President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday cleared the air on alleged plans to prolong his tenure, saying if the result of the March 28 presidential election does not favour him, he will hand over to whoever that wins.Jonathan, in a live media chat apparently organised to douse the tension generated by the postponement of the general elections, spoke among others, the alleged plot to sack the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, insurgency and corruption.
Before and after the polls were shifted from February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11, there were rumours that the President and the Peoples Democratic Party were nursing a sinister plot not to hand over power.
The rumours were further fuelled by statements credited to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in far away Nairobi, Kenya.
Obasanjo was quoted as saying, “I sincerely hope that the President is not going for broke and saying ‘look dammit, it’s either I have it or nobody has it.”
But Jonathan told a panel of interviewers that he was not desperate to remain in power. He said such “insinuations and wrong information” were meant to discredit him by his political opponents.
He said, “Let me assure Nigerians that a new government will be formed on May 29.They should not be perturbed about rumours that we are planning to send Jega on a terminal leave and other rubbish that is being circulated.
“In 2011, I said I will conduct a free and fair election and that if I lose, I will happily move on and that it should be recorded.
“Then I just concluded the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s tenure. I said I will be happy to go if I lose. I said this nation is more important than anybody. Anyone who wants to hold the office of President and feels he is more important than the nation is not right.
“So if as of 2011, I made a commitment that if I lose I will go, it should tell you more about my stand on free and fair elections.
“But now, Nigerians have given me the opportunity to be here for four good years and so if the elections are conducted and I lose, of course, we will inaugurate a new government.
“The rumour that I will not hand over or that I am scheming to prolong my tenure are insinuations; they are not true. Those are insinuations; it is quite unfortunate that so much wrong information is floating in the system.”
Jonathan faulted the claim by Jega that INEC was ready for the elections. He said the information given to him by security chiefs was that poor distribution of Permanent Voter Cards could have caused a security challenge in the country.
He, however, said he would not sack Jega.
Jonathan said, “During the Council of State meeting, the issue of security was emphasised and there is no way security chiefs would have disclosed all the details to everybody but they disclosed some things to me which they did not mention to others.
“There are two aspects to the issue of insecurity. The first is Boko Haram and the second is the threat factor in the country.
“When INEC picked the dates for elections, the threat level was not high until we started the campaign. So, it was important for the security chiefs to review the security architecture otherwise the country would have gone up in flames.
“In election, a lot of problems are involved. When the issue of PVC was being branded as a problem, INEC, from what Jega mentioned that day, clearly was not ready for the elections. They said they were ready but they were not.
“The day we held that meeting that led to this adjustment of dates, in Lagos for example, only about 38 per cent of registered voters had their PVCs. That means if we conduct elections in Lagos, 62 per cent of voters not would not have been able to vote.
“Don’t you think there are security implications in that?
“Some other states had slightly above 30 per cent collection while some had 50 per cent and there were some states that had 60 to 70 per cent. The security agencies highlighted the security implications of this but ordinary people might not see it that way.”
