The current governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima has revealed that former President, Goodluck Jonathan did not believe that Boko Haram was real and had schemed to remove him for wanting him to take the fight more serious.
Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
The Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima has revealed that former President Goodluck Jonathan plotted to remove him and two other governors for requesting him to be committed in the fight against Boko Haram in the North-East.
Shettima said out of the 13 meetings he had with Jonathan on the Boko Haram terrorism, only one was initiated by the latter.
“All the others were at my seeking appointments to see him and on some occasions, it took several weeks for such requests to be granted. There was a belief around President Jonathan that the whole Boko Haram crisis was orchestrated to undermine him and his administration and because of that, there was no interest in resolving the problem,” he added.
The governor alleged that Jonathan ‘marked’ him for pushing for the meetings and allegedly planned to remove him and the two other governors in the North-East.
Shettima said, “He particularly wanted to remove me….I heard that his Attorney-General and Justice Minister, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, said there was nowhere in the constitution where the President had the power to remove a governor. In fact, I was told that President Jonathan reportedly interjected by asking, ‘How come President Obasanjo removed Governor Joshua Dariye?’ to which he was reminded that the Dariye aberration had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court.”