President Goodluck Jonathan is not a politician but a statesman, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation , SGF, Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim, has said.
He spoke at a panel discussion organized by GEJWinsIt, a pro-Jonathan group in Abuja, yesterday.
“Jonathan is not a politician. He is a statesman. He is a leader who is building strong, democratic, national, institutions that guarantee the future on Nigeria.
By the time he finishes in the next four years, Nigeria would be in a gear that can no longer be reversed.”
According to Sen. Anyim, President Jonathan was not fighting for the next elections but the next generation of Nigerians and that he opened the political space as part of his determination to strengthen democracy in the country.
He added that president Goodluck Jonathan created the conducive atmosphere for opposition political parties to thrive and that the government was indeed enjoying the activities of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
His words, “we allowed freedom of speech; we allowed people to express their thoughts without inhibition, so much that people even hurl abuses on the president without any of them having to run away.
“We allowed liberty of political associations. That was how some parties came together to form opposition parties. There was a time in Nigeria when that would have been impossible.
But we allowed it and we are enjoying their activities. We are enjoying the activities of the APC. We are watching them and enjoying it because it was our own creation.
“In fact APC should be grateful to Mr. President because the president believes that a strong opposition is good for democracy”
The SGF added that the Jonathan administration had ensured a stable National Assembly, as the leadership of the two chambers of the National Assembly had remained stable in the last four years as part of his stabilization strategy for the nation’s democracy.
According to Sen. Anyim, in his days in the National Assembly, there was so much instability owing to undue interference from the executive arm of the then government.
He noted, “in the president administration, power is not concentrated in any single individual, not even the president,” and that the president has allowed various government institutions to thrive on independence through which he believed strong institutions, rather than strong individuals could become a reality in the nation.
