Patience: There are juju worshippers in my team

Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s first lady, says she has space in her entourage for people with all shades of religious inclinations, “including juju worshippers”.

She was speaking on Wednesday at the peoples Democratic Party (PDP) women presidential campaign rally in Ibadan, capital of Oyo state.

“I am not here for sentiments, I am not here for ethnicity, I am not here for religion. I am here on behalf of the Nigerian women and the youths,” she said.

“Today, if you come into my entourage, you will see Christians there; you will see Muslims; the juju worshipers are also there. Everything you think of is in my entourage, so I am ‘all weather.’”

Like she did at other rallies, the first lady appealed to the people to support the ruling party on Saturday.

“I want you to know that it is payback time. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has given us the petroleum ministry, and one of us is the first female to be the president of OPEC.

“Today is our turn, so what are we talking about? It is payback time. Oyo youths, Oyo women, I am appealing to you. Your mama is kneeling down, she’s appealing to you. On Saturday, come out en masse and vote your conscience.

“Don’t answer people who talk and fail, who are liars, who are saboteurs, because they have nothing to offer. Nothing at all. The only thing they have is prison.

“When the PDP was building schools, they were busy building prisons. The prison is now for them and no more for Nigerians… we have rejected it because we are not criminals.

“Youths, I want you to know that they are the ones that introduced subsidy. They are the ones that put you in the situation you find yourselves now and they have come again and they want to take us back to the era when we were queuing for two days just to buy tins of milk. Do you want us to go back to that era?”