Former President Goodluck
Jonathan yesterday in United States of America, took a swipe on the former
President, Olusegun Obasanjo over his third term bid, saying that if not for a
vibrant parliament in place, he would have had his way.
Jonathan spoke in the
United States at an event titled: “Presidential elections and democratic
consolidation in Africa: Case studies on Nigeria and Tanzania” and co-hosted
by National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS).
According to Jonathan,
the strong resistance of the Nigerian National Assembly actually frustrated
the third term bid of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
“Of course, I was a governor
at that time under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the same party as
Obasanjo, but due to strong resistance from the National Assembly, the third
term bid failed.”
According to Jonathan, Africa
needs strong parliaments to checkmate sit-tight presidents who influence
parliaments to consider amendment to the constitution that would extend their
stay in office.
“Changing constitutions
to eliminate term limits in order to favour incumbents is inconsistent with
democratic principles and reduces confidence in democratic institutions.”
While addressing the
issue of weak African institutions, Jonathan observed that African democracies
are becoming stronger, adding the situation would greatly improve in the next
decade.
He further noted that although
some leaders in Africa are still able to manipulate their way to elongate
their tenure, the people are increasingly raising their awareness and African
parliaments are becoming stronger to be able to resist such tendencies in
future. He made reference to Burkina Faso, where he noted that although the
parliament approved an extra term for the former president, the people resisted
that, forcing the president and speaker of the parliament to go on exile.
Also in Senegal, Jonathan, noted that the former President thinking he would
win another term increased the tenure of his office to seven from five years.
But the opposition candidate won the election and returned the tenure to five
years, believing that seven years was too long for one term.
On the issue of security
contracts for which his former Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, is currently
facing charges, it is believed that the Jonathan administration spent a sizable
amount of money equipping all the security and intelligence outfits in the
country over his five-year period in the presidency.
But Jonathan stated that
his administration never awarded a single contract that was worth $2 billion,
stressing that the economy couldn’t have supported such huge amount of money to
be awarded at once. “At no time did I award a single contract of $2 billion for
procurement of weapons.”
Jonathan stated that like
most governments around the world, there might have been issues of corruption
during his time as President. He however maintained that the story was being
unnecessarily embellished, adding that there are ongoing investigations and
court processes that would establish the truth.
For instance, he frowned
at the allegation that some officials in his administration were stealing one
million barrels of crude oil a day at a time when Nigeria’s production peaked
at 2.25 million barrels.
“To claim that half of
that was being stolen on a daily basis doesn’t add up, otherwise the
government wouldn’t have functioned at all to even be able to pay salaries,”
Jonathan said.
- Sun News
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