I personally love the
natural disposition of the former President. I have always told my students
that he is a democratic and a peace lover. Thought, some of us never liked his
administrative methods and spoke against some of his fundamental mistakes. I still
love the good legacies he bequeathed on the country. He is my kind of person.
Last week at a dinner
organized in his honour by Cercle Diplomatique, Geneva, Switzerland. Former
President Goodluck Jonathan opened up on his state of mind on March 28, 2015
ahead of his decision to concede victory to President Muhammadu Buhari after
that year’s presidential election. He said the country was at the verge of
collapse.
Jonathan told his
story, last week, during a dinner in his honour “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.
“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.
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