Nigeria Boko Haram victories may not boost Jonathan in poll
Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:02pm GMT
By Alexis Akwagyiram and Isaac Abrak

LAGOS (Reuters) - A spate of victories against Boko Haram has pushed the militants out of much of the territory they controlled in Nigeria, but that is unlikely to do much to boost President Goodluck Jonathan's bid for re-election by divided voters next week.

At the start of this year the Islamist militants had seized an area the size of Belgium in Africa's biggest economy and were slaughtering civilians at will, a crisis authorities cited as a reason for delaying the poll by six weeks to March 28.
Boko Haram is now on the run and squeezed into ever smaller turf. That still won't help John Dauda get his family back.

"The military operations going on now mean nothing to me because I lost my two wives and four children," the 52- year-old fuel dealer in northeastern Adamawa state said.

For that reason, Jonathan will not be getting his vote when he goes into one of the polling booths to be set up in camps for the more than a million people who, like Dauda, have been displaced by fighting.

Jonathan, a Christian southerner, has been criticised for failing to tackle the insurgency. His main challenger, Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim from the north, has campaigned on his reputation for being tough on security when he was military ruler of Nigeria in the 1980s.

Nigeria's army said on Tuesday it had taken back all but three local government areas, out of around 20 controlled by Boko Haram, a shift owing partly to neighbours Chad, Cameroon and Niger stepping up offensives against the
Islamists.

It may have come too late to alter perceptions of Jonathan.

"Why did he have to wait until now that the elections are here? Recapturing those towns is like 'medicine after death',"
computer science student Joe Garba, 38, said, shaking his head as he turned away from his keyboard in his university classroom.

With Nigeria facing its closest election since the end of military rule in 1999, victory on the battlefield won't automatically mean victory at the ballot box.

Morris Adaka, a 50-year-old retired civil servant in Yenagoa, capital of Jonathan's Niger Delta home state of Bayelsa where the president is expected to do well, wondered why it took the government six years to take action.

"If this measure of seriousness had been deployed early enough, the Chibok girls wouldn't have been kidnapped,"

he said, referring to the abduction of around
200 schoolgirls in April last year by Boko Haram to worldwide horror.

Thomas Hansen, a senior analyst at Control Risks, said the media narrative around Jonathan had improved, but that

"most people in Nigeria seem to have
already made up their minds about who
they will vote for in the elections".

Not all oppose the president. Edet Edet, a cook in Abuja, made up his mind to vote Jonathan a while ago. "It's not his fault that Boko Haram killed people. To be winning the battle makes me like him even more," he said.

What this means, says Bismark Rewane, CEO of Lagos-based advisory group Financial Derivatives, is "the military offensive has reduced the haemorrhaging of popularity that Jonathan has been
experiencing, but it hasn't turned into a
catalyst for support".

(Additional reporting by Imma Ande in Yola, Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa; Editing byTim Cocks and Giles Elgood)

Source : http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN0MF1Z920150319?irpc=932

All I have to say is this; [size=14pt]GEJ ALL THE WAY[/size]

Very true

Jonathan all the way. buhari is a bad market. Nigerians are wise.

clevvermind:
Jonathan all the way. buhari is a bad market. Nigerians are wise.

SeverusSnape:
All I have to say is this; [size=14pt]GEJ ALL THE WAY[/size]

I wish someday both of you will feel how the people in this write up are feeling.

Sai Buhari

As long as Nigerians can move in peace around the NE. It is a victory for this country and all of us. The polls will take care of themselves.

o

ULSHERLAN:





I wish someday both of you will feel how the people in this write up are feeling.

I am feeling the GEJ transformational fresh air, Clevvermind aren't you feeling it?

Before nko? All na wash. If GEJ likes, let him send us the head of his friend Shekau, he will lose cos he sacrificed innocent Nigerians for politics and God will pull him down for that. No matter what, SAI BUHARIIIIIIII

SeverusSnape:

I am feeling the GEJ transformational fresh air, Clevvermind aren't you feeling it?

if fresh air is what the people in the write up is feeling then i wish u a life time of it


Amen

ULSHERLAN:



if fresh air is what the people in the write up is feeling then i wish u a life time of it


Amen

The north brought it on themselves, they were shielding boko haram at first and were happy that a jihad group was fighting against the government of GEJ.

#Apcjokers

SeverusSnape:
The north brought it on themselves, they were shielding boko haram at first and were happy that a jihad group was fighting against the government of GEJ.

#Apcjokers

#okbye

SeverusSnape:

I am feeling the GEJ transformational fresh air, Clevvermind aren't you feeling it?

sure. It's everywhere.

clevvermind:
Jonathan all the way. buhari is a bad market. Nigerians are wise.

Dont make a decision u wl regret

Jonathan is always quick to claim the glory of success but not the responsibilities of the over 20,000 Nigerians who died because he did nothing.

SeverusSnape:
All I have to say is this; [size=14pt]GEJ ALL THE WAY[/size]

hope say dis bingo go loyal reach otuoke

If he likes let him reduce fuel price to #1, make electricity stay for 25hrs he is loosing the election

ichidodo:
No indepth journalism here else how is it Joe Garba hath no state of origin or the Bayelsan lady concern herself with Chibok? tis akin to an hausa mai ruwa concerning himself with oil spill, health and environmental damage affecting communties in Forcados.This Reuters cannot make analysis about Nigerians for Nigerians, especially thode who can feel the paulse of the nation else these European media mercenaries can as well move to the streets and sample the common perspective of the common man who sees APC as violent, its leaders hypocrites,followers enemies of Nigeria and staunch supporters-if not hired guns- of Boko Haram, also popularly known as the APC armed wing.Then you wonder why or how Commander Goodluck and the Nigerian Army won't benefit from the political goodwill on tap by the good people of Nigeria.

The bayelsian is concerned about the Chibok girls because she is human and a Nigerian, probably a mother too. Are you only concerned about issues that affect your tribe??

I am concerned about issues that affect Nigerians where ever they might be and many Nigerians are too.

What do we gain from such clannish mentalities?

The common Nigerians do not have homogeneous opinions, there are many with negative opinions of both parties.

That is why journalists go around to feel the pulse across various demographics.

SeverusSnape:

I am feeling the GEJ transformational fresh air, Clevvermind aren't you feeling it?

So 1k/post can intoxicate

kitnah:

Dont make a decision u wl regret

no regret.

If he likes let him defeat ISIS, we won't vote for him. He has failed in many areas. We won't overlook that.

Sai GEJ joor !!!

Go to the street, everyone is shouting and clamouring for buhari. Ask 10 persons, 8 will tell you 'change'.. where this online pdp agents get encouragement from I really don't know.

I have sampled more than enough random opinions and I knw what i'm talking about here

Jonathan still remains the worst civilian President we have ever had.
Dealing with Boko Haram at this point in time shows the height of his incompetence. Like one of the victims said, it's medicine after death.
How could a whole President of most populous black nation underrate a terrorist group that killed thousands of the citizens?
His rate of failure is the worst and we are prepared to kick him out come March 28.

Sai Baba
Sai Buhari
#babawhenyougetthere
#changeishere
#buhariosinbajo