President Goodluck Jonathan lost the last presidential election due to the overbearing attitude of the First Lady, Patience Jonathan. This is according to the Bayelsa State publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Osom Makbere. He also told Punch in an interview that international and domestic conspiracies were also part of the reasons Jonathan lost to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, even as he further blamed the division within the party circles as another reason for Jonathan’s ouster.
According to Makbere, “History has stated that no failure, defeat or loss is a product of a single factor. Jonathan’s loss could be blamed on a multiplicity of interwoven causes.
“Jonathan was a victim and target of international cum domestic esoteric codes and conspiracies. On the international level, the passage of the anti-gay legislation led to criticisms and face-off with the US, and the West.
“The strides made in the economic sphere, especially domestic rice promotion, calculated by the Jonathan administration to flip economic growth, and boost import substitution, also negatively alerted the West. The shift to China for our railway transformation, and recently, the migration to Russia for arms and ammunition to quelling the insurgency also signalled to the West that Jonathan had started constituting a self-reliant and dependent nation-state, a feat seen too tall by the US and their allies in the West.
“The aforesaid international factors found room to flourish given the obstinacy and impudence on the part of Mrs. Jonathan. The end result of her personal ambition to plant ‘self-made’ governors triggered face-offs with some governors.”
Makbere also opined that the All Progressives Congress will perform worse than the PDP at the centre.
He said, “I can tell you that this APC will be worse than the PDP as there is already imminent fear of implosion.
“In Kano, for instance, the APC got all 40 constituencies. This meant that none of the PDP candidates were popular enough to emerge but, the PDP maintained their calm and stoicism.
