A group, Goodluck Jonathan Legacy Project (GJLP) has described recent comments by Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and one of the national leaders of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), on former President Goodluck Jonathan as unfortunate and revisionist.
- +2027: Group faults Atiku over Jonathan inexperience comments
Juan Amechee, national coordinator of GJLP, in a statement made available to BusinessDay on Thursday, said Atiku’s claim that Jonathan was inexperienced was faulty and lacked merit.
Juan Amechee, national coordinator of GJLP, in a statement made available to BusinessDay on Thursday, said Atiku’s claim that Jonathan was inexperienced was faulty and lacked merit.
Amechee took a swipe at the former Vice President, describing him as a ‘career presidential candidate’ who has repeatedly sought power without being tested at the highest level of national leadership.
The GJLP leader traced Jonathan’s legacy of service as he rose from the position of deputy governor to governor, Vice President, Acting President and ultimately President.
Amechee said: “To describe Dr. Jonathan as inexperienced is a flight from reality. Before assuming the presidency, Jonathan served as Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President, and Acting President.
“If this distinguished résumé qualifies as ‘inexperience,’ one wonders what standard the former Vice President considers adequate, perhaps his own record of serial aspirations which, by his own argument, should have translated into opportunity but has never been tested at the helm.”
Amechee further noted that Atiku lacked the tact to govern at the highest level, citing the political division and self-centeredness that have characterised his presence in every political party he has joined.
The statement titled: Atiku’s Revisionism and Jonathan’s Records: A response to claims of inexperience, read in part: “Our attention has been drawn to the recent remarks by former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in which he attributed governance challenges during the Jonathan administration to inexperience.
“Ordinarily, such a claim would not merit a response because the truth is self-evident. However, when historical revisionism is presented as analysis, it becomes necessary to correct the record.
“It is unfortunate that this statement is coming from a career Presidential candidate who lacks the moral authority to speak about experience where globally respected leaders are discussing leadership.
“If experience is defined by being a serial Presidential candidate, a role he seemingly hopes to reprise in 2027, then one must ask why such experience has failed to translate into national leadership for him.”
The statement added: “To describe Dr. Jonathan as ‘inexperienced’ is not only misleading, it is demonstrably false. Before assuming the presidency, he served as Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice-President, and Acting President during the constitutional crisis following the illness of his former boss, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. If that résumé qualifies as “inexperience,” one wonders what standard the former Vice-President considers adequate.
“Throughout his years in politics, Atiku has shown a lack of the tact and experience required to govern at the highest level, proving to be a figure of political division in every party he finds himself.
“Jonathan presided over an administration with one of the most reform-driven periods in Nigeria’s history. Under his watch, Nigeria became Africa’s largest economy, attracted the highest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the continent, and kept inflation at a single digit”.
The group said that according to data from the World Bank, Nigeria recorded its lowest poverty rate since 1999 under Jonathan, saying the former President brought down poverty to 35.8 per cent, making his tenure the most prosperous of the Fourth Republic.
“Jonathan’s achievements in agriculture were equally notable. In 2013, he was honoured by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome for meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on hunger eradication well ahead of the 2025 target.
“Furthermore, a leader’s credibility is measured by their international influence. Nigeria has served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council only five times since 1960; remarkably, two of those terms occurred during Jonathan’s administration.
“Similarly, it was Jonathan who facilitated the emergence of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina as the first Nigerian President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2015.
“On democracy, Jonathan set a standard that remains unmatched: he conceded power peacefully, placing national stability above personal ambition. That singular act, born of his far-reaching electoral reforms, did more to strengthen our democracy than decades of political rhetoric.”
The Pro-Jonathan group noted that Nigerians were discerning enough to distinguish between those who have held power and delivered measurable progress, and those who have repeatedly sought it while offering retrospective critiques.
“Dr. Jonathan’s record is public, measurable, and enduring. No amount of convenient revisionism can erase it”, the group stated.
