President Goodluck Jonathan speaking at the flag-off of
his 2015 campaign in Lagos… on January 8, 2015. Photo
Full Transcript Of President Goodluck Jonathan’s
Remarks At The Flag-Off Of The PDP Presidential
2015 Campaign In Lagos On Thursday, January 8,
2015
===================
Your Excellency, the chairman of our great party, Alhaji
Adamu Muazu, senior members of our party here on
this great occasion, we have spent so much time here
so I will not bore you with protocols.
Today, I am going to address only a segment of the
Nigerian population. I am going to address the people
who are voting for the first time, those of you who will
attain 18 years this year.
That means I am addressing the young people. I do not
want to address old people like me, because we are
spent already and I will crave your indulgence Nigerian
youths, those of you who are here, and those of you
watching us at home, listen to what I am saying.
I am going to address political gatherings in 37 cities
and I am going to dwell on three key things. I am
focusing on the young people.
Whatever I say, when you go back, call your aunts or
call your uncles, your father or your mother, or your
cousin, that is at least 60 years old and confirm and ask
them what you heard that the Presidential candidate of
PDP mentioned in any of the rallies because 2015
elections is about the young people: either you vote and
continue to be relevant in Nigeria’s political history or
you vote for you to be irrelevant.
And I will repeat it, those of you who are voting for the
first time, your decision to vote could mean you vote for
a Nigerian youth to be important, to be relevant in this
country or be a Nigerian person to be treated as a
nonsense person and I believe all of you want to be
relevant.
Of course you have seen…we have just introduced our
governorship candidates and you see how many of them
that is of your age bracket. Which other party will give
that kind of opportunity?
I am going to dwell on three things because those who
say they want to take over power from PDP have been
telling a lot of lies. They have hired people from all
over the world and those of you in the social media
carry all forms of lies, painting all kinds of colour and
giving me all kinds of face that I cannot defend.
If you listen to us in the 37 places we will address these
issues, you will now know where to cast your votes. I
will address you in all the places on three issues.
The first is the issue of insecurity. I am also going to
address whether this administration is fighting or
encouraging corruption. I am going to address the issue
of weak government and unfocused government that
has no plans. Yours is to listen and compare with
everything that has been done before in this country
and take a decision.
I will not keep you here for too long because we still
have the opportunity… I am going to raise just very few
issues today and tomorrow I will continue in Enugu and
then on and on and on.
First let me tell you about the voter’s card. First when
we came in here we saw some placards, some of you
complaining that we are yet to get a permanent voters
card. Only yesterday, I directed that every Nigerian (of
voting age) must vote. INEC must make sure and
government will not allow a situation where some
(eligible) Nigerians will not vote; we will not allow it.
All Nigerians must vote and I mean it.
I told you that I am addressing those of you who are
voting for the first time. Those of you in the age bracket
of 20 to 24, if you go back, ask your uncles, before 2011
no Nigerian complained that he had no voters card.
People voted themselves into office. We came and said
every Nigeria vote must count and since then, the
voter’s card has become relevant.
This is the party that is giving political strength to all
Nigerians. Already you have been told from intelligence
reports that some people are already cloning cards so
that your voter’s card will no longer be relevant. Is that
the kind of people you want to take over government?
(Crowd shouts NO…!)
They want to take us to the old days when nobody saw
voter’s cards but results were announced. They want to
take us to the old days when ballot papers would be in
South Africa and results would be announced. Are you
going back to the old days? (Crowd shouts NO…!)
Nigeria must move forward, Nigeria is for the youths.
Nigeria is not for old people like us.
The young
generation must redefine this country. We must take
this country to where we want it to be.
Nobody can
push us backwards. The past is past. They have led us
backward and backward.
In fact when we were young, we were told that at
Independence, Nigeria, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and
even India were all at the same level.
That was what
we were told when I was in the secondary school and
the university. Now all those countries have left us
behind and now some people want to take us backward.
Do you want to go backwards? (Crowd shouts NO…!)
Nigerian youths do you want to go backwards… (Crowd
shouts NO…!)
Young Nigerians were doing things fantastically well,
they were acting films and these very people were
snubbing them, they were playing music and these very
people were abusing them. But we are encouraging
them and the world has accepted them. Do you want to
move forward? (Crowd shouts YES…!) Do you want to go
backward? (Crowd shouts NO…!)
I told you I was going to address things and I will be
very brief. They talk about insecurity.
That they will
fight insecurity. And you will ask are our armed forces
weak? Are the Nigerians in the Armed Forces weak? If
we have problems what is the cause—equipment. And
somebody who wakes up and tells young people of 23
years old that he wants to fight insecurity, ask him
when he was the head of government did he buy one
rifle for a Nigerian soldier. (Crowd shouts NO!…)
These people did not buy anything for the Nigerian
soldiers. They refused to equip them.
No attack
helicopter, nothing. Ask them what they did with the
defence budget for the whole time they were in office.
No country equips armed forces overnight. What they
use is quite expensive and they are built over the
years. Even if you spend 10 billion dollars today, you
cannot equip the army, navy and air force.
The capacity is built overtime. They refused to build
the capacity. They instigated crisis and now they are
telling us they will fight insurgency.
Ask them and they
will answer. I will elaborate more as we progress to
other places.
The next is that they say government is corrupt; or we
are not fighting corruption. Only yesterday, I addressed
the anti-corruption agencies. I said look people are
deceiving young Nigerians. You must tell Nigerians
what you are doing. We have arrested more people
within this period. Gotten more convictions within this
period but everyday they tell us lies.
At this point, let me apologize to some Nigerian civil
servants who did not receive their salaries in December
early enough and I will tell you what happened. I
apologize to those families that suffered because we
believe that for you to fight corruption; you must take
measures, establish and strengthen institutions. You just
don’t wake up, enter the street, arrest one person and
lock up and show on television and say that you are
fighting corruption.
If they had succeeded in fighting corruption, corruption
would not have been with us here today. If they had set
up structures and especially in today’s modern science
using ICT to manage resources, we would not have
been talking about corruption today.
What happened in
December was that IPPIS, software for processing
salaries, — sometimes people steal through salaries- and
some federal government agencies including some
ministries tried to divert funds to pay some allowances.
The system is scientific, it is not a human being, and as
long as money meant for salaries is about to be diverted
to other things, it shuts down. Those departments of
government were shut down, this is the only way that
you can prevent corruption. (Crowd claps …)
I served in Bayelsa as deputy governor and governor for
eight years; I also served as Vice President and
President for another four years at the centre, for all
this period, the fertilizer area is where states and
federal governments spend billions of naira but less
than 10 per cent of fertilizers go to the farmers. The
rest is stolen and sent out of the country. Even the 10
per cent sometimes is adulterated. We came and
cleaned up the sector and today there is no corruption
in the fertilizer industry again.
What did we do? We assembled some young Nigerians
that are IT gurus and we developed the e-wallet system
and through that the farmers now get their fertilizers
directly and nobody is cheating the government again.
Is that not the way to stop corruption? (Crowd shouts
YES! …)
If somebody tells you that the best way to fight
corruption is to arrest your uncle or father and show
him on television, well, you won’t stop corruption, you
will even encourage corruption. I used to tell people
and I will also address press conferences so that people
can ask me direct questions. Armed robbery is still with
us, despite the fact that we are shooting (death penalty)
armed robbers. Is that stopping armed robbery? (Crowd
shouts NO…!)
So arresting people and demonstrating on television will
not fight corruption, we must set up institutions,
strengthen them to prevent people from even touching
the money and that is what we are working on and we
are succeeding.
Some people say they are finding corruption… some of
you know, I am not addressing people of 20 years and
below but people from 30 years and so on… Nigerians
go to fuel stations and sleep overnight to buy fuel or tip
those who sell fuel to buy fuel. They hoard fuel and
they benefit from the hoarding. Who are those who
benefitted from hoarding fuel? Since we came on
board, have you suffered? Do you need to bribe
someone before you get fuel?
When the crisis of insecurity came up, we had nothing.
So to get things very quickly, we used some vendors to
make procurement. But now what we are doing is
government to government. Now any new procurement
we are doing whether for the air force, navy or army
it’s government to government, so there is nothing like
corruption anymore. Even if we have some issues,
maybe… is that not the way to fight corruption?
You must prevent people from touching money, you
don’t give them the opportunity or test them with
money and this is what government is doing and we are
succeeding in a number of areas in our procurement
processes. The relevant agencies will address Nigerians
for you to appreciate what we are doing.
They say the government is weak, they say we are un-
focused; we have no plan.
They say we are weak because there were some people
who took our fathers, our mothers and our uncles while
they were abroad put them in a crate and flew them to
Nigeria but they were intercepted by superior powers.
That blocked Nigerians from even going to Britain at a
time and the relationship between Nigeria and Britain…
the whole world isolated Nigeria.
They said that is the way to fight corruption. So
immediately I suspect your uncle, I can just crate him
and throw him into Kirikiri. Is that the way to stop
corruption? (Crowd shouts NO!)
If somebody tells you that he will not follow due
process… I came in with Yar’Adua and he advocated
due process and I stand by due process. Any country
that does not abide by the rule of law is a jungle.
Do you want Nigeria to be a jungle society? (Crowd
shouts NO!) Immediately I suspect you that you have
done something wrong I just ask the police or army to
arrest you and throw you into jail. Is that the country
you want? (Crowd shouts NO!)
They say to be strong is to jail people indiscriminately
for 300 years. Is that where you want to go? (Crowd
shouts NO!)
A country is like an industry. It must be managed
properly by people who have brain and great ideas
upstairs.
Let me just give you some highlights: they say we are
not focused; we are not planning. But our economy has
become the biggest in Africa; it was not the biggest in
Africa before. Without planning, can your economy
become the biggest in Africa? (Crowd shouts NO!)
We are not focused but
we have cleaned up the corruption in fertilizer
distribution in the country. The farm inputs are getting
to the farmers and our import bills, the money we use
in buying things from outside is coming down. Can you
get that without planning? (Crowd shouts NO!)
You are no longer queuing up and leaving your cars in
fuel stations. Can you do that without planning? (Crowd
shouts NO!)
I believe that some few years back some young people
have not seen trains except when you travel abroad and
you have never boarded a train. Now our trains are
moving. Can you do that without planning? (Crowd
shouts NO!)
In the power sector, we are in Lagos, Egbin power
sector got burnt in 2005 and remained so until now
when we are fixing it. We have been able to finish the
privatization of the power sector. This is an interface
period but you already know that the generation
capacity is almost double. Can you do that without
planning? (Crowd shouts NO!)
This government feels that Nigerians are very dynamic
people, very creative, very industrious, very talented in
music, arts and business. Many of them do not have
money and you know we are almost 200 million in
Nigeria and we cannot reach everybody the same day.
We came up with the concept of YOUWIN to give grants
not loans to young Nigerians that have ideas. If you
interview them, some of them are already
manufacturing and in the next four to five years, we
will be exporting things from this country. And they say
we have no plans for the youths? They should come and
tell us what plans they have for the youths.
I believe that young Nigerians, not people who are
spent and finished. not people of my age, we are gone…
that is why I said I am addressing people from the ages
18- 23 those who are voting for the first time, we
believe that you people will take us to the moon. My
generation has failed we couldn’t take Nigeria to the
moon. Look at what India is doing. Look at what
countries we were at par with at independence are
doing and I said for us to get to the moon, that’s a
special area; you need to expose your best brains.
I came up with a special scholarship that you must first
of all make a First Class in the university. We have
scholarship for everybody but you must first of all make
First Class from your university and then we test the
best brains and send them to the best 25 universities in
the world. Can someone who has no plans for the
future of this country do that? (Crowd shouts NO!.)
Can somebody who does not think about the Nigerian
youth do that? (Crowd shouts NO!)
Do you want to go back to those days when they had no
plans for us? (Crowd shouts NO!)
When I came on board as President, I noticed that
though in the country and on paper, there is this
programme or policy of government that every state
must get a Federal government owned university. Out
of the 36 states we have, 12 had no federal universities
and people were deceiving Nigerians that they were
doing something.
I said we must establish these 12 universities in the
remaining 12 states, start as small universities and grow
and we have done that successfully and they are
growing gradually.
We did not stop there. We looked at the school drop-
outs in some parts of the country and they were quite
high. We came up with the Almajiri educational
programme and we thank the Governors from many of
the states where we have those set of students. We
have programmes for Almajiri students and we have
the programme for out-of-school children. Can
somebody who has no plan for the country think about
that kind of programme? (Crowd shouts NO!).
You will ask some of those people who are deceiving
you now and who hired some people from outside the
country to go on social media and tell all kinds of lies,
that when they were in power did they build any
nursery school for anybody? (Crowd shouts NO!) Ask
them, ask them, I say go and ask them.
If they did not build nursery schools for anybody, what
did they use our money for? They built prisons or
universities for you?
I will build universities for you, I will build secondary
schools for you, I will build primary schools for you.
They say we have no plans for this country but we
established the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF)—out of
the money that comes into this country we reserve a
little so you just don’t squander it.
This is a government that introduced for the first time
what we call the SWF and I want to thank the
Governors from the states who keyed into the SWF idea.
In addition to the SWF, you know that there are some
stolen monies, which from time to time government
gets back. They have been getting these monies back
but we do not know how they are spending it.
The ones that have come in within this period, we have
not even started spending it but first of all we agree on
how to spend it. Because we have security challenges
and this money is primarily for security and they used
security channels to take it, 50 per cent of it will be
used for security, 25 per cent of it for development and
25 per cent of it will be used for future generations.
This is the decision we have taken even before we start
spending the money. Can somebody who has no plan for
the future of the country do that thing? (Crowd shouts
NO!) They should come and tell you what they used our
monies for.
We believe that so many young Nigerians, some young
workers find it very difficult to own a house of their
own. We introduced the Mortgage Refinancing
Company. It is just coming up, estates are being built
and we are working with the Labour unions. As we
pursue that programme in the next five years, most
Nigerian workers either working in private sector or in
government can own houses. They have no plans for
you; they are coming to tell you false stories. We have
said you do not need to have so much money to own a
house. Do you want to go back to the old days? (Crowd
shouts NO!)
We have plans for employment generation. We know
one of the greatest challenges for most governments
including Nigeria is to get jobs for our youths but we
are not sleeping. So far we have been able to create a
number of jobs… I have set up two bodies headed by
the Vice President made up of people in government
and the private sector. We call them Presidential Job
Creation Board and Micro, Small and Medium Scale
Enterprises Council, working very hard to ensure that
every year two million jobs are created. Can somebody
who has no plans do that? (Crowd shouts NO!)
Of course we have been told that I have other
opportunities. I have many other things to say but
people are getting tired … (Crowd shouts NO!, go ahead)
… we’d have the opportunity to talk and talk and talk.
Some groups of people have said that you have to vote
for your liberation or imprisonment. Some groups of
people came, and I read it in the papers, when they see
people in government maybe governors, ministers,
commissioners and so on … they will say we will draw a
line, we are not probing the past because they want to
deceive them to get their support.
So they will draw a line and start fighting corruption
after they cross the bridge. Only two days ago,
somebody stood in Port Harcourt and said he was going
to catch people in the streets and throw them into
Kirikiri.
The same mouth says something from the right, and
from the left, making contradicting statements. Can you
trust those people? (Crowd shouts NO!) Are they not
deceiving you? (Crowd shouts YES!)
They want power by all means and all what they want
to use power for is to lock up and imprison their
enemies. I have no enemy to fight. My interest is your
interest. My interest is the Nigerian interest and for the
future generations and young Nigerians to develop. Not
to fight enemies. We must stop corruption. I will not
stop corruption by catching people, putting them in
trailers and dumping them off to be killed. You can’t
stop corruption that way. Someone wakes up and he
feels he can jail all his enemies and he thinks that is
how to fight corruption? I think we have advanced
beyond that point.
Somebody wakes up and says “O, Nigerian women I am
going to give you position.’’ And you ask him when you
were a Head of Government, you had a cabinet, I have
the list of the cabinet members, there was no one single
woman. Not even one in the cabinet.
So Nigerian women, you cast your votes and go back to
the kitchen and die there or you cast your votes to
liberate yourself.
The Nigerian women must decide where to cast their
votes: you vote and go back to the kitchen and die in
the kitchen or you cast your votes to liberate yourself.
We are ready to liberate all Nigerian women.
Let me say one more thing and conclude. I read a
headline in one paper yesterday: MEND DUMPS
JONATHAN… did you read it? (Crowd shouts Yes!)
I am from the Niger Delta. The leader of MEND is one
Okah. He is in South African prison.
Why is he there?
South Africa is not Nigeria where people will say Oh,
President (Jonathan) manipulated it.
Okah is in the
prison because 1stOctober 2010 when we were to
celebrate our independence, our golden year of
independence, Okah was procured by some Nigerians to
assassinate me. Okah bombed Abuja, but the attempt
was to assassinate me and South Africa intelligence
system caught him in the plan to assassinate me. He is
now in jail in South Africa and they say MEND dumps
Jonathan.
Okah that wanted to assassinate Jonathan, will he
support Jonathan? (Crowd shouts NO!) I am told that
Okah is supporting some people… I am told that Okah
who is in a South African prison for killing Nigerians is
endorsing some people. Is that the country you want to
live in? (Crowd shouts NO!) Count me out.
Let me conclude by thanking all Nigerians, especially
Lagosians. Let me sincerely on behalf of my party
apologise to you because we are having this rally today
so the whole of Lagos is at a standstill. We beg you, we
have to do it and we know you love us, will support us
and we promise to make sure that… this is the very
first government that has supported the industrial
sector very well. Ask your brothers and sisters in the
private sector, if they are sincere they will say that we
have come up with policies that have encouraged
commerce and industry.
Government alone cannot employ people. The private
sector must grow to create jobs for the people. Bear
with us because the PDP government will continue to
encourage the private sector to create jobs for
Nigerians.
Finally, let me tell all of you especially those of you,
who want to go to the National Assembly that we just
had a national conference. The document from that
conference, because of the controversy we have in the
present National Assembly, you know how chaotic the
present Assembly is, we know that if you bring that
document to the Assembly they will dump it.
So we want to present it to the next Assembly. So those
people you are sending, if you mean well for this
country, you must vote people who can go to the
National Assembly, discuss and adopt that document
that our leaders have agreed so that this country can
move forward.
I stand today in the city of Lagos, in the south west on
behalf of the leader of our party, Alhaji Muazu, the Vice
President and all the leaders and promise that if you
vote the PDP en masse to the National Assembly and to
the Presidency, we will adopt that document so that this
country will move forward.
That document is to liberate you, we did not influence
it, our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters that are
credible came up with it.
Ask them, we did not influence it. I did not ask them to
dot any `I’ or cross any `T’ because I have no personal
interest. My interest is the Nigerian interest.
It is either we vote to be prisoners as we were- and I
will tell you maybe some of you do not know, in 1983, I
don’t know for the young people, some of you who are
writing all sort of things on the social media. In
1983/84, what they called discipline as a post graduate
student instead of reading my book, the whole night I
queued up to buy two tins of milk. And they say that is
discipline.
So we should make you queue up the whole night as
students to buy two tins of milk? Is that the discipline
you want? (Crowd shouts NO!)
You must vote for your liberation, you must vote for
your development, you must vote to take Nigeria to the
moon. You cannot vote to take Nigeria backward.
Leave us who are half dead to bury our dead. You must
vote for the progress of this country, you must vote for
the Nigerian youth, you must vote for the Nigerian
women. PDP!… POWER!
Thank you all. (ENDS).
Credit: State House
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