Speaking at the seventh Presidential Quarterly Business Forum for Private Sector stakeholders at the State House Conference Centre, Presidential Villa, Abuja, Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, slammed former President, Goodluck Jonathan, for having diverted N150bn from public funds on campaigning for the 2015 elections.
The Vice President revealed that the former President claimed he spent N153 billion on infrastructure in three years, yet spent N150 billion in a single transaction a few weeks to the elections of 2015.
According to the Vice President, while the current administration, with less revenue, has increased capital funding by 400 percent in power, works and housing, defence, transportation, agriculture sectors, the Jonathan administration, with surplus funds, spent N14 billion on agriculture in 2014 and N15 billion on transportation.
In response to this statement, however, the former President, Goodluck Jonathan, speaking through his former aide on new media, Reno Omokri, has called out the Vice President for what they described as lying and dared the current administration to support its claim against the Jonathan led government.
Reno Omokri spoke at length on the issue, outlining figures and achievements of the Jonathan administration and calling for proofs from the current government to show otherwise. He referred to the Vice President as a perpetual liar and drew instances from the past where the Vice President had lied against the Jonathan led administration while laying emphasis on the incredulity of the Vice President’s latest claims.
“On this most recent allegation by Vice President Osinbajo, let me state categorically that former President Jonathan DID NOT share 150 billion two weeks to the 2015 election. If Professor Osinbajo has proof that former President Jonathan did so, then we challenge him to publish his proof. He is a professor of law and ought to know that he who alleges must prove.
“Again, it is a lie from the pit of hell that the Jonathan administration spent only N14 billion on agriculture and N153 billion on infrastructure in three years as alleged by the fallacious Osinbajo.
“The Jonathan administration budgeted and spent over $10 billion on infrastructure in the 5 years between May 6, 2010 and May 29, 2015.
“The single most expensive and valuable project built in Nigeria in the last 20 years is the $1.8 billion Abuja-Kaduna 187 kilometres super-fast railway that enables Nigerians work in Abuja and live in Kaduna. This project was built and completed by the Jonathan administration. Is the Vice President aware of this?”
So far, no actual evidence to support the Vice President’s statement have been released.
Amnesty International’s “Breaking New”
In the same throw it out there manner, Human Rights group Amnesty International has claimed that the Nigerian Military refused to act on information made available to it with regards to the Boko Haram attack that saw the kidnap of over a hundred schoolgirls in Dapchi.
The group’s Nigerian Director, Osa Ojigho, revealed that the Military had received information concerning the attack prior to the attack and did not act on the information.
The youngest of the schoolgirls, who were abducted from the Government Girls Science and Technical College, 19 February, is aged 10.
Osa Ojigho criticised the military for being complacent in acting on the information which she claimed they definitely received and called on a probe into the “inexcusable security lapses”. She said:
“The government’s failure in this incident must be investigated and the findings made public — and it is absolutely crucial that any investigation focuses on the root causes.
“Why were insufficient troops available? Why was it decided to withdraw troops? What measures have the government taken to protect schools in northeast Nigeria?
“And what procedures are supposed to be followed in response to an attempted abduction?”
The group said between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm on February 19, at least five calls were made to tell the security services that Boko Haram fighters were in the Dapchi area. They reported that locals spotted about 50 members of the IS group affiliate in a convoy of nine vehicles in Futchimiram, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Dapchi, then at Gumsa.
Also, they revealed that in Gumsa, where Boko Haram stayed until about 5:00 pm, residents phoned ahead to Dapchi to warn them. The convoy arrived at about 6:30 pm and left about 90 minutes later.
In response, Nigerian military authorities have faulted the claims by Amnesty International that the military was complacent with regards to security in Dapchi.
Brigadier General John Agim, Acting Director Defence Information questioned the motive of Amnesty International, and accused the organization of always peddling outright falsehood about the on-going war against terror in Nigeria in “a calculated attempt to whip up sentiments and mislead unsuspecting Nigerians, demoralize friendly nations and people collaborating with security forces to end the forces of evil in the North-East.”
While faulting the claim, the Defence spokesperson said:
“The question Amnesty International has not answered satisfactorily is; which of the security forces and what unit was informed that a convoy of Boko Haram fighters were heading towards Dapchi where they abducted Dapchi school girls?
“What was the telephone numbers used to inform the Military or the Police? Why has Amnesty International refused to communicate its findings with the Federal Government’s Committee set up to investigate what happened before, during and after Dapchi girls abduction?”
Believing the Negative, the Need for Zero Evidence
To explore the kind of stories people are drawn to, researchers Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka, set up an experiment, run at McGill University in Canada. Trussler and Soroka invited participants from their university to come to the lab for “a study of eye tracking”. The volunteers were first asked to select some stories about politics to read from a news website so that a camera could make some baseline eye-tracking measures. It was important, they were told, that they actually read the articles, so the right measurements could be prepared, but it didn’t matter what they read.
After this ‘preparation’ phase, they watched a short video (the main purpose of the experiment as far as the subjects were concerned, but it was in fact just a filler task), and then they answered questions on the kind of political news they would like to read.
The results of the experiment, as well as the stories that were read most, were somewhat depressing. Participants often chose stories with a negative tone – corruption, set-backs, hypocrisy and so on – rather than neutral or positive stories. People who were more interested in current affairs and politics were particularly likely to choose the bad news.
A different research also holds that negative news is easily more memorable.
