President Goodluck Jonathan has re assured Nigerians that if he doesn’t get re-elected, a new government will be inaugurated come May 29.
Jonathan, who spoke during a presidential media chat at the State House, Abuja yesterday said that there is no way he will hold on to power if he loses the election, he will hand over.
He said “If in 2011, I said that I will conduct free and fair elections and if I lose I will happily go home, and it should be recorded that at that time, no African sitting president had lost an election. But within this period, a number of African sitting presidents have lost elections.
“But I wanted to create history by being the first African sitting president that lost an election… I said I would be happy to go, that this nation is more important than any human being.
“So anybody who wants to hold this office of the president or any office at all and feels that he is more important than the nation, that is not quite right.
“If as at that time, I insisted that I was ready to conduct free and fair elections and if I lost I would go, much less now that Nigerians have given me the opportunity to be here for four full years, so if the elections are conducted today and I lose, of course, we will inaugurate a new government. There is no way I will say if I lose I will not hand over.”
On election postponement, he said “People are not being fair to me. I did not want a postponement of the elections. For the international community, I sympathise with them because in Africa there have been a number of cases where governments rescheduled elections in order to extend their tenure. So whenever you talk about rescheduling an election they are a bit apprehensive. This is not the case in Nigeria.
“The law makes it very clear that elections must be held not less than 30 days to the inauguration of a new government and not more than 150 days to the inauguration of a new government. Within this period, elections can be conducted so that it will not affect the inauguration of a new government.
“Within that period, if there is a reason for the electoral umpire to adjust the date, it is allowed. You will recall that in 2011, I was already in my village before I heard that the elections had been postponed for two weeks.”
On the threat of war if he loses the elections, he said “Everything would be done to ensure that nobody goes to war.
“We will make sure that we do things in a way that nobody goes to war. We have a country and we must protect the country. Without the country, I cannot be president.
“Besides, I am not going to be president forever. If I am relevant at the ECOWAS level, if I am relevant at AU and the global level that is because I am the president of Nigeria.
“The day I cease to be the president of Nigeria, I am just an ordinary person. So we must protect the country. If I want to become the president of the country, I must not destroy the country.”
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