President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday affirmed that he never made any agreement with anybody that he would not run for the 2015 presidential election.
The president also denied signing an agreement with some Peoples Democratic Party governors for only one term in office,contrary to the continuous claim by Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and other PDP aggrieved governors. The president affirmed that if an agreement was signed with regard to 2015 election, it must have been presented by those talking about it.
Jonathan stated this while fielding questions from a panel of journalists during the Presidential Media Chat in Abuja on Sunday.
Asked if he would contest the 2015 election, the President maintained that it was too early for him to decide since such was capable of disrupting the political system. He emphasized that declaration of interest to run or otherwise will generate so much turmoil , hence the need to remain silent over it, and continue to tackle pressing national issues.
However, Jonathan asserted that the fact that he had not made his intention known yet, does not mean that other aspirants are stopped from doing so.
Jonathan said, “There was no agreement with anybody that I will serve for only one term. If I had signed any agreement with anybody, they would have shown you the agreement.
“I did not say that I will not contest in 2015. In Addis Ababa, that was when I advocated single term of seven years. My argument was that to be more productive, maybe we should consider single term of seven years.
“ I said if Nigerians agree to that, I may not be involved. I did not say I will contest or not. Those who said I have signed an agreement, they should show the agreement.”
Speaking on Boko Haram, Jonathan said the needless killings would have been avoided if the menace of the sect was curbed from the beginning.
“Boko Haram did not start today. I was Vice-President in 2009 when (Mohammed) Yusuf (Boko Haram leader) was killed. People talk about Boko Haram as if Jonathan caused it. It started before 2009, but because it was not handled well, it has grown into a cancer and it has become terrible. If something happened and you don’t take the right action, it will continue. But I can assure Nigerians that it will be brought under control,” he added.
When asked whether Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, was truly dead, the President replied, “I don’t know whether he is dead or alive. I don’t know him and I have not seen him before.”
On ASUU strike, the president called on the university lecturers to consider the plight of their students and the sincerity of government and call off the strike.
The President, however, said it was wrong for ASUU to go on strike because of the state of infrastructure in universities when it was his government that initiated inventory of infrastructure in the institutions and returned a verdict that something drastic must be done.
He said, “ASUU strike is very unfortunate. There is no time a government has taken inventory of property in schools, but we set up a technical team that visited all universities. When the report was presented, I said it must be presented to all governors during NEC.
“We said things must change but it can’t be done overnight. For us to do that inventory shows that we are committed. For ASUU to go on strike for infrastructure is not fair. We are doing inventory for polytechnics and colleges of education too and they are not being done for fun.
“We expect ASUU to work with us. It is unfortunate that the strike lasts this long because we have witnessed strikes before and most of them are called off when government don’t even do up to what we have done.
“Politics have fallen into so many things. We may be seeing something different.”
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