Former President Goodluck Jonathan has spoken of the tensed moments he
\nfaced on March 28, 2015 ahead of his decision to concede victory to
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari after that year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually in that valley on March 28, 2015\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Jonathan also narrated\u00a0 why he relinquished power to Buhari, saying he did
\nnot want Nigeria to slide into a theatre of war, with his\u00a0 fellow county
\nmen and woman dying, and many more pouring into other nations in Africa
\nand beyond, as refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never knew that the human brain had the capacity for such enhanced
\nrapid thinking. One hundred and one things were going through my mind
\nevery second. My\u00a0 country was at the verge of collapse. The tension in the
\nland was abysmally high and palpable, in the months leading to the
\nelection. The country became more polarised more than ever before, such
\nthat the gap between the North and the South and between Christians and
\nMuslims became quite pronounced\u201d, the former President said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, it became so disturbing that some interest\u00a0 groups in the United
\nStates began to predict indeed, many Nigerians did buy into this doomsday
\nprophesy as they began to brace themselves for the worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the President, I reminded myself that the Government I led had
\ninvested so much effort into building our country. I worked hard with my
\ntop officials to encourage Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in our
\ncountry to be able to provide jobs and improve the lives of our people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked hard to grow our economy and to improve and bring Nigeria up as
\nthe biggest economy in Africa, with a GDP of about half a trillion
\ndollars\u201d.<\/p>\n
Jonathan told his story, last week, during a dinner in his honour by
\nCercle Diplomatique, Geneva, Switzerland. The former President also spoke
\nabout his foray into politics, the allure of power and future plans.<\/p>\n
He began: \u201c As you can see, I have not come here with a prepared speech,
\nsince what I consider appropriate for this occasion is to just thank you
\nall, members and everyone else in attendance, in a few words, for the
\ndinner and the award, in order not to make the evening look boring. But
\nhaving said that, I am still tempted to note that if I were to present a
\nwritten speech, the title, would probably have been \u201cPower Tussle in
\nAfrica: A Stumbling Block to Economic Growth.\u201d When Mr. Robert Blum, your
\nPresident, made his very interesting opening remarks, he introduced me as
\nthe former President of Nigeria. He was absolutely correct.<\/p>\n
My foray into politics<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, I believe that not many of you here know that the story of my
\nforay into politics has a peculiar ring to it. I entered politics in 1998
\nand, barely one year after, I got elected as the Deputy Governor of
\nBayelsa, my state. I later became Governor, Vice President and eventually
\ngot elected as the President of my country. I remain the only leader in my
\ncountry to have travelled that route.<\/p>\n
As the President, I served out my first term but, as Mr. Blum had pointed
\nout earlier, I lost the bid to be re-elected. I am encouraged by the fact
\nthat many of you here appreciated my decision not to reject or contest my
\nloss at the polls, not even in the courts as many people had expected.<\/p>\n
The allure of power<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, I have to agree with Blum that it was not an easy decision to
\ntake. This is because the allure of power and the worries about what would
\nbecome of you after leaving office constitute an irresistible<\/p>\n
force. It has an attraction so controlling and powerful that it takes a
\nman who has the fear of God and who loves his people and nation to
\nrelinquish power so easily in Africa.<\/p>\n
Alone in the valley<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually in that valley on March 28, 2015. I never knew that the
\nhuman brain had the capacity for such enhanced rapid thinking. One hundred
\nand one things were coursing through my mind every second. My country was
\nat the verge of collapse. The tension in the land was abysmally high and
\npalpable, in the months and days leading to the election. The country
\nbecame more polarized more than ever before, such that the gap between the
\nNorth and the South and between Christians and Muslims became quite
\npronounced.\u00a0 In fact, it became so disturbing that some interest groups in
\nthe United States began to predict that Nigeria would disintegrate in
\n2015. And, indeed, many Nigerians did buy into this doomsday prophesy as
\nthey began to brace themselves for the worst. As the President, I reminded
\nmyself that the Government I led had invested so much effort into building
\nour country. I worked hard with my top officials to encourage Nigerians
\nand non-Nigerians to invest in our country to be able to provide jobs and
\nimprove the lives of our people. We worked hard to grow our economy and to
\nimprove and bring Nigeria up as the biggest economy in Africa, with a GDP
\nof about half a trillion dollars.<\/p>\n
Posers I had to contend with<\/p>\n
\u201cShould I then, for the love of power, watch Nigeria slide into a theatre
\nof war, with my fellow country men and women dying, and many more pouring
\ninto other nations in Africa and beyond, as refugees?<\/p>\n
Should I hang on to power and tussle with my challengers, while the
\ninvestments of hard working citizens of the world go down the drain? I
\nthen said to myself, NO!<\/p>\n
Resisting the lure of power<\/p>\n
\u201cI promised my God that I will not let that fate befall Nigeria under my
\nwatch, hence the historic telephone call I put through to congratulate my
\nchallenger even when the results were still being<\/p>\n
tallied. I believe that for a country to be great, both the leaders and
\nthe led must be prepared to make sacrifices. This is why, everywhere I go,
\nI always advise that the new generation of African leaders must think
\ndifferently. We can no longer afford to wilfully sacrifice the blood of
\nour citizens on the altar of dangerous partisan politics. It is not worth
\nit. This reminds me of one of my campaign statements to the effect that my
\nambition was not worth the shedding of the blood of any Nigerian. Some
\npeople took it then as mere political slogan but I knew that I meant it
\nwhen I said it.<\/p>\n
We must all fight for the enthronement of political stability in Africa,
\nfor in it lies the panacea for sustainable growth and development. For
\nAfrica to record the kind of advancement that will be<\/p>\n
competitive and beneficial to our citizens, we must have stable states
\nsupported by strong institutions. That appears to be the irreducible
\nminimum that is common to all developed societies. Africa\u2019s political
\nodyssey can distinctly be categorised into three eras, and probably
\nanother that would later signpost its classification as a developed
\ncontinent\u201d.<\/p>\n
Challenges<\/p>\n
\u201cSome may doubt this, but it is no fluke that Africa is growing and
\nrising. However I will admit before you here that we still have
\nchallenges. That is why people like us did all we could to ensure that<\/p>\n
Nigeria, the biggest black nation on earth, would not drift into anarchy
\nbecause such a situation would have spelt doom for the rest of the
\ncontinent. It would have affected not just Nigeria alone, but the<\/p>\n
GDP and economy of the entire West Africa. And if the economy of West
\nAfrica crashes, it would definitely affect the performance of the economy
\nof the whole of Africa. As you know, the GDP of Africa is less than three
\ntrillion dollars, with only six African countries able to boast of nominal
\nGDP above $100 billion. Even for those in this \u2018elite\u2019 category, you can\u2019t
\nreally say that they are rich countries. Apart from maybe South Africa
\nthat has an industrially competitive economy, the rest are still mainly
\ncommodity exporting countries. Even the case of that of South Africa is
\nnot very encouraging, because we have a situation which we could refer to
\nas a first world economic performance, yet the ordinary people live the
\nlife of the people in the so called third world.<\/p>\n
In the case of Nigeria which is even the biggest economy on the continent,
\nthe reality is that we have an unenviable per capita GDP of $3,203, which
\nis the World Bank average for a period covering 2011-2015.<\/p>\n
Africa\u2019s future is bright<\/p>\n
\u201cEven then, I still believe that Africa has a bright future; a promising
\nprognosis that is supported by the fact that the continent remains a very
\nfertile and attractive territory that yields irresistible returns on
\ninvestments. I believe that in the next few years many more big investors
\nwill be jostling to come to Africa, if only we will do the right thing.
\nThe process of getting it right has already started with a democratic and
\nincreasingly democratising Africa. But we have to deepen and strengthen
\nour democratic credentials through regular, free and fair elections. This
\nwill in turn bring about the stability necessary to improve the
\ninfrastructure that promotes rapid economic growth. These are the
\nguarantees that would lead us into the next period which I would like to
\ncall the era of a developed Africa. I have no doubt in my mind that we
\nwill get there some day.<\/p>\n
My future plans<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be applying myself diligently to two key areas. First, is to work
\nfor good governance by promoting credible and transparent elections. This
\nwill bring about the strengthening of our institutions<\/p>\n
and the enthronement of stability. I also believe that there is the urgent
\nneed to create jobs for our<\/p>\n
teeming young population. This is another area that will be receiving my
\nattention. I recall that the Vice President of your association made
\nreference in his speech to my achievements in that regard through<\/p>\n
what we called Youth Enterprises with Innovation (YouWin) and the
\nNagropreneur programme which encouraged young people to go into
\nagriculture. I believe more programmes like that should be established to
\npromote youth entrepreneurship. That way, we reduce their reliance on paid
\nemployment. We will not only teach them to become entrepreneurs, they will
\nalso acquire the capacity to employ other people. We will be paying
\nspecial attention to this segment of our society, especially young people
\nand women. We will develop programmes that will inculcate in them business
\nskills to be able to set up micro, small and medium enterprises. We shall
\nassist them to access take-off grants when they acquire the relevant
\nskills and capacities. There are many areas that they can go into; food
\nprocessing, light manufacturing and the services sector are just some of
\nthem. I can tell you from experience that this works. As we speak, Our
\nNagropreneur programme, to promote youth involvement in agriculture<\/p>\n
value chain, is being scaled up by the African Development Bank presently. 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\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nIt is already being replicated in 19 African countries because of the
\nsuccess of the programme in Nigeria. I invite all of you here today,
\ncabinet ministers, diplomats and private sector people to remain committed
\nto the cause of improving lives, especially those lives in Africa, and
\nmaking our world a better place. For those of you that will be sharing in
\nthis vision for Africa, I assure you that you will not be disappointed. I
\nam very optimistic that if we encourage young men and women in this
\ncontinent to develop businesses of their own, the story of Africa will
\nchange within 10 years<\/span><\/span>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"