Forgive Me – Jonathan Beg Nigerians
Forgive Me – Jonathan Begs Nigerians
While delivering his valedictory speech at the
special thanksgiving and farewell service
organized by Aso Villa Chapel yesterday May
17th, President Jonathan asked for forgiveness
from those who might have felt offended by any
of the moves his government made, stating that
such moves were not intended to deliberately
hurt anyone.
He said no human institution is ever perfect.
He urged everyone to pursue work towards a
better Nigeria even as they leave government
positions.
“No system is perfect. Every human system
must have an element of imperfection. For the
period of eight years that we have been here.
I will take the period as a block because my
transition from VP to President was gradual and
complicated. It was intertwined so you cannot
actually draw the line.
Because when the President was challenged
within major health issues, I was running the
country for sometimes even before the doctrine
of necessity made me as acting president.
Then I took over at first and conducting the 2011
election I won and I had to run my full four
years as an elected president.
So for the eight that one has been there,
definitely one is not perfect.
We have certainly done things that probably we
wouldn’t have done that way, but we didn’t do
things deliberately.
So for those who we have offended it was not
deliberate, it was circumstances of the office. So
we also plead that those people should forgive,
we think we have done our best. You can do
your best and your friends may misunderstand
you.
Today we are talking about leaving, it is only
God that knows why things go the way they do.
We came in as Vice President and my wife,
today we are leaving as the former president and
former First Lady. We have achieved it through
you.
Let me specifically thank the chaplain, the
clergymen, the pastors and their wives. For the
past eight years we have every reason to be
thankful to God. Every individual has his/her
own calling.
I also believe that people who take over political
leadership have their own callings to do specific
things. No one, head of a government, be it at
the national level or the sub- regional levels can
do every thing.
But when you leave, you will want to do
something to show that yes I was here. The
chaplain has said that nothing is perfect, if you
wait for perfection, you cannot achieve anything.
Ordinarily 24th of May would haven been the
last Service here. But that 24th, we will all go to
the National Christian Centre for the
inauguration service.
So for me and my wife, this is our last day of
worship here. Though we are leaving as
president and First Lady, but we have not left
you, because we are still in this country, we will
continue to interact one way or the other,
probably along the line we may even come
closer.
I believe some of you may even come closer,
and even do more meaningful things together
when we leave office.
I don’t really believe that it is only in
government that you can do thing, even outside
government you do a lot of things. The richest
people in the world don’t even serve in
government.
Dangote has never been in government, so you
don’t need to be in government to be rich. Bill
Gates has not been in government.
So outside government a lot of things happen, it
is for us to be committed and continue to be
focus. Me and my wife really love all of you.”he
said
