President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday said he was the
most criticised President in the whole world and vowed to become the most
praised before he left office.
Jonathan however absolved himself of any blame for the
country’s problems for which he said he had become an object of criticism.
“I think I am the most criticised President in the
whole world, but I want to tell this audience that before I leave I will be the
most praised President,” he said at the opening of the 52nd Annual General of
the Nigerian Bar Association at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.
He added, “Sometimes, I ask, were there roads in this
country and Jonathan brought flood to destroy the roads?
“Was there power and Jonathan brought hurricane to wipe
it out?
“If Boko Haram is that of poverty in the North, were
there farms and Jonathan brought tsunami and drought to destroy them? Within
two years – is that possible?
“But what I can tell Nigerians is, ‘let those talking
keep talking, time will tell.’”
The keynote speaker at the event, Bishop Matthew Hassan
Kukah of the Sokoto Catholic Diocese, had earlier picked holes in the 1999
Constitution and said the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was the
most powerful President in the world.
Kukah also said a messiah was needed in the country,
but he emphasised that the identity of the messiah was still unknown.
The President’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, had in an
article in The Guardian newspaper on Sunday defended Jonathan
against insinuations that he was a drunk and glutton.
Abati wrote, “We are not allowed to touch alcohol.
Alcohol is not served during official duties. Yes, when there is an
international function, wine is served, but nobody gets drunk around here
(Presidency). That will amount to an act of indiscipline.
“The President himself does not allow alcohol to be
served at his table. But when you go to social network media, they tell you
something else. Lies. Lies. Lies.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan also joined the controversy over
the propriety or otherwise of the creation of state police in the country. He
called for restraint in the debate on the creation of state police, although he
admitted that the National Council of State welcomed the proposal when it was raised
at one of its meetings.
He said, “On the issue of state police, everybody knows
I have been Deputy Governor and Governor in Bayelsa State, there was a time we
were frustrated and we felt that we should have our police, that we would be
able to manage criminality in our state better because of our local
environment.
“Police from other parts of the country find it
difficult to go into the waters, but for us who were born inside the water,
even in the night we can enter ordinary canoe to go anywhere and we feel that
if we have our local police it will be better for us because our police can
reach everywhere in our state.
“But when I discussed the issue of state police with
former presidents before a state council meeting, they said it is a good idea,
which probably one day we will get there.
“And that is the emphasis I want to make, one day we’ll
get to that point. But presently we have to be careful on how we go about it.”
He added, “Experiments have been made, there was a time
when the police came up with a policy that police officers from the rank of
inspector and below should be posted to their states of origin as a way of
testing whether police familiar with the environment will make changes. But it
was realised that when police officers from the rank of inspector down were
posted to their state of origin, things became worse. So the police had to
discontinue that policy.
“We also feel that looking at the federal level and the
way the governors are handling elections in their states with the state electoral
commission, where opposition parties hardly win even councillorship elections.
“So, if there is state police and the governors
manipulate their state police the way they are manipulating their state
electoral commissions, the instability that it will create, even what we are
witnessing will be a child’s play.”
President of the NBA, Joseph Daudu, SAN, had in his
address backed calls for the creation of state police in the country.
The NBA also condemned the level of insecurity and
corruption in the country, and told the President that he would go down in
history as the architect of a modern Nigeria if he revived the anti-corruption
campaign.
The theme of the conference was ‘Nigeria as an emerging
market: Redefining our laws and politics for growth’.
In apparent response to calls for the convocation of
Sovereign National Conference, the President said in his address that
democratic structures were already in place in the country.
“It is important to appreciate the existence of a
democratic structure in the country, which, no matter our opinion, cannot be
wished away,” he said.
Kukah, in a paper titled, ‘Nigeria as an emerging
democracy: The dilemma and the promise,’ had said that due to the nature of the
country’s constitution, the President of Nigeria was the most powerful in the
world.
“The President of Nigeria is more powerful than any President
anywhere in the world, even more powerful than the American President.
“The President of Nigeria can, as I am standing here
now, decide to allocate an oil well to me,” the cleric said, drawing laughter
from the audience.
“To be the President of Nigeria, you have to have the
capacity to do well and that is where motive becomes important,” he added.
Noting that Nigerians were looking for a messiah, Kukah
said only a Nigerian could lead the country to the Promised Land.
He added, “Nigerians are looking for a messiah, but a
messiah is not going to come from another planet.
“The Nigerian messiah is among us – we were not told
that a Ghanaian could be the President of Nigeria. The only qualification to
being the President of Nigeria is being a Nigerian.
“The messiah is among us, but who the messiah is, we
don’t know.”
He noted that all the Presidents since the country’s
independence came to power by accident.
“There is no President of Nigeria till date that did
not come to power by accident.
“This should teach us to be more modest because God
always finds a way of bringing somebody who was heading somewhere else – who
has no ambition,” he said.
Kukah went ahead to stress that “the Constitution as it
is does not have the capacity to deal with the fine issues of a complex country
like Nigeria.”
The cleric noted that calls for state creation are
largely selfish.
He emphasised the need to address difficult questions
in the country, like the country’s membership of the Organisation of Islamic
Countries, the implementation of Sharia law in parts of the country, and the
need for state police.
“When Shagari became the President of Nigeria, not a
single Muslim in Nigeria mentioned Sharia law, because we were all busy
eating,” he said.