Reno Omokri, the special assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on new media, released a message on the outcome of the March 28 election.
Although Omokri congratulates Buhari on the victory, he dedicates his piece mainly to Jonathan and his achievements. The president’s aide expresses admiration for the incumbent and describes him as “the real change agent”. Omokri recalls that amid the Boko Haram insurgency, Jonathan managed to boost the economy, improve the quality of people’s lives and reduce hunger. But that’s not all…
Read the piece in full. Credits to Daily Post:
“Let me first use this opportunity to congratulate the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari. Congratulations on your hard won victory which is a testimony to your resilience. “You give a new meaning to the lyrics of a song by the late US R & B singer, Aaliyah Dana Haughton, who sang ‘if at first you don’t succeed, pick yourself up and try again’. “Having said that, let me say this loudly: I believe in the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan. I am proud of him. “Much as it may be hard for some to conceive of now, I am certain that in the not too distant future, many will find themselves saying about President Jonathan that never in the history of Nigeria has so much being owed to one leader in so short a time as President Jonathan. Of course, I am paraphrasing Sir Winston Churchill.
“General Muhammadu Buhari has won the most transparent elections ever held in Nigeria and it is President Jonathan that ensured we had this most transparent election. One only happened because of the other. “Think back to elections held before President Jonathan assumed power on May 6th, 2010. I am sure the phrase ‘do or die’ still rings familiar. “That Nigerians are today celebrating is because of what God did through Jonathan. But perhaps President Jonathan’s greatest legacies lie in the intangible things he achieved for Nigeria. “Jonathan is the real change agent. He ensured Nigeria’s freedom of information via the Freedom of Information Law, FOI, and our freedom to choose leaders via credible elections. “Elsewhere, I have said that you may not be able to appreciate a very good wife until you have divorced her to marry another. “Even his most ardent critics will appreciate Jonathan eventually. He allowed freedoms blossom and from the way he institutionalized these freedoms, it will be virtually impossible to put the genie back into the bottle. “I have only written a few lines, yet the word change keeps popping up whenever President Jonathan’s name is mentioned. “Nigerians may have voted for change, but I am skeptical that we will see as much change in the coming years as we saw in the last five years. “Apart from the intangibles, what were some of those changes you may ask? “I will just mention a few. “In the midst of a brutal and subsisting insurgency, President Jonathan was able to lead the growth of our economy such that Nigeria became the largest economy in Africa and the 26th largest economy in the world. “He was able to reduce hunger in Nigeria (not according to any data from the government or any Nigerian run organization, but according to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Hunger Index). “His leadership saw Nigerians having the highest increase in Average Life Expectancy according to the United Nations Human Development Index which shows that life expectancy in Nigeria increased from 47 years pre Jonathan to 54 years today.
“For the first time in Nigeria’s history, the long neglected Almajiri children of Northern Nigeria are able to go to a physical school with modern facilities on a large and organized scale because President Jonathan built schools for them. “Our women folk have had their highest per capita input in government under Jonathan. Almost 35% of all high profile appointments President Jonathan made were for the benefit of women. He also opened up the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA, to women. “The Igbo people of the Southeast, who are very mercantile and commercially itinerant, now have an international airport and do not have to travel to Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja or Kano, to take a connecting flight. They can travel out of the country directly from Enugu. Whenever they do so, President Jonathan is putting back ₦60, 000 they would have spent on connecting flights back into their pockets. “In the Southwest, the two most important roads, the Lagos-Ibadan and the Benin- Ore Expressways are wearing a new look courtesy of the change brought about by Jonathan. It is worth mentioning that those roads had been in a state of disrepair for decades before Jonathan happened on the scene. “In the power sector, Jonathan fulfilled his promise to privatize power. It may take sometime, but Nigeria is going to see the same massive increase in capacity and delivery in power as she saw in the telecommunications industry for the simple reason that government cannot do what the private sector can do and this is a fact known to every nation that has successfully solved its power challenges. “Let me not go on and on about his achievements because I can. It suffices to say that under the rain, under the sun I will be for Jonathan! “And I am not the only one. Some may sneer and say that it is because I have benefitted financially from this administration. If the incoming administration should investigate me, Nigerians will know that this is not the case. I supported President Jonathan because of passion not pocket. “Now, this Change that has been voted for by Nigerians may be good and I hope it will be. “Those elected are all non- indigenes elected under the banner of the PDP, in Lagos state, which is an APC stronghold. Now that is Change! No. That is Jonathan’s Legacy of Change! “PDP members should not be down cast when gloaters ask them ‘how market’. What those asking that pedestrian question fail to realize is that the work of healing and uniting Nigeria must start now. There’s no time to gloat. “If they do not realize it, PDP members must realize it and begin to heal their party by building unity and infusing fresh blood into it. “Four years may look like a very long time, but it really isn’t. Remember that a party that did not even exist four years ago is about to form a government at the center. Isn’t that instructive of what proper planning and execution can do?”
Many officials inside and outside Nigeria not only have been congratulating the president-elect, but also praising the incumbent for conceding defeat. It had been feared that the Nigerian presidential election would be followed by violence. However, Jonathan’s move came as one of the decisive steps fostering a peaceful outcome.
