President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday refuted the allegation made against him by the Muslims Right Concern (MURIC) that a Jewish symbol in the proposed commemorative new N100 note which will be officially issued on December 19 was his ploy to promote a Zion nation.
MURIC Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola on Sunday, made some allegations against the president, including that the security system in Aso Rock was saturated with Israeli security operatives, while Jonathan had chosen to marginalise the North as was seen at the national conference.
But the President in his reaction explained that, while the purported symbol MURIC’s statement was referring to is the Star of David, “there is no where on that proposed note as indicated in the specimen that has been widely publicised where there is any Jewish or Zionist symbol or the Star of David.”
Speaking through his Special Adviser on media and publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, the President accused MURIC of attempting to cause disaffection because of the design of the note, noting that “the value of the note is written out in the three major languages in Nigeria, recognised in the constitution: Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa.”
The aide noted that, “No attempt has been made to use this proposed naira note to discriminate anybody and the attack on President Jonathan is undeserved, unwarranted and totally unkind.
“I believe that MURIC will see the need to quickly apologise for misleading the public and for issuing that kind of statement that can cause disaffection against the President.”
He described the claim by MURIC that the security system in Aso Rock is saturated with Israeli security operatives as “a blatant lie”, just as he maintained strongly that “there are no Israeli security operatives saturating the security system in Aso Rock.”
Continuing he said, “To convince himself that this is true, we will like to invite Prof. Akintola on a visit to the Presidential Villa, to see whether indeed it is Israelis that are in charge of security.
“The security operatives in the Villa are not foreigners, they are Nigerians and there is no connection with Israel whatsoever. The premise of the issue that formed the basis for Akintola’s vituperation is wrong and he is misinformed.”
Noting that the group’s allegations against the president were rather curious, the presidential spokesman said Akintola needed to be told that “President Jonathan is not anti-Muslim as he alleged.
“President Jonathan is the President of all Nigerians, whatever may be their beliefs. It is not true that President Jonathan is using the highest office in the country to promote Zion nation. I think that is a most unfortunate statement coming from Prof. Akintola of MURIC and for which they owe President Jonathan an apology.”
The presidential spokesman also disagreed with the position that Moslems were marginalized during the national conference.
He said: “The truth is that national conference organised by this administration has been praised and described as probably one of the best of such conferences ever organised in this country. It was a purposeful conference, a conference in which a lot of maturity was displaced.
“Religion was not a big issue at that conference. Rather, the conference was a platform for addressing many issues of general concern to various groups, ethnic or religious. MURIC cannot claim not to know that the conference very successful.”
Dismissing the claim that the president was planning to create a Zion nation, Abati clarified that, “The Star of David is a hexagram which is two triangles of equal lines superimposed on each other. The hexagram is a very popular symbol, but it is not on that naira note.
“The symbol that he is referring to is not a Jewish symbol. It is what they call spark security feature. It is an optical magnetic feature which enables the public to authenticate a currency note whether it is genuine or counterfeit. That is the function of that particular design.
“That design is not an hexagram and it is not in any way associated with Israel or Jewish or Zionism. It is two squares merged into one with a Manila briquet, which is a symbol of the cowrie money used during the colonial era”. .
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