My generation has failed – Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, flagged off his campaign for re-election with a declaration that his generation has failed Nigeria.

While addressing youths at the campaign ground, the President told them to work for the future of Nigeria, through hard work and dedication, adding that the youths are the ones to take the country to the moon.

He vowed not to resort to crude tactics to combat the major challenges of corruption and insecurity that have plagued the country.

He also said that voting for the opposition APC was like returning Nigerians to prison. Speaking before an impressive crowd at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos, the president directed his address mainly to the youths who he said were not privy to the rules of the jungle which his challengers were aiming to return the country to.

The president who had all serving governors of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and some principal officials of the National Assembly in attendance, repeatedly flayed the campaign agenda and endorsements received by his All Progressives Congress, APC, challenger, General Muhammadu Buhari.

President Jonathan, however, did not once mention Buhari by name in his nearly 30 minutes speech.

The president, for the first time, also disclosed that the October 1, 2010 attack by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, on the Eagles Square, Abuja was an assassination attempt directed at him. Shortly after the attack the president had, however, absolved MEND from culpability. But yesterday, he firmly blamed the body which has recently endorsed Buhari for the attack.

Before the president spoke, yesterday, the party chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu‘azu had presented the party’s governorship flag bearers with the party’s flag.

Jonathan is a builder — Mimiko

The party leader in the Southwest, Governor Olusegun Mimiko had earlier welcomed the president to the Southwest praising him for his efforts in office, particularly, the rehabilitation of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the revival of the railways as he affirmed Dr. Jonathan to be a true democrat and  unlike some born-again democrats.

In an apparent reference to Buhari, Mimiko had said: “We can remember the anti-human decision to terminate the Lagos metro line project by some other government. That project into which the Jakande-led administration had committed a whopping sum of N70 million (about $75 million at that time) was meant to put an end to the traffic nightmare in Lagos metropolis through the installation of a circuit of rail lines that would have stretched from Agege to Marina, Ikorodu in the north and Badagry in the east, ferrying nearly a million people a day, 31-years ago. While some chose to destroy, you have chosen to build,” Mimiko had said.

The campaign flag off paralysed movements around the TBS as many roads including the one adjoining the official residence of the Lagos State Governor were shut to traffic by security men. Yesterday’s flag off did not formally start until 12.30 pm shortly after the president arrived and took a tour round the square to greet party supporters.