Jonathan Not A Desperado For Power – Saraki
BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki on Thursday took a retrospective look at the struggle for political power in the country with a verdict that former President Goodluck Jonathan was never desperate for power, but got there by providence.
Saraki, who stated this at the unveiling of a book written by the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mallam Bolaji Abudullahi, titled “On a Platter of Gold,“ said a country produces the kind of leadership it gets.
According to Saraki; “No matter what you say about Jonathan, I don’t think he was someone who was desperate for power. Jonathan was not someone that was prepared for leadership but became the president of the country either by misfortune or fortune.“
He described as unfortunate a development whereby Nigerians knew the right things to do, but would keep playing the blame game thus expressed optimism that the book would be cherished by Nigerians going by its quality.
Also speaking, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, who was chairman of the occasion, said there is the need for the political class to place national interest above other considerations to ensure the country’s development.
Shettima therefore tasked politicians to work assiduously towards building the country in the interest of all.
The Borno governor taking a look at the Jonathan’s administration, said that though Jonathan was a decent person, he was however surrounded by wrong people.
He further said; “Sadly, Borno was the epicenter of the crisis that engulfed the Jonathan administration. I think President Jonathan is essentially a decent person, an unsophisticated country politician caught up in the vortex of power politics in Nigeria.
“When the Chibok girls saga started, they made the president to believe that there was no abduction, that the Chibok girls were kidnapped by the governor of Borno. Jonathan believed the story, which was meant to embarrass his administration.
“I was in Chibok, my wife was in Chibok and there was a global outcry on the issue, but Jonathan was in a world of his own created by the clowns and also the misfits around him. In spite of the situation, Jonathan was an honest man.”
Shettima further said that sheer display of bad governance, lack of political sagacity and will-power squandered the enormous goodwill the Jonathan administration commanded, adding that the situation got him voted out of office in 2015.
In his own remarks, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State, said that the book would serve Nigerians and help review the country`s political history, adding that it would also serve politicians and history students across the country.
While presenting the book to the public, Mr Dele Momodu, said that the intrigues and the behind-the-scenes in the Jonathan`s administration captured in the book, were mind-bugling.
Momodu also said that the book was bound to stir lots of debate and controversies.
