President Goodluck Jonathan has alleged that leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Henry Okah, had planned to kill him in the October 1, 2010 bombing at the Eagle Square in Abuja.
Jonathan made this allegation on Thursday at the flag-off of his re-election campaign held in Lagos at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Onikan.
Shortly after the 2010 Independence Day bombing in Abuja, President Jonathan had absolved the militant group from the incident. This was then greater by criticisms from some sections of the civil society groups and Nigerians, who asked if the President was MEND’s mouthpiece.
However, a South African court found Okah guilty of the bombing and is presently cooling off in a prison in the former apartheid country.
At the campaign on Thursday, Jonathan, reacting to the reported MEND’s endorsement of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mohammadu Buhari, said, “He (Okah) is in prison (in South Africa) because he wanted to assassinate me by bombing Eagle Square. The intelligence service got the information and I was driven into the Eagle Square in a hurry.”
“Now he is endorsing some people, is that the kind of country you want? Do you want Nigeria to go backward or forward?” Jonathan asked.
The President urged Nigerians to vote wisely and not be fooled by propagandas being used by the opposition.
He said Nigerians should resist being taken backward to the dark days, saying he has ensured every Nigerians enjoy the dividends of democracy.
According to him, “It is either you vote for freedom or you vote otherwise. Some people want to take Nigeria backward, is that what you want? Do you want to go back to the era when there was no freedom, when your uncles were being jailed anyhow?”
Also speaking at the occasion, Governor Fayose of Ekiti State, promised that the South-West region would be delivered to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
In his words, “We would beat them against 16-0 as we did in the Ekiti elections.”
