My fears before I conceded to Buhari: Jonathan
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has spoken of the tensed moments he
faced on March 28, 2015 ahead of his decision to concede victory to
President Muhammadu Buhari after that year's presidential election.
“I was actually in that valley on March 28, 2015”, he said.
Jonathan also narrated why he relinquished power to Buhari, saying he
did not want Nigeria to slide into a theatre of war, with his fellow
county men and woman dying, and many more pouring into other nations
in Africa and beyond, as refugees.
“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”, the former President
said.
“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”.
Jonathan told his story, last week, during a dinner in his honour by
Cercle Diplomatique, Geneva, Switzerland. The former President also
spoke about his foray into politics, the allure of power and future
plans.
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.
My foray into politics
“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.
The allure of power
“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.
Alone in the valley
“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 coursing 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 and days leading to the
election. The country became more polarized 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 that Nigeria would disintegrate in 2015. And, 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.
Posers I had to contend with
“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!
Resisting the lure of power
“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”.
Challenges
“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.
Africa's future is bright
“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.
My future plans
“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”.
Vanguard newspaper