President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday vehemently denied
signing a one-term agreement either officially or unofficially with any
individual or group in 2011 as has been widely speculated.
Jonathan, who spoke during his periodic media chat with a team
of journalists, said: “I have not signed agreement with anybody. If I have signed
agreement, they would have shown you.”
Similarly, the President refused to clear the air on his
intention to re-contest, saying that it was early to comment on 2015.
According to him, early politicking was against the spirit and
letters of the Electoral Act and could also destabilize the polity.
His words: “We have laws in this country. I quite
appreciate that Electoral Laws tend to regulate political activities. If you do
it earlier, you will destabilize the country. Don’t force a President to
declare. It is against the Electoral Law. It has time.”
He, however said that any Nigerian, who is seeking to contest
the office of the President in 2015 should not wait for him to declare before
making his or her intention known.
“Don’t wait for me to declare before you declare your intention
if you want to contest”, the President added. A lot of people are misinforming
Nigerians. I was in Addis-Ababa, that was the time I advocated a single tenure.
The way you look at the politics of Nigeria now, the country is just
developing, in terms of the political evolution, this is about the first time;
if you look at the way our polity is, I suggested that probably if the
president has a single tenure of seven years running without interference, it
will be productive.”
Electoral laws
He said that politicians declaring early for various respective
positions are bound to over-heat the polity.
His words: “I know that our electoral laws give people time to
campaign but if you start early, you will create more problems for the system.
I know what it takes to campaign, for you to go round the country, you will
spend a lot of money in campaigning. The electoral law gives INEC the power to
set time frame for politicians who are interested in elections to begin to
inform Nigerians. If you do it earlier, you will destabilize the country.
Any president, whether it is Goodluck Jonathan, as long as you
still have the opportunity to contest, if you declare it early, you will create
more problems in the system than solving the problems… So, don’t even force a
president to declare his interest. It is even against the Electoral Act, even
if it is not a sitting president. The electoral law has a time for political
parties to conduct their primaries. Whatever you are doing is clandestine. You
can tell your friends. A lot of people have been holding meetings silently, who
has declared?”
On Apo killings
Speaking on the recent killings in Apo, President Jonathan said
‘though innocent persons may have died, there were confessions from arrested
Boko Haram operatives that there were arms in that building. “Some of the
people that were arrested confessed and they were leading them to where they
said arms were kept and there was an exchange of gunfire. In the process some
people were arrested some died. I cannot say clearly that all those who died
were members of Boko Haram but definitely there were Boko Haram elements there”
he said.
FG is committed to education
On the continued face-off between ASUU and the Federal
Government, he said: “Some of the issues in the 2009 agreement with ASUU, maybe
those who sat down to do the negotiations were civil servants, there were
certain things that some of them know and agree that cannot be implemented. How
can they say that assets of government should be transferred to universities?
The Federal Government has so many assets, government cannot take care of
universities alone. So if we transfer all the landed property of government to
the universities, what about the armed forces?
“We have been faithful to the agreement because after the 2009
agreement there have been other strikes. So this strike is beyond the 2009
agreement because it is apart from those ones that talk about transferring
assets of government to universities. You cannot just do that. Talking about
infrastructure, the government was not forced into that but we on our side
decided to go and take inventory of the infrastructure. So they should not
capitalize on it, you cannot change this overnight but we are looking at this
with serious commitment. We still have our challenges but you have seen the
commitment of government.
On how the government plans to resolve the ASUU logjam, he
appealed to ASUU to call off the strike saying that government is committed to
effecting the changes.
“Members of ASUU are our brothers and sisters, they should look
at the country, they should look at the young men and women and they should
also look at the commitment of government. We are very sincere and my
commitment is total to make changes but you cannot make this overnight. If you
see the sincerity in government and given the extra things government is doing,
we are committed. You should not expect us to close down other sectors of
government and bring all the money to solve the problem over night.
We’re not bankrupt
Clearing the air on whether the country was bankrupt or not, the
president said, “People play politics because for anybody to say that Nigeria
is bankrupt, there must be some indicators. You just don’t wake up from your
sleep and say Nigeria is bankrupt. Nigeria, as a nation, in terms of foreign
direct investment, shows that the business environment is viable. More than 90
per cent of those who invest in our capital market are non-Nigerians. If
Nigeria was bankrupt, the investors will remove their money overnight. Anybody
who talks about Nigeria being bankrupt is just playing politics. If Nigeria is
broke, there are parameters you use.”
Corruption
Commenting on the high rate of corruption in the country, he
said: “When you talk of corruption in Nigeria, it is all about perception and
index. Perception is like when you say something is wrong 100 times, it becomes
true. There was a time we assembled civil society people and asked them to
compare and contrast what the major problem of Nigeria was, I think corruption
came third. I am not saying corruption does not exist in this country,
corruption is existing and it is as old as the human race. What our
administration is doing is to ensure that public funds are not exposed to
people to steal.”
Sacking of ministers
Explaining the rationale behind the sack of nine ministers from
the Federal Executive Council, the president said the sack had nothing to with
the G7 governors.
Said he: “It has nothing to do with the G7 governors. I can tell
you that some ministers dropped from different states are ministers nominated
by governors very close to me. The minister dropped from KadunaState where the
Vice President is from did not have issues with my Vice President. Sometimes,
you just want to do something differently and since as president, you have the
power to hire and fire, you just have to do it to reposition your government.”
From 1999 during ex-President Obasanjo and during Yar’Adua, was
there no time ministers were not dropped? So I am surprised people are reading
meaning to this sack of ministers. If they have committed an offence, that
would have been a different thing but they have done nothing wrong, I just want
to retool my government.”
On why he refused to re-appoint another defence minister, he
said, “people talk out of ignorance sometimes in this country. Those who handle
defence are the four service chiefs and not civilians. I don’t envy service
chiefs because if they are to be sacked, the President just call you in and
brief you and before you step out, another person has been appointed. There is
no provision for gaps in the office of service chiefs. You can do away with
Defence Minister but not service chiefs.
Cost of governance
Speaking on the cost of running government, he said: “We
are doing well in terms of that. Recently, we just reviewed that in the
parastatals. I can tell you that political appointees are not that much as
people think. As a minister, you need competent people around you to function
properly. Government doesn’t sponsor plenty people anytime we are traveling out
of the country for events, so I wonder where people get number of people they
seem to claim anytime I travel out for events. People don’t compare notes. For
you to function well as president, you need competent people around you. I can
tell you that there are many African presidents that travel with many more
people when they attend events than me. In many countries, even when the
President is sick, you won’t know because there are technocrats running the
government.”
