Nigerians have hundreds of reasons to re-elect Jonathan

The February 14, 2015 presidential and National Assembly
elections are thick in the air. Unlike the previous polls under
the present democratic dispensation, it has stirred up much
passion and seized the attention of the populace, because for
the first time two dominant and almost equally spread parties,
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives
Congress (APC) are set to slug it out for the votes of the
electorate.
As the clock ticks, Chancellor of the Akpabiosm Centre for
Leadership Development, Pastor Bassey, who is leading the
Akpabiosm Ambassadors for Jonathan and canvassing for
votes for Goodluck Jonathan, makes a case for the re-election,
saying it would represent a demonstration of justice, equity
and fairness.
Excerpts:
W e are a few weeks from the 2015 election. Looking at the
political environment, where do you stand?
My stand on the 2015 election is very clear. We stand for
justice, equity and fairness. We stand for unity and the totality
of peace in this country. Nigeria is a great nation, and that
greatness cannot be destroyed by politics or any issue. We
are the giant of Africa and we believe very strongly that
Nigeria is a gift from God to humanity, to Africa and to the
world. We will continue to pray for the unity of the Nigeria and
for oneness.
We also believe that President Goodluck Jonathan must be
able to complete what he has started.
It was said some years ago that one good turn deserves
another. The performance of Jonathan in the last few years
has placed him in the pinnacle and given Nigerians hope that
things can be better in this country. Jonathan’s presidency
has transformed Nigeria and given us leverage over other
African countries. Today, Nigeria is the biggest economy in
Africa. We believe that under Jonathan’s presidency Nigeria
will be one of the top 20 economies in the world in the next
four years.
But there are many people who hold the contrary view that it
is not enough to bandy about this claim that Nigeria is the
largest economy in Africa, when we have massive
unemployment and there are deficiencies in different sectors
of the economy. What is your response to these misgivings?
First, let us recognise that Jonathan took office a little over
three and half years ago and vigorously began to tackle the
multifarious problems he met on ground. And he has made
enormous progress. A fact anybody can accept is that Rome
was not built in a day. You have seen the pattern of his
administration and the Transformation Agenda that he
initiated which has resulted in the massive transformation
recorded in agriculture, the influx of foreign direct investment
– far higher than what was recorded during former President
Obasanjo’s tenure; the YouWIN programme that has been
providing capital for small-to-medium scale enterprises. The
Bank of Industry has made huge investments to grow SMEs;
we have seen the reconstruction of the Benin-Ore Road and
the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, both of which had been death
traps. Everybody in Nigeria knows how much people used to
suffer on the Benin-Ore Road, where travelers would sleep on
the road because of the horrible traffic logjam that that kept
them stuck, motionless and in agony. You have seen the
reconstruction of several airport terminals and complete
renovation of others.
The Federal Government under Jonathan has energetically
pursued the power sector reform agenda, and in the process
invested heavily in both power generation and transmission
infrastructure. That is why we are witnessing real improve­
ment in power supply. Just the other day, the sixth turbine of
the Egbin Power Plc, which was damaged and left unrepaired
for several years, was completely refurbished and reactivated.
This resulted in the injection of 220MW of electricity into the
national grid for distribution in Lagos State through Eko
Electricity Distribution Plc and Ikeja Electricity Distribution Plc.
In the next few years, almost every state in the country would
be able to generate electricity when the various independent
power projects they have embarked on with the participation
of foreign investors become operational. All these things have
been made possible by the economic policies of the Jonathan
administration, which are conducive.
We know that the government did not deal with the issue of
unpaid pension of old civil servants that retired some years
ago. They were made to go for verification exercise several
times, some even died without getting their pensions. There
was also the issue of massive corruption in the fuel subsidy
programme. Given this background, why should people go out
to vote for Jonathan on February 14, 2015?
First, let me state categorically that Nigerians have hundreds
of reasons to re-elect Jonathan as President. But you only
asked for three reasons, and I will oblige you. But let me
address the issue of pension first. We all know that when the
PHCN was unbundled, the qualified workers were all paid off
before the entities were handed over to the new owners. Many
junior workers received as much as N10 million and a good
number of them were retained by the new owners of the
generation and distribution companies. Why was it so? The
reason is simple: there was proper documentation of the
qualified personnel laid off after privatisation. In the case of
the core civil service, the digital documentation ran into
hitches because of the issue of ghost pensioners that had to
be removed from the pension list first and foremost. It was
necessary to conduct proper verification exercise to determine
the number of retired workers qualified to receive pension. I
believe that this has been done, and the qualified pensioners
would be paid. Where there are still cases of pensioners
wrongly removed from the list, I believe the government will
make necessary amendments.
Now to your main question about why people should vote for
Jonathan, I have previously reeled out several of the
achievements of the administration. We should not belabour
that because Jonathan has delivered on the mandate given to
him, and I think the majority of Nigerians agree with that and
would willingly and happily renew his mandate on February 14,
2015. Nigerians know the truth; it’s not propaganda that the
Jonathan administration has put down concrete, verifiable
evidence of its achievements in the three-and-half-years-plus
it has been in office. There is clear evidence that the Jonathan
administration has delivered good governance. The facts are
incontestable because any honest person can see them spread
across the country. His second coming is meant to
consolidate on what he has achieved and complete the
Transformation Agenda.