Why I conceded defeat in 2015 poll – Jonathan

Nigeria has to grow the credibility of its democracy to a stage where it would no longer wait for court judgment to conclude elections, former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has said.

Jonathan said his commitment to the protection of lives and investments of Nigeria people, their assets and the economy made him concede defeat and avert looming crises.

The former President, who was represented on the occasion by the former Minister of National Planning, Alhaji Abubakar Suleiman, recalled that already, some agencies in the United States had predicted disintegration, following growing tensions on the land at the time.

He stressed that Nigeria and, indeed, Africa could have been doomed, if  Nigeria was allowed to slide into anarchy. He said:  “Above all, what that decision did for me and the nation was to avert a looming crisis. Given the tension in the land at that time, I was deeply contemplative of what would have happened if we had let our nation, the biggest black nation on earth, slide into anarchy, because of contestations for power. What then would have happened to our citizens, Nigeria’s economy and the investments driving its growth? “I was convinced that the implication for peace and the economy of the sub-region and the rest of the continent, couldn’t have spelled anything else but doom. “Recall that after the 2011 Presidential election, which most observers adjudged transparent, with my victory generally seen to have been well deserved, crisis and conflicts still surfaced that claimed the lives of many of our compatriots, and property worth billions of naira destroyed. “I am always saddened each time I remember that among those who died needlessly then were 10 youths undergoing the compulsory one-year national service, who unfortunately got killed in a state where I secured only 16 percent of votes.

Vanguard