Jonathan, a great patriot, says Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday re­flected on his as­sumption of office one year ago, recalling that he was shocked when he received a congratulatory phone call from his predecessor, Good­luck Jonathan, whom he de­scribed as a great patriot.

Jonathan made the his­toric call to Buhari on March 30, 2015 to concede defeat and congratulate him for winning last year’s presi­dential election even before the final poll results were tal­lied by the Independent Na­tional Electoral Commission (INEC).

Speaking during a lunch he hosted for members of the State House Press Corps at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Buhari said he was for several moments lost for words during the phone call that Jonathan had to ask him if he was still on the line.

The President point­ed out that going by the history of change of gov­ernments in the country, Jonathan’s decision to so concede defeat without has­sles showed uncommon gen­erosity and great patriotism.

 

His words: “This is where I pay my respect to former Pres­ident Goodluck Jonathan. This is actually privileged informa­tion for you.

“He called me at a quarter past five in the evening. He said good evening Your Excellency Sir, and I said good evening. He said, I have called to congratu­late you that I have conceded defeat.

“Of course, there was dead silence on my end because I did not expect it. He had to ask ‘did you hear me?’ I was shocked. For 16 years, the man was a deputy governor, governor, Vice President and was President for six years.

“For him to have conceded defeat even before the result was announced by INEC, I think it was an act of great generosity and patriotism.

“(Ex-head of state, Abuba­kar Abdusalami) recognised the generosity of Jonathan to con­cede defeat and said we should go and thank him immediate

 

 ly and that was the first time I came here.”

The President again la­mented the rot he inherited from “16 years of PDP” in the country, saying the situation he met upon assumption of office was way beyond his imagina­tion, adding that this made his first year in the Presidential Vil­la “tumultuous”.

He said that contending with the bureaucracy was an­other great difficulty because the senior civil servants were too used to doing things the old way which was at variance with his party’s campaign promises.

According to him: “I under­rated the influence of the PDP for 16 years, watching from the outside as eight consecutive governments (went by).

“The experience of the members of staff, their com­mitment and zeal is different from what it is now. 16 years of development in the life of a de­veloping nation is a long time.

“When we came, there were 42 ministries and we cut them to 24. We found out that the government could not continue with 42 ministers and the par­aphernalia of office, so we cut them to 24.

“We had to cut down half the number of permanent sec­retaries and then do some cross postings. The permanent sec­retaries that were there for the past five to seven years, the only thing that they know is how things were done in the previ­ous years.

“Whatever we did in the campaign, in fact, we were say­ing rubbish and that made it very difficult for us. Things were even more difficult dur­ing the budget which you all know about.

“For somebody like me, for the first time I heard what is called budget padding. I think we will recover by the fourth quarter of the year.

“There were very serious developments which I never knew about. So, really it was a nasty experience for us.”

Buhari, who highlighted the deprivations his ministers went through to prepare the budget, declared that “one of the men I pitied is Lai Mohammed (Information Minister). Every day he is on television explain­ing our performance or lack of it.”

The president stressed that his one-year-old govern­ment was yet to recover from the looting of funds meant for prosecuting the war against the Boko Haram insurgents, which is still being probed.

“People were trusted and the most recent one which we haven’t recovered from is the $2.1 billion that was given by the government then to the mil­itary to buy hardware to fight the insurgency which had taken over parts of the country, and they just sat there as you are sit­ting now and shared the money into their own accounts.”

Apparently explaining why many looters have not been named publicly as he promised earlier, Buhari said: “We are still trying to get the cooperation of the international community and so on and we have to do it with a lot of respect for the ju­diciary.

“We can’t go out and talk too much; we have to allow the judiciary to do its work. We give them the facts, the name, country and bank account. If you talk too much, technicali­ties will come in, then we will realise less than what we want.