On the 28th of March, 2015, after a tension filled presidential
election, Muhammadu Buhari emerged as the new president of Nigeria and
Goodluck Jonathan conceded victory to his successor.
In a dinner organised in his honour in Geneva, Switzerland last week by
Cercle Diplomatique, Jonathan poured out his heart concerning a lot of
issues ranging from his foray into politics, Nigeria's well being and
why he conceded to President Buhari immediately after the election. He
talked about why he made that historic telephone to congratulate Buhari
even when the results were still being tallied.
His full statement during the dinner has just been released and its very revealing! Read it after the cut...
He began: “As you can see, I have not come here with a prepared speech,
since what I consider appropriate for this occasion is to just thank you
all, members and everyone else in attendance, in a few words, for the
dinner and the award, in order not to make the evening look boring. But
having said that, I am still tempted to note that if I were to present a
written speech, the title, would probably have been “Power Tussle in
Africa: A Stumbling Block to Economic Growth.” When Mr. Robert Blum,
your President, made his very interesting opening remarks, he introduced
me as the former President of Nigeria. He was absolutely correct.
"However, I believe that not many of you here know that the story of my
foray into politics has a peculiar ring to it. I entered politics in
1998 and, barely one year after, I got elected as the Deputy Governor of
Bayelsa, my state. I later became Governor, Vice President and
eventually got elected as the President of my country. I remain the only
leader in my country to have travelled that route.
"As the President, I served out my first term but, as Mr. Blum had
pointed out earlier, I lost the bid to be re-elected. I am encouraged by
the fact that many of you here appreciated my decision not to reject or
contest my loss at the polls, not even in the courts as many people had
expected.''
"Again, I have to agree with Blum that it was not an easy decision to
take. This is because the allure of power and the worries about what
would become of you after leaving office constitute an irresistible
force. It has an attraction so controlling and powerful that it takes a
man who has the fear of God and who loves his people and nation to
relinquish power so easily in Africa.
"I was actually in that valley on March 28, 2015. I never knew that the
human brain had the capacity for such enhanced rapid thinking. One
hundred and one things were going through my mind every second. My
country was at the verge of collapse. The tension in the land was
abysmally high and palpable, in the months leading to the election. The
country became more polarised more than ever before, such that the gap
between the North and the South and between Christians and Muslims
became quite pronounced.
"In fact, it became so disturbing that some interest groups in the
United States began to predict indeed, many Nigerians did buy into this
doomsday prophesy as they began to brace themselves for the worst. As
the President, I reminded myself that the Government I led had invested
so much effort into building our country. I worked hard with my top
officials to encourage Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in our
country to be able to provide jobs and improve the lives of our people.
"We worked hard to grow our economy and to improve and bring Nigeria up
as the biggest economy in Africa, with a GDP of about half a trillion
dollars”.
“Should I then, for the love of power, watch Nigeria slide into a
theatre of war, with my fellow country men and women dying, and many
more pouring into other nations in Africa and beyond, as refugees?
Should I hang on to power and tussle with my challengers, while the
investments of hard working citizens of the world go down the drain? I
then said to myself, NO!''
I promised my God that I will not let that fate befall Nigeria under my
watch, hence the historic telephone call I put through to congratulate
my challenger even when the results were still being tallied. I believe
that for a country to be great, both the leaders and the led must be
prepared to make sacrifices. This is why, everywhere I go, I always
advise that the new generation of African leaders must think
differently. We can no longer afford to wilfully sacrifice the blood of
our citizens on the altar of dangerous partisan politics. It is not
worth it.
This reminds me of one of my campaign statements to the effect that my
ambition was not worth the shedding of the blood of any Nigerian. Some
people took it then as mere political slogan but I knew that I meant it
when I said it.
''We must all fight for the enthronement of political stability in
Africa, for in it lies the panacea for sustainable growth and
development. For Africa to record the kind of advancement that will be
competitive and beneficial to our citizens, we must have stable states
supported by strong institutions. That appears to be the irreducible
minimum that is common to all developed societies. Africa’s political
odyssey can distinctly be categorised into three eras, and probably
another that would later signpost its classification as a developed
continent”.
"Some may doubt this, but it is no fluke that Africa is growing and
rising. However I will admit before you here that we still have
challenges. That is why people like us did all we could to ensure that
Nigeria, the biggest black nation on earth, would not drift into anarchy
because such a situation would have spelt doom for the rest of the
continent. It would have affected not just Nigeria alone, but the GDP
and economy of the entire West Africa. And if the economy of West Africa
crashes, it would definitely affect the performance of the economy of
the whole of Africa.
As you know, the GDP of Africa is less than three trillion dollars, with
only six African countries able to boast of nominal GDP above $100
billion. Even for those in this ‘elite’ category, you can’t really say
that they are rich countries. Apart from maybe South Africa that has an
industrially competitive economy, the rest are still mainly commodity
exporting countries. Even the case of that of South Africa is not very
encouraging, because we have a situation which we could refer to as a
first world economic performance, yet the ordinary people live the life
of the people in the so called third world.''
In the case of Nigeria which is even the biggest economy on the
continent, the reality is that we have an unenviable per capita GDP of
$3,203, which is the World Bank average for a period covering
2011-2015.''
“Even then, I still believe that Africa has a bright future; a promising
prognosis that is supported by the fact that the continent remains a
very fertile and attractive territory that yields irresistible returns
on investments. I believe that in the next few years many more big
investors will be jostling to come to Africa, if only we will do the
right thing. The process of getting it right has already started with a
democratic and increasingly democratising Africa. But we have to deepen
and strengthen our democratic credentials through regular, free and fair
elections. This will in turn bring about the stability necessary to
improve the infrastructure that promotes rapid economic growth. These
are the guarantees that would lead us into the next period which I would
like to call the era of a developed Africa. I have no doubt in my mind
that we will get there some day.
"I will be applying myself diligently to two key areas. First, is to
work for good governance by promoting credible and transparent
elections. This will bring about the strengthening of our institutions
and the enthronement of stability. I also believe that there is the
urgent need to create jobs for our teeming young population. This is
another area that will be receiving my attention.
I recall that the Vice President of your association made reference in
his speech to my achievements in that regard through what we called
Youth Enterprises with Innovation (YouWin) and the Nagropreneur
programme which encouraged young people to go into agriculture. I
believe more programmes like that should be established to promote youth
entrepreneurship. That way, we reduce their reliance on paid
employment. We will not only teach them to become entrepreneurs, they
will also acquire the capacity to employ other people. We will be paying
special attention to this segment of our society, especially young
people and women.
We will develop programmes that will inculcate in them business skills
to be able to set up micro, small and medium enterprises. We shall
assist them to access take-off grants when they acquire the relevant
skills and capacities. There are many areas that they can go into; food
processing, light manufacturing and the services sector are just some of
them. I can tell you from experience that this works. As we speak, Our
Nagropreneur programme, to promote youth involvement in agriculture
value chain, is being scaled up by the African Development Bank
presently. It is already being replicated in 19 African countries
because of the success of the programme in Nigeria.
I invite all of you here today, cabinet ministers, diplomats and private
sector people to remain committed to the cause of improving lives,
especially those lives in Africa, and making our world a better place.
For those of you that will be sharing in this vision for Africa, I
assure you that you will not be disappointed. I am very optimistic that
if we encourage young men and women in this continent to develop
businesses of their own, the story of Africa will change within 10
years”.
Title : 'It takes a man who has the fear of God to relinquish power so easily' - former President Jonathan
Description : On the 28th of March, 2015, after a tension filled presidential election, Muhammadu Buhari emerged as the new president of Nigeria and G...
