Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, pleaded with Nigerians to vote him in for a second term on account of his achievements in the last six years.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, while inaugurating the Goodluck/Sambo 2015 Presidential Campaign Organisation, PCO, at the PDP Presidential Campaign office, Legacy House, Maitama, Abuja promised to unfold to Nigerians what his government has done in the last couple of years that presidents and heads of state before him could not achieve.
Vanguard’s Henry Umoru reports that Jonathan promised to expose the failings of his predecessors including Buhari, which stunted the country’s growth and development.
Former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida had described his government as saintly compared to successive administrations in terms of prevalence of corruption, just as former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Monday, took a swipe at President Jonathan, accusing him among other things of squandering $55 billion crude oil savings left behind by his Administration.
President Jonathan, who noted that his administration has performed more than the previous ones with the nation’s economy as the largest in Africa, said: “When we start campaigns, we will confront them with what we have done as a government, we will tell them what they did not do when they were heads of state. Some people want to still keep these children as shoe cleaners, we must lift them up. Our children should not be used as cannon folders. They should be allowed to move forward to be governors like us.
“We have everything it takes to run an excellent and victorious campaign. Our great party has demonstrated to Nigerians that it is the party with the broadest appeal. We are the strongest and the biggest. We have engaged the people of Nigeria positively with people-friendly policies, which have moved Nigeria forward.”
He continued: “We have sustained the democratic tradition. We have strengthened democratic institutions. We inherited a rather complex security challenge but we are waging a determined war against it.
We are succeeding in preventing terrorists and insurgents from turning more of our communities into enclaves for their dastardly activities.
“We remain fully committed to further empowering the security agencies to enable them win the war against terror. We have proven to the people that we are a party and a team that they can rely upon.
“In the last four years, despite the security challenges we have had to contend with, Nigeria, under our watch, has made significant strides in every aspect. Our economy today is the largest and the strongest in the African continent, and a preferred destination for foreign direct investment.
“We have focused on job creation and the expansion of opportunities for our teeming youth as well as interventions to promote Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. Through an internationally acclaimed transformational agricultural programme, we have re-established agriculture as a business, and a major driver of economic growth.
“Today, not only is the agricultural sector thriving, the value chains in the sector have been activated and have become productive. The country’s food import bill has been reduced, and the non-oil sector has witnessed significant growth.
“We have expanded access to education by providing schools and facilities at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Today, there is a Federal University in every state of the Federation, and every Nigerian child has been given the opportunity to go to school.
“We have successfully privatized the power sector, a process that was adjudged by the international community of investors as transparent and credible. Our trains are moving again, from Lagos to Kano, from Lagos to Ibadan, from Port Harcourt to Enugu.
“I am not campaigning to you who are already convinced. I have no doubt that you are all familiar with the achievements of this administration. But I have outlined a few of them to show that we are in a solid position to run a campaign based on our commendable record. Our creditable performance in the past four years should be our strongest selling point as we go to the campaign fields.
“Flaunt our achievements in all parts of the country, tell the story of what we have achieved and let the facts and the figures be heard in every nook and cranny of Nigeria.”
