Jonathan, while receiving a delegation of Northern Elders Council (NEC) that visited him in Abuja, said most politicians parading themselves as senior citizens or statesmen were not different from bus station touts.

He said that “Some people call themselves statesmen but they are not statesmen, they are just ordinary politicians.

“For you to be a statesman is not because you have occupied a big office before, but the question is what are you bringing to bear? Are you building this country? Or are you a part of people who tell lies to destroy this country; to create enmity and make people who ordinarily would have been living together to fight themselves? Are you planning to set the country ablaze because you did not get that particular thing you want?”

Jonathan’s reaction came two days after Obasanjo accused the present administration of squandering huge savings from Excess Crude Account and foreign reserves. According to the president, “At the appropriate time, Nigerians will know all of us. Even though I know most of you know us, the younger ones do not know.

“Some people are hiding under some cloaks; some big names and creating a lot of problems in this country; making provocative statements in this country, statements that will set this country ablaze and you tell me you are a senior citizen. You are not a senior citizen; you can never be. You are an ordinary motor park tout.

“Because if you are a senior citizen, you will act like one. It is not because of the offices we occupy is by divine grace and providence that some of us occupy these offices. But what role are you playing to build this country?”

The president expressed sadness that younger Nigerians are seeing the country from the religious divide. “I was told that even the driver of Tafawa Balewa was a Christian.

“Our people lived together in those days, why not now that we have even modern ways of life? Our children leave us and go abroad they stay together and do a lot of things together.

“But when we come back home, we begin to build walls; this is a Southerner, this is a Northerner, this is a Muslim, this is a Christian, this is a Yoruba man, this is an Hausa man, this is an Ijaw man, this is a Nupe man. Is that the way we are going to develop our country?

“America is great today because America is made up of various cultural groups. Everybody makes America because ethnic lines have been so weakened that people think about America. And that is why America is great today.

“If today I’m sick, if the best doctor that can treat me is from Zamfara or Enugu or Ekiti, they will bring that doctor to treat me. They will not ask if that doctor is an Ijaw man, Ogbia or any other tribe.

“And until we get to that level where we begin to use people based on their competencies; until we get to that level where we don’t discriminate based on primordial privileges, that of course, will be the beginning of our development.

“I will continue to plead with you because from all of your activities you have been advocating for that,” Jonathan said.

The President also described as false the insinuations that he was against the North, saying that his government has ensured development and progress in the North.

According to him, Vice- President Namadi Sambo is from the North as well as some of the people who work with him, including his principal secretary and his chief detail.

Earlier, Chairman of the Northern Elders Council, Tanko Yakasai, had said the country was passing through political transformation. He explained that all Nigerians should appreciate that the country was crafted in a manner that no one section of the country can rule without the support of the other.

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The forum held under the auspices of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS nearly boiled over after Dr. Doyin Okupe who led the presidency and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, delegation warned opposition politicians not to bring the personality of the president into the forum.

Dr. Okupe who had started by claiming that he would not wash the country’s dirty linen in public, however, exploded when Lai Mohammed, the All Progressives Congress, APC, spokesman hinted at the administration’s failure to address transparency issues including the alleged missing $20 billion oil revenue and indiscretions by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC as failings of the government.

“Alhaji Lai Mohammed should not cast aspersions on the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because if he does that, he knows me and what I can do,” Okupe said as he went on to project the 2011 elections as the best in the country’s history which he said, were only dented by violence inspired by opposition politicians.

Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States, Prof. Ade Adefuye in his summary of the discussions, however, praised the two sides saying that the articulation of the two parties was reflective of the high level of political discourse in Nigeria. He nevertheless warned the two sides not to wash the country’s image in public even as he raised questions about Nigerians coming to discuss their country in the United States.

Okupe had a Senior Special Assistant to the President, Sanya Awosan and Fred Majemite, Political Adviser to the Governor of Delta State on the panel while the APC had Mohammed and Senator Babafemi Ojodu, APC, Ekiti Central.

The event was attended by Nigerian professionals, American specialists on Africa and state department officials among others.

Among others present at the event were Dr. Usman Bugaje, former senior aide to the vice-president in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration; Oma Djebah, senior adviser to the governor of Delta State on foreign relations.

The PDP National Chairman, Adamu Mu‘azu was excused on the basis of a caucus meeting in Abuja and Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State was similarly excused following the killing of more than 100 persons in the state, last weekend.

Noting the APC’s preparations for the 2015 election, Mohammed pointed at ongoing congresses to choose party officials and the roll out of a road map to lead Nigeria out of the malaise of unemployment, insecurity among other issues bothering on lack of transparency in the management of the economy and the electoral process.

Okupe immediately faulted Mohammed as he said that he did not come to discuss the president’s performance, noting that he had “reservations about discussing our internal problems abroad,” and warned Mohammed, who he had earlier embraced before the commencement of the discussions not to comment on the personality of the president.

Jenniefer Cooke, Director of the CSIS Africa programme who moderated the discussions from that point intervened as both sides tried to showcase the failings of one another.

Senator Ojudu specifically cited the unwillingness of the PDP majority in the legislature to project good bills to consolidate democracy and faulted President Jonathan’s refusal to give assent to the State of the Nation address.

Faulting Okupe’s assertion that the problems of Nigeria should be internalised, Ojudu said: “We cannot be an island of our own”.

Okupe from time to time teased the APC team on what he called the lack of internal democracy, saying that the party was quick to suppress the mandate of parties who won in the last local government elections in Lagos State.

Cooke was forced to intervene after Okupe raised issues on Mohammed’s assertion of the administration’s failures to address the spate of insecurity inspired by the Boko Haram Islamic group.

“Insurgency is not a matter that can be politicised but unfortunately the government of the day has not been able to distinguish between the message and the messenger,” as the opposition politicians faulted the president’s failure to visit the war ravaged sections of the Northeast.

Okupe intervening hollered, “I do not expect you to come to this forum to raise these issues, it is nonsense,” he said.

The CSIS forum continued last night with sessions between the Nigerian politicians and state department officials.

Sessions would also be held today with other democracy building institutions based in America and meetings with senior officials of the Barack Obama administration.

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