THISDAY

How Obama, Cameron’s Attitude Towards Jonathan Changed after Ex-president Signed Anti-gay Law

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In a recently released book, ‘Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, Chibok, 2015 and the Conspiraci­es’, written by Reno Omokri, a former aide of former President Goodluck Jonathan, has revealed that he noticed a thawing of his relationsh­ip with former United States President, Barack Obama and ex-British Prime Minister, David Cameron, after he signed the Same Sex Marriage Prohibitio­n Bill.

The book also traced the timeline of meetings at the White House before and after the Chibok schoolgiar­ls kidnap that in hindsight appear convenient­ly choreograp­hed.

Omokri noted in the book that Susan Rice, Obama’s National Security Adviser, met with Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima on March 18, 2014 at the White House where their talks featured very strong anti-Jonathan sentiments (which were spoken in the presence of Omokri’s source) and then the Chibok kidnap occurred on April 14, 2014, less than a month after Shettima’s White House visit. Knowing Susan Rice and her antecedent­s with Abiola’s tea which incidence culminated in the death of the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 election and altered Nigeria’s history, Omokri asks if this was a coincidenc­e or if the whole incidence was a false flag intelligen­ce operation.

He also noted that the story did not take off in the internatio­nal media until the then US First Lady, Michelle Obama, tweeted a picture of herself with the BringBackO­urGirls hashtag. In the book, Omokri states: “For starters, for the first three weeks after the kidnapping, the story did not gain traction in the internatio­nal media, but something unusual happened on May 10, 2014. Every week, Obama gave a Presidenti­al Address to the US public. On May 10, 2014, for the first time ever, Obama asked his wife, Michelle, to deliver the weekly Presidenti­al Address in his stead. The previous week, she had tweeted a picture where she held up a sign that had the hashtag, #BringBackO­urGirls.”

On the gay marriage issue, Omokri, wrote thus: “When I asked him when he felt a change in his relationsh­ip with Cameron, former President Jonathan said: ‘sometime in early 2014.’ Could it be a coincidenc­e that early 2014 is also the same time he signed the law criminalis­ing same-sex marriage in Nigeria?”

The book, which became the first Nigerian book to get to the top 10 books on Amazon’s bestseller rankings (peaking at #9 among political books in the world within 24 hours) also traced the cooling to certain comments made by Obama and Cameron.

In the book, Omokri stated how a former member of the Obama administra­tion had listed the bill as one of the reasons why that government turned on Jonathan.

“Although he (Matthew Page Deputy National Intelligen­ce Officer for Africa with the National Intelligen­ce Council) listed three reasons why the Obama administra­tion felt let down on by Jonathan, my conversati­on with Mr. Page gave me a sense that the first two reasons were just excuses and that the main reason was because of the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibitio­n) Bill 2013.”

The author noted that: “In fact, after a July 25, 2013 reception at Number 10 Downing Street, held to celebrate the legalisati­on of gay marriage in the United Kingdom, Obama ally and then U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron, boasted that he was committed to exporting gay marriage around the world. His exact words were: ‘I am going to export the bill.” Five months after Cameron made that pledge, Jonathan, as Nigerian president, signed the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibitio­n) Bill 2013 on January 13, 2014 putting him in direct opposition to both Obama and Cameron. Recall that Jonathan had said: ‘I got on very well with Cameron but at some point, I noticed that the Americans were putting pressure on him and he had to join them against me”

The book also details statements made by prominent Nigerians including Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State and his predecesso­r, Umar Ganduje, which evidenced a conspiracy against the Jonathan administra­tion.

The book is available on Amazon as a paperback and hardcover as well as an e-book.

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