Former President Goodluck Jonathan
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has accused President Muhammadu Buhari’s government of hounding his family. Mr. Jonathan said this in a yet-to-be released book, “Against The Run of Play”, written by the Chairman of ThisDay Editorial Board, Olusegun Adeniyi.
In the book, the former president also expressed disappointment over the ugly role played by the ex-chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Adamu Mu’azu in making sure he lost the election to his tribesman, Buhari. He said he was disappointed that a party chairman would betray his party just for ethnic reasons.
On Buhari being after his family, Jonathan said, “I feel sad about the way my family is being hounded.
“Society is like a building. You build it one block at a time. If every president decides to go in to dismantle what his predecessor did, society will never make progress. I expected President Buhari to correct whatever mistakes I may have made and then carry on from there.
“But a situation in which people go into exile for political reasons is not good for us.
“His style of fighting corruption is different from mine and since most Nigerians apparently prefer his style, it is okay. There are steps you take that will help in retrieving ill-gotten wealth and punish offenders while restoring confidence in the system. But there are also things you can do to damage the system.”
He also accused some security officials and former PDP chairman, Mr. Mu’azu of sabotaging his chances of winning the 2015 elections.
“I felt really betrayed by the result coming from some northern states. Perhaps for ethnic purposes, even security agents colluded with the opposition to come up with spurious results against me.
“You saw the way the Inspector General of Police, a man I appointed, suddenly turned himself into the ADC to Buhari immediately after the election.
“How could we have lost Ondo, Benue and Plateau states if our people were committed to the cause? If you examine the results, you will see a pattern: in places where ordinarily we were strong, our supporters did not show enough commitment to mobilise the voters.
“What happened was very sad not for me as a person, but for our democracy.”
“Take, for instance, the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu. I believe he joined in the conspiracy against me.
“For reasons best known to him, he helped to sabotage the election in favour of the opposition,” Jonathan said.
In the book, Jonathan also lamented how former US President Barack Obama, ex-British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande helped President Muhamamdu Buhari win the election.
He said: “President Barack Obama and his officials made it very clear to me by their actions that they wanted a change of government in Nigeria and we’re ready to do anything to achieve that purpose. They even brought some naval ships into the Gulf of Guinea in the days preceding the election.
“I got on well with Prime Minister David Cameron but at some point, I noticed that the Americans were putting pressure on him and he had to join them against me.
“But I didn’t realise how far President Obama was prepared to go to remove me until France caved in to the pressure from America.
“But weeks to the election, he had also joined the Americans in supporting the opposition against me.”
On why Obama lost confidence in him, Jonathan said, “There was this blanket accusation that my body language was supporting corruption, a line invented by the opposition but which the media and civil society bought into and helped to project to the world. That was the same thing I kept hearing from the Americans without specific allegations.”
Interestingly, the former president admitted that Buhari’s government is doing better in the fight against Boko Haram.
He said: “What is happening now with regards to Boko Haram was the same thing that happened to me regarding Niger Delta militants in 2007.
“I did my best and so did the military, though I can understand if there is greater commitment to the fight now than in the past. In my time, Boko Haram said they were fighting an infidel government. That naturally has to change since they cannot also call Buhari an infidel.
“There is a feeling of ‘our man is there now’ that you cannot discountenance. It was the same feeling with me with the Niger Delta militants at the initial stage in 2007.”
Despite losing the 2015 general election, Mr. Jonathan enjoys enormous goodwill and is still very popular across the country.
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