I Had A Good Vision For Nigeria In 2015 – GEJ

Ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan has come out to say that he was wrongly judged before the 2015 presidential election.

He recently revealed that some of his friends and political opponents blasted him unfairly, but he definitely had a good vision for the country.

According to him, however, he holds no grudge against his detractors for their harsh criticisms just because of his deep interest in education which was perceived by his political enemies as misplaced at the time.

He added that the best way to assess a leader is to look at the philosophy behind his leadership.

His words, “The best way to assess a leader is to look at the philosophy behind his leadership.

“For elected people, political parties are supposed to have ideologies but even within that persuasion, leaders must have their individual visions.

“I always don’t think about leadership at the level of a President or Governor based on infrastructure alone. Anybody who has money and is not a big thief would definitely provide that for the people.

“Apart from that, how else do you assess a leader, his thinking, his vision for leadership?

“My interest was to change the society through education. No matter what we do to elevate Nigeria without education, the society would find it difficult to change. That was my personal view.

“That was also why I intervened in the almajirai case. We needed to elevate them above that level, because of the many social problems they were causing,

“I strongly believe that if there must be a change in Nigeria, we must be competent scientifically and technologically, because technology rules the world today.”

“When a president or a governor sacks a person. Sometimes, what society thinks could be the reason for that decision may be very different from the reality.

“There were insinuations that I sacked Ihejirika because of pressures from the North. Far from it! If somebody is going the right thing, even if you want to split my head, I would not sack the person.

“When my close political allies, advised me to sacrifice Arunma Oteh so that I don’t have problems with the House of Representatives. I said I won’t sacrifice any Nigerian just for me to be in the good books of the lawmakers. Rather, I won’t sacrifice myself. I took that decision because I was convinced she was not corrupt. If I had sacked her undeservedly that may have been the end of her career with the World Bank.”