The Presidency has reacted to an editorial by the Punch newspapers which criticizes the First Lady, Patience Jonathan’s penchant for obstructing traffic and inconveniencing people with her elaborate security arrangements during visits to Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt.
An obviously rattled presidency scrambled to the First Lady’s defence, describing the July 1 publication as “outright falsification” and  “calculated exaggerations”.
The presidency reaction however did not address the fundamental issues raised by the editorial.
The editorial titled “Patience Jonathan’s excesses must be curbed” condemns Mrs Jonathan’s extravagant security arrangements when visiting other states.
The newspaper says during the First lady’s recent visit to Port Harcourt, her security arrangement completely paralysed activities in the Government Reservation Area (GRA) of the city for the four days she was in town.
 “Armoured personnel carriers were deployed at two points, while gun-wielding operatives manned the points leading to her private residence. Many people missed their appointments because they were prevented from moving in and out of their houses.”
The editorial also noted that the Port Harcourt incident was not the first time Mrs Jonathan would use her larger-than-life security details to make inhabitants of  towns she visited suffer unnecessarily.
“When she came to Lagos last year, on a “thank-you visit” to some women groups for electing her husband president, she enacted a similar repulsive scenario.  During the visit, Lagos residents were subjected to an unprecedented road blockade, which gave rise to an unnerving five-hour traffic that grounded all human and economic activities.”
According to the editorial, the blockade on this particular occasion was so bad that it prompted an angry reaction from the governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola.
“It is particularly worrisome that this (she) is not an elected person. I think we all must check how security agencies use the movement of high officers, especially VIPs, to disrupt citizens and taxpayers, whose money is used to fuel all the vehicles and all the apparatus that we use to block the roads against them,” the newspaper quotes the governor as saying.
The Punch also observes that during Mrs Jonathan’s visit to Warri, inhabitant of the state was made to endure similar inconvenience.
The newspapers then called on President Goodluck Jonathan to call his wife to order.
“It is President Jonathan’s duty to caution his wife to stop this regime of offensive illegality that has tainted the Presidency and presented Nigeria in a bad light,” the paper  wrote.
But in a rather belligerent reaction that completely failed to address any of the issues raised in the editorial, Ayo Osinlu, media aide to the First Lady accused the newspaper of being recruited into a “hit squad” comprising people he described as having  “tottering political careers.”
“These syndicated attacks are not exactly surprising, especially for those who are familiar with the fact that it is a well-known trait of the arrowhead of the attacks to be disrespectful of all forms of authority, including those who gave him his most substantial opportunities in life,” he says.
“It is however worrisome that these trench men are finding partnership in a sensitive organ of society such as the media, to cast aspersions on carefully selected members of the society, as a design to inspire public sympathy to accumulate for them. And tell us a better catch in this calculation than the illustrious First Lady of the nation, affectionately well-received by the people for her evident accomplishments in charity, philanthropy and the general promotion of the values of humanity.”
“This is why we are persuaded to once again alert the media about the lucre-for-news strategy of these desperados, whose ultimate plan is to tie the hands of the media behind its back, in order to induce it to echo their faulty sentiments, Mr Osinlu adds.


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When they (presidency) are expected to address the issue raised they are busy attacking the messenger.

BEFORE NKO WETIN UNA EXPECT,APOLOGY?SEE ALL DIS ONE UNA DE TALK NA GRAMMER.SHE FOR ARRANGE HERSELF IF TO SAY THE DRIVERS INSIDE D GO SLOW BEGIN SING AND CLAP FOR D MANNERLESS GOAT OF A WOMAN.ABI YOU NO KNO SAY IF NIGERIA SCORE GOAL EVEN US WEN NO GET LIGHT GO KNO WEN D WHOLE CITY SHOUT GOALLLL ALL TOGETHER

Rubbish, they want her to travel without adequate security, so that they can attack and kill her.If na your wife dey travel, will you not ensure her maximum security?

sammyzacks: Rubbish, they want her to travel without adequate security, so that they can attack and kill her.If na your wife dey travel, will you not ensure her maximum security?

It's either some of you can't read or you lacked proper education.People like you who have suffered from the bad policies of those in government would be the first to support them due to your blind ethnic jingoism.

Nobody is preventing her from travelling without security but to cause executive madness which will in turn affect the greater society is totally unacceptable even while she's occupying an illegal office.if the constitution did not provide security protection for her,yes she shouldn't be allowed to move with massive security.

The constitution of Nigeria is greater than Jonathan and his wife and that makes them subjective to it.The fact that Patience's madness is being tolerated doesn't mean it is acceptable !

Have you ever seen Americans complain about Michelle blocking the road ? Have you ever seen David cameron's wife in public or even constituting nuisance ? Yet these are the people that gave us democracy;they respect their constitution but look at the mess Nigerians have turned the country to because of the whims and caprices of those in power.

What a shame .

Patience is a Useless nuisance. Each time she visits a state, the people are made to suffer immensely.

Senseless woman!!

The scathing and unwarranted criticism of Our Mummy, the First Lady is unacceptable. We should have love for our fellow Nigerians irrespective of their Nationality!

Must this arrogant First Lady always show herself

take dat: The scathing and unwarranted criticism of Our Mummy, the First Lady is unacceptable. We should have love for our fellow Nigerians irrespective of their Nationality!

I got that, "irrespective of their nationality " hahahahahahahahaha

~Bluetooth:



It's either some of you can't read or you lacked proper education.People like you who have suffered from the bad policies of those in government would be the first to support them due to your blind ethnic jingoism.

Nobody is preventing her from travelling without security but to cause executive madness which will in turn affect the greater society is totally unacceptable even while she's occupying an illegal office.if the constitution did not provide security protection for her,yes she shouldn't be allowed to move with massive security.

The constitution of Nigeria is greater than Jonathan and his wife and that makes them subjective to it.The fact that Patience's madness is being tolerated doesn't mean it is acceptable !

Have you ever seen Americans complain about Michelle blocking the road ? Have you ever seen David cameron's wife in public or even constituting nuisance ? Yet these are the people that gave us democracy;they respect their constitution but look at the mess Nigerians have turned the country to because of the whims and caprices of those in power.

What a shame .

I think you either ignorant or just being unreasonable.
How dare you compare Nigeria with the USA.Don't you know the level of insecurity here?
Don"t you know that all these boko haram stuff is aimed at Jonathan? Can't you see that everything he does , good or bad is being critisized.
I love the way her spokesman replied them. If he had responded to the issues raised, it wuold be like trying to kill a tree by cutting off the leaves. But he has decided to get to the root of the matter.The attack truly was not targetted at Patience but Jonathan and even Punch is just the mouthpiece of the real sponsors.

And you see, the more you criticise the man, the more sentiments he enjoys from Nigerians.

sammyzacks:

I think you either ignorant or just being unreasonable.
How dare you compare Nigeria with the USA.Don't you know the level of insecurity here?
Don"t you know that all these boko haram stuff is aimed at Jonathan? Can't you see that everything he does , good or bad is being critisized.
I love the way her spokesman replied them. If he had responded to the issues raised, it wuold be like trying to kill a tree by cutting off the leaves. But he has decided to get to the root of the matter.The attack truly was not targetted at Patience but Jonathan and even Punch is just the mouthpiece of the real sponsors.

And you see, the more you criticise the man, the more sentiments he enjoys from Nigerians.

Sammyzarks or whatever you call yourself. You mean it is security that makes a first lady keep aircrafts stranded in the air for over 45minutes while she had not yet taken off from Abuja. The DANA crash was also traced to her visit to Lagos around that period but her media dogs came out to disclaim it. She arrived PH,human and vehicular movement from and to the airport was restricted for over 4 hours....? What are you talking about? If her husband had been capable of handling security as the chief security officer of the nation, would she require such stupid security arrangement at the expense of taxpayers' time and businesses? Please this is not an ethnic issue, it is an issue of common sense not being common.

Wot do u expect frm dis illitrate woman

Corruption is not the problem of Nigeria. It's people like Sammyzacks who have refused to use their brain to think. Patience should be banned from leaving Abuja if she cannot move quietly.

^^^^ 100 likes

Let me quote Junaid Mohammed in his criticism of the first Lady

“If the de-facto commander–in-chief, the de-facto defence Minister and army commander Gen. Ihejirika who is an in-law to Patience [Jonathan], and his police and S.S.S. counterparts, are behaving in openly political partisan manner as heads of Jonathan’s personal militia, it goes without saying that Jega’s INEC will hold no elections worth the name,” he declared, calling on all Nigerians who cherish democracy to stand up and be counted."

You can see its all about 2015 my guy.

Jonathan has his own issues, but his critics also have very wrong motives.

PUNCH is becoming so annoying these days. It's pathetic how a once nationally acclaimed newspaper gradually turns itself to an APC newsletter.

Goddex: PUNCH is becoming so annoying these days. It's pathetic how a once nationally acclaimed newspaper gradually turns itself to an APC newsletter.

Stop trivializing the issues involved
Why should the security of someone who is not an elected office holder (even an elected office holder) paralyze the activities of the average Joe and Jane?
Even at that is it not a pointer to the lack of security in the country as a whole
Face it Jonathan and his unschooled ,unpolished, unsophisticated hippotamus keep dragging the presidency to ridiculous lows
About 2 weeks back the GUARDIAN, a pro Jonathan paper, told him to caution his wife on her use of the office seal of the FGN
The nauseating response was that an unelecteabke office of the first lady was insperable from that of an elected president
Such mental bunkum
Thankfully.this Ijaw one chance bus wey Nigeria and Nigerians enter will soon reach the bus terminus

~Bluetooth:



It's either some of you can't read or you lacked proper education.People like you who have suffered from the bad policies of those in government would be the first to support them due to your blind ethnic jingoism.

Nobody is preventing her from travelling without security but to cause executive madness which will in turn affect the greater society is totally unacceptable even while she's occupying an illegal office.if the constitution did not provide security protection for her,yes she shouldn't be allowed to move with massive security.

The constitution of Nigeria is greater than Jonathan and his wife and that makes them subjective to it.The fact that Patience's madness is being tolerated doesn't mean it is acceptable !

Have you ever seen Americans complain about Michelle blocking the road ? Have you ever seen David cameron's wife in public or even constituting nuisance ? Yet these are the people that gave us democracy;they respect their constitution but look at the mess Nigerians have turned the country to because of the whims and caprices of those in power.

What a shame .

My broda, if you have been on nairaland long enuf, you should understand that you don't respond to every nuseating coment such as the one to which u responded.

When the trend of posting pictures of oneself was at its peak on the forum, most of us understood what many juveniles come on here, some even started comparing the forum to 2go! Photos of kids litered everywher. I've got no doubt in my mind that poster is one of them.

Spare urslf the headache by ignoring such, it aint worth a millisecond of ur life.

truth4meal:
“It is however worrisome that these trench men are finding partnership in a sensitive organ of society such as the media, to cast aspersions on carefully selected members of the society, as a design to inspire public sympathy to accumulate for them. And tell us a better catch in this calculation than the illustrious First Lady of the nation, affectionately well-received by the people for her evident accomplishments in charity, philanthropy and the general promotion of the values of humanity.”
“This is why we are persuaded to once again alert the media about the lucre-for-news strategy of these desperados, whose ultimate plan is to tie the hands of the media behind its back, in order to induce it to echo their faulty sentiments, Mr Osinlu adds.

Hmm
Abeg,please any body wey know book please help me; wetin this wan mean
carefully selected members of the society