PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has made a passionate appeal to northern Nigeria asking voters in the region to re-elect him for another four years come Saturday's election pointing out that the government is not to blame for the Boko Haram crisis.  

In an open letter titled My Dear Arewa Brothers and Sisters, which he personally signed, President Jonathan said it would be unfair for anyone to blame him for the Boko Haram menace which resulted in the death of over 15,000 Nigerians. In the letter, he admitted that his administration initially under-estimated the menace, which was why the terrorists were able to kill many Nigerians. 

However, President Jonathan added that the menace was compounded by the lack of necessary military equipment. In the letter, he said the successes recorded by the armed forces over the last six weeks showed that he was indeed capable of curbing terrorism and subsequently called on northerners to vote for him in order to perfect the work he had started. 

President Jonathan said: “I do understand that my first duty to you at this time is to rid the entire north of the menace of Boko Haram and secure your lives and property. You and I know that nothing in Nigeria’s past prepared us for the unprecedented reign of unmitigated terror, mayhem and destruction which these murderous terrorists have visited on parts of our country. 

“The initial slowness in effectively responding to the threat was as a result of the asymmetrical nature of the war on terror and the need for us to properly equip our security agencies for the successful prosecution of the war. Given the recent successes recorded by our armed forces with your cooperation and patriotic support, the cooperation of our neighbours as well as the laudable gallantry of security agents, I am confident that in the shortest possible time, the menace of Boko Haram would have been eliminated for good.” 

Over the last four years, President Jonathan’s inability to curb terrorism had made him very unpopular in several northern states to the extent that he was stoned in some of them while he was campaigning. However, in a desperate bid to win votes from there, President Jonathan said that he and the people of the south-south geo-political zone supported his late predecessor, President Umaru Yar’Adua who was from the north and urged northern Nigerians to do the same for him. 

Of late, the growing popularity of President Jonathan’s main rival, General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, across the Arewa community seems to have jolted the government. Vice president Namadi Sambo met with some northerners in Lagos yesterday to beg them to vote for President Jonathan for the sake of national peace and unity.