her last visit to the state, Mrs. Jonathan came ahead of her husband, avoided the state Government Lodge and stayed at Otuoke for three days.

“During the time, she was busy sponsoring Dudafa’s recruitment drive with the intention to go against the governor by booing and stoning him at the planned rally to discredit his administration before the PDP National Executive Council.

“Is President Jonathan using this as a ploy to join Bayelsa youths to stone Governor Dickson as promised (by the President) during his presidential campaign in 2011 and subsequently to oust Dickson’s administration, since he could hardly rebuke his wife in several of her political atrocities?”

The creek agitators insisted that the presence of Patience at the proposed rally would cause tension and security breaches in the state.

They said Patience actions and pronouncement in recent times had allegedly been fuelling crisis in the state.

The youths listed eight sins of Patience and accused her of opening a new secretariat for the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria in the state with an intention to use the group to mobilise against the governor.

They alleged that the First Lady tinkered with the leadership of TAN and aided her loyalists to reposition the campaign group to actualise her ambition of removing Dickson.

The youths further lamented that Patience used the occasion of the sharing of the Millennium Development Goals items at the Samson Siasia Stadium to make inflammatory statements against the governor.

They recalled that Patience attended a function in Dudafa’s town and made open statements supporting him as the next governor.

The youths also alleged that Patience sponsored aspirants that failed in the PDP primaries, to defect to the All Progressives Grand Alliance.

They noted that the peace currently enjoyed in the state came from the hard work of the governor, reminiscing that in the previous government, Jonathan’s house was razed down in Otuoke by aggrieved militants.