President Goodluck Jonathan speaks to TheCable on his
chances in the March 28 presidential poll and why he thinks
the opposition is overrated. Interview by Kayode
Ogunbunmi, Editor-at-Large
TheCable: Are you in good shape for the presidential poll
given the fact that APC has gathered momentum in the last
two months?
Jonathan: You should remember the Ekiti governorship
election last year. Before the election, many people were
saying APC would win by a landslide. But we in the PDP
were busy mobilising the grassroots, going from village to
village, from town to town. The result shocked everybody,
apart from us at the PDP. I am not underrating APC, but I
think they are grossly overrated. We shall meet on the field.
That is where we will test our true strengths. We are fully
ready. You will soon see.
TheCable: General Muhammadu Buhari’s popularity is
growing, especially in the south. Isn’t this a big threat?
Jonathan: Let us work with the facts on the ground. PDP
currently controls 21 states of the federation. APC has only
14. Of APC’s 14, you and I know that Imo and Rivers are
only APC in the sense that their governors defected. The
people know where their interests are better served. Also,
when it comes to presidential election, Edo is PDP. So
essentially, of the 14 APC-controlled states, only 11 can be
described as APC. Of course, I know that not all the PDP-
controlled states usually vote PDP in presidential elections,
so you have to concede that one or two PDP states will vote
APC in the presidential election. At the end of the day, you
are still looking at 23 or 24 pro-PDP states, including
Anambra which is controlled by APGA…
TheCable: Sorry to cut in, Mr. President, but we are also
talking about figures, not just number of states. APC states
like Kano and Lagos have voters in excess of 9 million.
Jonathan: I’m still coming to that. In 2011, taking that as a
baseline for comparison, I scored 22.4 million votes. Buhari
had 12.2 million votes. That is a difference in excess of 10
million. I do not suppose that you believe I have lost 6
million votes to Gen. Buhari already, or that Gen. Buhari has
gained 11 million more supporters. Suggesting I will lose a
whole 6 or 7 million votes to Gen. Buhari would be an
exaggeration. Let us even add the votes of ACN which
scored 2 million in 2011. Since CPC, ANPP and ACN have
merged into APC, let us say APC had 14 million votes in
2011. I still defeated all of them with over 8 million votes.
Don’t forget that Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, the ANPP
candidate then, and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the ACN
candidate in 2011, are now in the PDP.
TheCable: We at TheCable are projecting a larger voter
turnout this time around…
Jonathan: And you think only one party will benefit from a
larger turnout? I will disagree with you on that.
TheCable: We agree that both of you will benefit, but we
project that south-west will decide who the president will
be. And APC is the dominant party in the south-west.
Jonathan: Again, I will not say so. Ekiti and Ondo are
already controlled by PDP. I don’t see APC winning Oyo and
Ogun. And from the last governorship election in Osun, you
could see that the gap between PDP and APC was very
narrow, judging from the figures. Other factors will still be
at play and the best you can say for now is that Osun is a
tossed-up state, as Americans call it. The real battleground
is Lagos, and if you have been following events closely, the
PDP is reborn in Lagos. Wait and see how Lagosians will
vote.
TheCable: The choice of Professor Yemi Osinbajo as the
running mate to Buhari is seen as a masterstroke. Analysts
foresee him delivering the south-west votes. And as a
pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God, this may
neutralise the extremist tag on Buhari and bring in the
votes of members of the church. Do you agree?
Jonathan: There is no doubting the fact that Osinbajo has
good qualifications. But, like Gen. Buhari, he has never won
an election before. He has never even been a candidate. So
APC has a pairing that cannot be described as a winning
team. That said, you cannot call Osinbajo a political
heavyweight in the south-west. The Yoruba are more
sophisticated than that. In 2011, two of my opponents
fielded their running mates from the south-west. Still, the
south-west decided to vote for me. That tells you a lot
about the voters in the south-west. They cannot be
hoodwinked.
TheCable: But Osinbajo is a pastor in the Redeemed
Church…
Jonathan: Yes. But the presidential candidate of APC is
Gen. Buhari not Osinbajo. And I think we should leave
church out of this before it becomes another talking point
again.
TheCable: Buhari’s supporters are very confident that he
will win. Are you not really worried about this?
Jonathan: I don’t think Nigerians will make the mistake of
voting for Buhari. Gen. Buhari, with due respect, is not the
right option for Nigeria at this time. It is a gamble that is not
worth taking. I may not be perfect as nobody is perfect. But
I believe that come Saturday, the majority of Nigerian voters
will choose me as the best candidate to lead the nation
forward.
TheCable: For many Nigerians, Boko Haram is an election
issue. Don’t you see this impacting on support for your re-
election?
Jonathan: We are not sleeping when it comes to Boko
Haram. But we must be fair and accept that we are dealing
with problems we never encountered before, problems that
we were not prepared for as a nation. Nobody would have
predicted this carnage five years ago. We can all be wise
after the event, we can say whatever we like now, but who
can sincerely say they projected that Boko Haram would
become like the Taliban in 2009 when the uprising started in
Maiduguri? I hear people say we did not give Boko Haram
the attention they deserved, that we left things too late. That
is not correct. To combat terror, you have to be systematic
with your approach. It is not a conventional warfare. New
laws are required to cover your operations because we
never had to deal with terror before. There is also a different
kind of training and personnel required. Operations have to
change from conventional to non-conventional. You cannot
use the equipment of 1984. Even when you buy new
equipment, you need to train your soldiers on how to use it.
You can’t do that in one day. Intelligence gathering has to
be firmed up using the latest technology. This will not
happen in one day. Your security architecture has to be
completely different. This is what we have been working on
and we are making good progress. We are getting better
every day. We need to encourage our soldiers who are
risking their lives every day. They are human beings like
us. They have parents, wives, sisters, children, brothers. It
is not fair at all to disparage them. It is also not fair to
encourage mutiny. You don’t encourage more soldiers to
run away from the warfront. It is not helpful. We are
confronting Boko Haram with all the resources available to
us. We need the cooperation of all Nigerians. When people
begin to politicise the war against terror because they want
to win elections, it undermines our efforts.
TheCable: You used to dominate the social media. What
went wrong?
Jonathan: I think we are doing very well on the social
media, but we are focusing our energy more on grassroots
mobilisation. Most Nigerian voters do not participate in
social media discussions. The majority of Nigerian voters
are not even on Twitter or Facebook. So we have to get our
priorities right. I have about 1.7m Facebook followers but
there are over 68 million registered voters in Nigeria. I am
not even sure most of my social media followers are
registered to vote. We are doing door-to-door mobilisation
around the towns and villages. Experience has shown that
the bulk of voting comes from those areas. For every voter
on Twitter, you probably have 100 voters who are not on
Twitter. But when you read tweets and re-tweets, you may
get a very wrong view of the reality on the ground. We have
a very good strategy to woo voters. Our opponents have a
good strategy to abuse us on Twitter. Let’s see how far that
will take them on March 28. Obviously, it is not those who
make the loudest noise that win the votes. Sometimes,
making so much noise is a strategy to divert attention from
your impending failure. When you lose, you now attribute it
to rigging. APC is very good in that area. It is a strategy
they have used in the past.
TheCable: What’s your reaction to those who say they will
not vote for you because they believe you have not done
well so far?
Jonathan: On the issue of performance, I only wish to be
judged on where Nigeria was when I took over and where
we are now. Those who are fair-minded will agree that we
have made tremendous progress in so many areas. For
instance, the over 6 million farmers who are now getting
fertilizers and seeds directly and enjoying improved
livelihoods won’t tell you I have not done well. They are
saying they have never had it this good. Fertilizer corruption
is gone forever. We’ve introduced dry season farming. Their
harvests have increased exponentially. We’ve improved
water resources across the country, north and south. These
are the things that affect ordinary lives.
The transporters who are now plying good interstate roads
will tell you they are happy. For example, the Benin-Ore
road that used to be front page story in newspapers for
almost a decade because of its poor state is now brand
new. We have built or rehabilitated over 25,000 kilometres
of roads since we came in. The federal government has
35,000 kilometres of roads and only 4,500 were motorable
when I came in. That is a fact. Judge me on that. Millions of
passengers who are now using the revived rail transport
system will tell you they are happy. Five million passengers
now use the train every year, compared to less than one
million a few years back. I would like to be judged on that.
Foreign investors have made Nigeria their preferred
destination as attested to by local and international
agencies. In the oil and gas sector, our local content policy
has produced a new generation of Nigerian entrepreneurs
who are proudly flying our flag all over the world. That is a
fact. That is progress. Judge me on that basis. We’ve built
schools for Almajiris and the girl-child. These are the
vulnerable in the society who were neglected but are now
receiving good education suited to their needs. We’ve
established and equipped more universities to provide for
the future of our youths whose population continues to
expand but there is insufficient capacity to give them
university education.
We’ve upgraded equipment at tertiary institutions and
continue to retrain lecturers and teachers. No government
has funded education better than us. Our hospitals are
better equipped as we continue to upgrade them and
improve the service conditions of doctors and nurses. They
are performing surgeries they never did before. Our
immunisation coverage is unprecedented. Guinea worm
infections are nil today. We are gradually getting over the
polio epidemic. Go to the airports across the country and
see the changes that are taking place in terms of safety and
physical development.
I can go on. The real voters, the real Nigerians who will go
to the polling units, are happy with what we have achieved
in our first term in office. Millions of ordinary Nigerians are
not deceived by the propaganda of partisan critics. I do not
say that we have solved all the problems. That would be a
lie. But the Nigeria of today is better than the Nigeria that I
inherited in 2011. The facts are there. Our critics should
judge us on the basis on what we met on ground in 2011
and how far we have moved on from there. Is the
agricultural sector worse? No, it is better than we met it. Is
the education sector worse? It is better than we met it. The
aviation sector is better than we met it. The oil and gas
sector is better than we met it. The industrial sector is
better than we met it. We’re now exporters of cement and
we will soon start to export cars. The rail sector is much
better. The road network is bigger and better. Inland
waterways are expanded. In fact, our economy is now the
biggest in Africa. Therefore, let our critics judge us on the
basis of facts not lies.
TheCable: But the power sector remains a big challenge.
Why are we still unable to attain uninterrupted power
supply?
Jonathan: I like to ask people: was it that there was 24-
hour electricity and Jonathan came and switched it off and
damaged the equipment? The answer is no. Power is an
age-old problem in Nigeria and we have to understand that.
When I became president, we started the power sector
reform all over again. If you remember, one of the first duties
I performed as president was to launch the Power Roadmap.
It was like starting all over again because of various legal,
structural and administrative issues. Power projects had
stalled. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission
(NERC) was in a legal tango as a result of the removal of its
management. We had issues with gas supply as gas
pipelines to power plants were yet to be laid. We also had
issues with gas pricing because gas producers would rather
export and make more money than sell locally at a
regulated price. There were so many serious issues to
resolve. You cannot decree power into being. You have to
take it step by step with commitment. If anybody tells
Nigerians otherwise, they are lying.
The approach we have taken now is the best available to
us. We have gone private. The process has reached a stage
that can only go forward. The power situation is tricky in
that until the last dot is connected, we will not see results.
There is generation, then transmission and distribution.
Until everything is sorted out, we will not see the kind of
results we desire. If you build a house and you are yet to
paint it or fix the doors and windows, you can move in and
start to live there and complete the work gradually. But at
least you have a roof over your head. However, for
electricity, until you connect all the dots, you can’t get
results. Until the power generated is transmitted and
distributed to the final consumer, you cannot have steady
electricity. That is a fact. But we are moving in the right
direction today. I am confident that this will be one of the
biggest achievements of this administration.
TheCable: The issue of $20 billion NNPC affair is still
hanging though, and your handling of corruption cases.
What do you have to say on that?
Jonathan: I would have been surprised if you didn’t ask that
question. Have you picked a figure now? The accuser said $
49.8 billion was missing. He then reduced the figure to $12
billion. Now people are talking about $20 billion missing. Is
that the final figure they have arrived at? Why are people not
saying $49 billion again? Ordinarily, the inconsistency in
the figures should have put a big question mark on the
entire allegation itself and questioned its reliability, but
because some people have decided to crucify me, they will
hang on to any lie. If the former CBN governor himself
comes out today and apologises that he got his facts
wrong, that no money is missing, these same people will
dismiss him. They will say he has been bribed or he was
cajoled to retract his statement. That is the way some
Nigerians have decided to live their lives and there is
nothing I can do about it. I have said it before: no money is
missing. No money has been stolen. The PwC audit has laid
all that to rest. It is impossible to steal $20 billion. There is
no proof anywhere that money is missing. The senate has
investigated it. The report is there for all to see. No money
is missing. From the way the whole drama has played out,
you can see that the so-called scandal was a political
gimmick. Look at the sequence of events and all the
political associates of the accuser and your reasonable
conclusion will be that it was a scandal cooked up to smear
this government. We are open to investigation. I will not be
president forever.
You also spoke about corruption. I am doing everything
within my capacity to fight it. We have removed ministers,
we have sacked top government officials, we have put
suspects on trial. But I can only accuse you of corruption.
The moment the case is charged to court, what more can I
do? I cannot be prosecutor and judge. It is not allowed.
Many people have been arrested and charged to court. They
go and employ clever lawyers who play the system to
pervert justice. To now turn around and blame Jonathan
will be disingenuous. Nevertheless, corruption is what all of
us who are leaders and followers must resolve to fight. We
need a re-orientation. We need to revive our ancient values.
Then we need to make our system, our institutions work.
There is no short-cut to eradicating corruption.
TheCable: Many people believe Buhari has the nerve to fight
corruption more than you. Doesn’t that bother you?
Jonathan: You don’t fight corruption with nerve. You fight it
with the instruments of law. You fight it by building and
strengthening institutions. Go to advanced countries. Go to
the countries that rank very high on Transparency
International’s corruption perception index. Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Singapore, name them… They don’t use
nerve to fight corruption. It is not the president or prime
minister that fights corruption in those countries. It is the
system. That is why even the prime minister can be
removed and tried for corruption. In Nigeria, some people
want strong men as presidents who will fight corruption as
they wish, as they want and as they please. You cannot
sustain that. You cannot even guarantee that there will be
no abuse. When they arrest somebody and put them in
handcuff on national television, we all rejoice. But how long
will that last? What problem does it solve? Has it ever
solved any problem?
My own understanding of the anti-graft war is different. I
believe that you must first prevent corruption through
administrative and legal reforms. We have succeeded in the
fertilizer subsidy regime. We have also succeeded in the
payroll system. We almost succeeded in the petroleum
sector through deregulation but we unfortunately had to
reverse the decision as a result of politics. When you make
it impossible or difficult for people to steal, you are fighting
corruption in a sustainable manner. The second sustainable
strategy is to empower anti-graft agencies. EFCC and ICPC
have been doing their work without any interference from
me. They are charging people to court and they are getting
convictions and recovering stolen funds. These things are in
the news every day. Read the papers. That does not require
presidential nerve. It is about institutions doing their jobs,
the same way NAFDAC and FRSC do their jobs everyday
without taking any instructions from Aso Rock.
You see, under our laws, the best a president can do is sack
his appointee or employee and then the EFCC or ICPC will
take them to court. There is nothing any Nigerian president
can do beyond that. The rest is left to the court. I cannot jail
anybody. Our laws do not allow the president to jail
anybody. The best Buhari can do is sack people and send
them to court. We have gone through the era of the
strongman president. It did not solve any problem. For
those who think corruption is fought with “nerves”, I hope
they know what they are praying for.
TheCable: Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, the chairman of the
Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), recently said you have
marginalised the north since you came to power…
Jonathan: Since he is leading the Arewa Consultative
Forum, I think Alhaji Coomassie needs to consult more with
the people he leads. He should consult with the
beneficiaries of girl schools, almajiri schools, the drivers
plying the newly dualised roads in the north, the passengers
using the trains, the farmers, and so on. Nigeria is my
constituency and I have to be fair to all, if not I would not
have peace of mind. When people were calling themselves
northern consensus candidate some years ago, I called
myself the Nigerian consensus candidate. Most Nigerians
are tired of sectional leaders. They want to see Nigeria as
their constituency because they have no other country to
call their own. The progress of Nigeria is progress for all. I
have not marginalised any part of Nigeria and God forbid
that I do that. My conscience is very clear on that.
TheCable: You have been described by your critics as the
most divisive leader Nigeria has ever had. What is your
response to that?
Jonathan: One of my friends told me a Yoruba proverb
recently. He said something like: if a farmer sees a thief in
his farm and does not immediately raise the alarm, it is the
thief himself that will start shouting “Ole!” It is people who
have been playing religious and sectional politics all their
lives that are now turning round to accuse me of playing
sectional politics. It is very simple to verify. Look at the
pattern of my appointments, distribution of projects and my
close friends. They are from all over Nigeria. I have been
fair to every group in Nigeria. But this is a story to be told
another day. I have never discriminated against people from
other denominations or religions. I fast with my Muslim
brothers and sisters during Ramadan. I have never openly
or secretly incited one section of Nigeria against the other.
TheCable: There are fears that there could be violence after
the election. Asari Dokubo is threatening hell and you are
expected to call him to order but you have not. Why?
Jonathan: We will not allow violence anywhere in the
country. That I can assure you. We are better prepared to
prevent and contain violence than we were in 2011. You will
notice that since 2011, there has not been any post-election
violence. As for Dokubo’s statements, he does not speak for
me. But that does not mean he should not be called to
order. I’m sure the security agencies are monitoring the
situation. All these threats are unhelpful. That is how some
politicians were saying they would make Nigeria
ungovernable if their candidate did not win in 2011. We
must jointly condemn these threats of violence no matter
who is making them. Nobody is bigger than Nigeria.
TheCable: We need to talk about the Chibok Schoolgirls.
You were globally adjudged to have failed to act on time.
What went wrong?
Jonathan: A lot went wrong. It is a traumatic experience
that comes to mind every day. I just pray some people will
be man enough to come out and admit their ignoble roles
one day. Rather than support the government at such a
trying moment, they capitalised on it to score cheap
political points because of the 2015 elections.
TheCable: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said if the
government had responded by launching a rescue mission
immediately, the girls would have been back home. Do you
agree with that?
Jonathan: Let’s say the soldiers went after the kidnappers
immediately. Remember the terrorists were with guns and
probably with bombs. The girls had become human shields.
If the soldiers had gone after them and the girls were killed
by the terrorists, what would have been the public reaction?
The military would have been accused of incompetence and
genocide. The opposition will call for the resignation of the
president. You can always be wise after the event. Look, we
were misled from the beginning on the safety of the girls.
We were also misled that they had escaped from their
captors. But we reacted immediately we realised what was
going on. We reacted. We didn’t fold our arms. But when an
issue has been politicised and people are hoping to win
elections by riding on the misfortune of these girls, it is a
difficult task for us to convince Nigerians that we did what
we could reasonably do.
TheCable: At some stage, you seemed to believe the
opposition was behind Boko Haram and that probably did
not make you deal with them appropriately. Am I right?
Jonathan: Not me. I have said consistently from the
beginning that they are terrorists. I challenge anybody to
produce any evidence where I said opposition was behind
Boko Haram.
TheCable: Your relationship with Modu Sheriff, who has
been accused of being a Boko Haram sponsor, has also
worried many Nigerians who think you should not be seen in
company with him. What is your reaction to that?
Jonathan: Again, we are talking about hypocrisy. Modu was
a founding member of APC. He was in the board of trustees.
He was a financier of APC. Nobody in APC accused him of
being Boko Haram. The moment he crossed over to PDP, he
became Boko Haram. All hell was let loose. This should
make it clear to you that they are all playing politics.
TheCable: Many will argue then that the opposition is better
organised that the ruling party. Is that the case?
Jonathan: They certainly started their campaign for 2015
well ahead of us, as early as 2011. They wanted to make
insecurity and corruption the issues in the 2015 election and
they started their mischief very, very early. They started by
failing to cooperate with me on the war against Boko
Haram. They opposed every move I made. They started
demanding that soldiers be withdrawn from Borno. Thank
God I did not succumb to the blackmail. Borno would no
longer be part of Nigeria by now. Maiduguri would probably
have been the capital city of Boko Haram’s caliphate.
Thank God we remained resolute in the face of blackmail
and media campaign. They opposed the declaration of state
of emergency. They opposed the ban on Boko Haram. They
started circulating rumours that I was against Muslims.
They accused us of genocide. Go and read the newspapers
from 2011 till date. They did everything to worsen the Boko
Haram problem. They knew where they were going.
The opposition also cooked up corruption allegations
against me. Their mischief worked with some unsuspecting
Nigerians. Only God knows how much they say is missing
now. I have lost count. Every day they will say $48 billion is
missing, N500 billion is missing, $1 billion is missing.
Some will say N20 trillion has been stolen. It does not
make sense any more. Recently, an APC governor said $30
billion is missing from excess crude account. By the time
you calculate all that they say is missing, we must be richer
than China and US combined! All kinds of wicked lies.
Nothing but mischief because they want to win elections.
They started scandalising anyone perceived to be close to
me, including men of God. I never knew politics could be
this dirty. By nature, I don’t play dirty. I try to be fair.
Unfortunately, people fail to recognise God in their
scheming and calculations. No matter what they throw at
me, if God says I will not fall, I will remain standing. To
answer your question more directly, yes the opposition is
better organised in playing mischievous and dirty politics
but they will fail.
TheCable: Can we now talk about the minister of petroleum
resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke?
Jonathan: Why not?
TheCable: The opinion of many of your critics is that you
should have fired her long ago because of all the scandals
surrounding her.
Jonathan: I will tell you something. Any society where the
leader acts based on rumours and conjecture, that is a
society that is doomed. Mrs. Alison-Madueke has not been
convicted or indicted of any wrong doing. I have 42
ministers and 18 advisers. If I act only on rumour, I would
have fired all of them. There is hardly anyone of them that
somebody has not come to say something bad about. Until
allegations are proven, I don’t act. I will not shed any
innocent blood to please my critics.
TheCable: There was a statement credited to an aide of Dr
Doyin Okupe that if you lose, you would rather hand over to
the military than hand over to Buhari. Is that your position
or will you concede defeat if you lose?
Jonathan: We have passed the stage of military take-over.
We are in a democracy. I have always congratulated
governorship candidates when they win, even when they
defeat candidates of my own party. I will congratulate
whoever wins. I am not known for violence. I will never
incite people to start spilling blood because of an election.
It is not worth it. My ambition is not worth the blood of any
Nigerian. You see, it is God that made me president. If God
says I will be re-elected, there is nothing anybody can do to
stop me. All the plots against me will fail. All the lies will
crumble. All the hate messages will amount to nothing. God
put me here and if he says it is time to go, he knows best. If
he says I will do a second term, no amount of lies can
unseat me.
TheCable: Why was it difficult for you to come out to
dissociate yourself from the divisive and hate mongering
advert by Ayo Fayose which was done as a campaign for
you?
Jonathan: I saw the advert like any other person and I don’t
think anybody should hold me responsible for an advert run
by someone else. All our official adverts are run by our
campaign organisation. I don’t have power over what others
decide to do. However, I smell double standards again. Why
are you journalists not asking Buhari to come out and
condemn all the personal insults being hurled at me by his
supporters in the newspapers and social media? Do you
believe Jonathan should be guilty in everything under the
sun while his opponent is a saint in everything? I don’t think
so.
TheCable: There have been several versions of what
transpired in the meeting between you and Obasanjo at Ota
where two clerics were reportedly present. Can you share
with us what truly happened… and why is it difficult for
Obasanjo to reconcile with you?
Jonathan: I have nothing but respect for Baba. It was a
private conversation and I will keep it private. If he decides
to make it public, that will be his decision and not mine. On
the issue of reconciliation… Baba is not my age mate. He is
Baba to me. I cannot be talking about reconciliation as if we
are age mates who quarrelled. I have no problem with him
but he has been making his views about me known
publicly. If you know Baba very well, he does not hide his
feelings. He likes to make his feelings known publicly. It
was the same thing he did with President (Shehu) Shagari,
Gen. (Ibrahim) Babangida, President Yar’Adua. It is nothing
personal. He just has a passion for Nigeria and you cannot
deny him his opinion, even if you don’t agree with his
positions on issues. I would prefer he speaks to me directly
and privately like former heads of state do, but he has his
own style.
TheCable: In his well-publicised article, Soludo said you
like outsourcing your responsibilities as president, in
apparent reference to the idea of coordinating minister for
the economy. What is your response to this and who truly is
in charge of the economy, you or Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala?
Jonathan: As president, I head a team. I appoint team
members and apportion responsibilities to each person. We
hold meetings. They brief me. They get my approval. Now,
this is how government is run all over the world. You don’t
say Obama is not in charge of American economy because
he has economic advisers. Or you say David Cameron is
not in charge of UK economy because he has appointees in
charge of various economic departments.
TheCable: Why should you get a second term?
Jonathan: Nigerians need to join me in moving Nigeria
forward, not backward. We cannot go back to the old ways.
We are on a project to transform Nigeria. We have laboured
very hard, day and night, to get to this stage. Today we
have the biggest economy in Africa and things can only get
better. Nigeria is a preferred destination for foreign
investments because of our investor-friendly policies. We
are implementing an industrial revolution plan that will help
to catapult us on the global development index. We have
embarked on massive infrastructural development, covering
power, rail, roads, water and so on. We’ve embarked on
institutional reforms to be able to fight corruption and
deliver credible elections. We are certainly on the right
path. This is not the time to change leadership. This is the
time to consolidate and progress to the next level.
After being privileged to be President of Nigeria for four
years, I understand very well where the shoe pinches and
where the roads are rough. I have taken action to redress
the failures in the system for a smoother journey to the next
level. We are very close to cruising now. Bringing in a new
driver at this point can lead to a reversal.
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