Since the launch of Jonathan's new book, a lot of reactions have trailed the former president’s narration of events that transpired while he was in power.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has come for the Governor of Borno, Kasim Shettima and presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu over their comments on his book.
Jonathan launched his new book titled: My Transition Hours on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, in Abuja.
Since the launch, a lot of reactions have trailed the former president’s narration of events that transpired while he was in power.
The Chibok girls incident
According to reports, the former President stated in his book that the Chibok girls incident was used against him in 2015.
This however did not go down with the Borno state Governor who rubbished the former President’s book describing it as a presidential tale by mid-day.
Shettima said “The former President’s elementary book of tales fell short of the courage required of him to publish findings by his own panel in chapter four of his book.
“The whole of Tuesday night, I took the pains of reading His Excellency, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s book, My transition hours, from the first to the 177th page. I took particular interest in chapter four (the Chibok school girls affair) which has 42 paragraphs written on pages 27 to 36.
“I was amused that despite admitting in paragraph 15, that he had (in May 2014) constituted a Presidential Fact-Finding Committee under Brigadier General Ibrahim Sabo and many others “to investigate” the Chibok abduction, former President Jonathan refused to mention any part or whole of the findings by that panel which had submitted a highly investigative report submitted to him on Friday, June 20, 2014 after the panel held investigative meetings with the then Chiefs of Defense Staff, Army Staff, Air Staff, the DG, DSS and IGP, met all security heads in Borno, visited Chibok, met with parents of abducted schoolgirls, met surviving students, interrogated officials of the school and the supervising ministry of education, interrogated officials of WAEC and analyzed all correspondences.
“President Jonathan has refused to make public the findings submitted to him. I was expecting the findings in his book but he has deliberately swept that report under the carpet.
“What has become very clear is that the former President decided to sit on facts in his custody while he published, in an elementary standard, a book of fiction designed to pass guilty verdicts to anyone but himself, with respect to the open failures of his administration to rescue our daughters and in tackling the Boko Haram challenges.
The governor stated that by refusing to publish any part of his own panel’s findings on the Chibok abduction, Jonathan’s book was nothing short of a presidential tale by mid-day”
Ex-minister faults Jonathan’s narration
Also, an ex-minister faulted Jonathan’s narration of what transpired during the critical hours when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was collating the results of the 2015 presidential election.
The former minister who spoke to The Cable, alleged that the former President had plans in place to obtain a court order to stop INEC from announcing the result.
“…Is Jonathan trying to say he was not involved in Elder Godsday Orubebe’s attempt to disrupt the announcement of the results? Is Jonathan trying to claim innocence of a plot to secure a court injunction to stop INEC from further announcing the results? Jonathan needs to be a man of honour,” he said.
Garba Shehu’s reaction
In his reaction, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu dismissed claims by Jonathan that corruption increased during President Buhari’s tenure.
Shehu also urged Nigerians to dismiss “Dr. Jonathan’s hollow boast that he, not President Buhari, introduced schemes such the Biometric Verification Number, VBN, Treasury Single Account, TSA and the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPS).”
“Of what use is the announcement of good policies without the will to implement them,” he asked.
Facts don’t lie
In a statement signed by his media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan said the plot to discredit his book will not succeed.
According to Daily Post, the former President said “It is obvious from the pattern of deleterious comments from certain quarters since the successful public presentation of My Transition Hour s, a book authored by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan that a comprehensive plan to discredit the book is afoot.
“However, since facts don’t lie, the plot shall come to naught, just as the sustained propaganda blitzkrieg against the author and all he stands for, has failed to dampen enthusiasm and respect for his legacies.
“On Wednesday Nigerians were treated to a noisy but feeble defence by Borno Governor Kashim Shettima who, only ended up showcasing a jaded ritual of chest-thumbing, rather than offer plausible explanations for the ignoble roles he played in worsening the Boko Haram tragedy in his home state.
“Why he (Shettima) deliberately ignored the directive of both the Federal Ministry of Education and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for governors to keep candidates in the affected locations out of harm’s way by relocating them to safer areas for their exams.
“If it was bad enough that ignoring the directive meant deliberately exposing the girls and other school children to danger, it was utterly reprehensible that when the girls eventually got kidnapped the governor refused to cooperate with the federal government during the search and rescue efforts.
“He is on record to have boasted that he did not contact the President until 19 days after the abduction had taken place. One other of such clearly senseless behaviour was his ill-advised roller coaster trip to America and Europe soon after the girls were abducted; a development that pushed a bemused foreign journalist to ask him what he was doing abroad at a time his home was burning.
“It is puzzling that the governor continues to hide behind the cover of the report of the Presidential Committee, rather than explain his actions. He should please publish the report or any document he has that either absolved him of indiscretion or gave him credit for his actions on the Chibok School Girl’s saga.
Nigeria's Corruption Index
Jonathan also said “Garba Shehu towed a revisionist path when he claimed that Jonathan’s anti-corruption records couldn’t be substantiated.
“Has he forgotten that facts don’t lie? The only credible and globally recognized anti-corruption marker is Transparency International. Nigeria’s best ranking in TI’s corruption perception index still remains her placing in 2014, under President Jonathan, as the 136th out of all the countries ranked.
“This is far better than the last position recorded under the present government where Nigeria was ranked as number 148, a decline that took the nation 12 places backward.
“Rather than continue to raise a false banner of piety which apparently is no longer working, this administration would have served itself and the country better by understudying the success nuggets of its predecessors.
“Only then will they learn that Jonathan was able to do this through effective implementation of sound economic policies and institutional anti-corruption measures established by his administration.
“Part of the successful tools established by Jonathan to fight corruption included the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, which weeded out 50,000 ghost federal workers and saved the country N15 billion monthly.
“The institutional framework also included the establishment of such mechanisms as the treasury single account (TSA), and bank verification number (BVN), vital anti-corruption tools which are now shamelessly being appropriated by those that inherited them.
“There is no doubt that Jonathan provided focused leadership on the economic front, through institutional and sectoral reforms which impacted positively on the fundamentals for growth.
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“Having sowed wisely, the Jonathan administration reaped bountifully by keeping inflation at a single digit, growing Nigeria’s economy to become the largest in Africa with a GDP of over half a trillion US dollars, and becoming the number one foreign direct investment destination on the continent.
“All those were achieved because there were credible and sustainable economic programmes that were quite appealing to both local investors and the global business community.
“It is a known fact that businesses, growth and economic well-being shy away from corrupt territories. Doesn’t the fact that Nigeria has regressed to become the country with the highest number of poor people on earth, with tens of millions of jobs lost in less than four years, tell us something about where we now stand as a nation on anti-corruption fight?"
Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan served as Nigeria’s President from 2010 to 2015.
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