The senator representing Borno South in the National Assembly, Sen. Ali Ndume, has said that Nigeria may probably never have a better president like Goodluck Jonathan again.
Sen. Ndume, who is Chairman, Senate Committee on Army, said he regretted being one of former President Jonathan’s critics in the past.
Sen. Ndume said this at the Apo Legislative Quarters, in Abuja, where he described Nigeria as a ‘nation which doesn’t know the value of what it has until it loses it’.
While describing former President Jonathan as the ‘best and finest’ president Nigeria ever had, Sen. Ndume said all those who had criticized the former President in the past, including himself, now realised the value of what they rejected in the past.
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Jonathan was Nigeria’s president since 2010 till losing the presidency to Buhari following 2015’s controversial presidential election.
Critics of his administration, including incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, had accused his administration as the most corrupt in the nation’s history and also for being responsible for insecurity in the North.
However, since coming to power in 2015, the President Buhari government has failed to leave up to expectations by underperforming, and doing much worse the very same thing it accused the Jonathan government of doing.
To Sen. Ndume, though being a card carrying member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the over five years of the Buhari’s government has given Jonathan’s critics enough reason to hide their heads in the sand.
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According to the senator, “I must confess, as people call me stubborn person, I’m also a stubborn person… I feel I need to make this testimony here, and also appreciate Mr.(Former) President, as they say you will never know what you have until you lose it. I will stop there.
“For this country, I think Nigerians know that they don’t value what they have until they lose that thing. We thank God for your life and you have changed the political culture and landscape of this country.
“You don’t know how great you are in the eyes of those that were skeptical, those that don’t know you, those that didn’t come close to you. But now, honestly, I am one of those that used to criticize you very well, but I will say it was constructive move,” the federal lawmaker said.
Speaking further, Sen. Ndume recalled how he was accused of sponsoring Boko Haram and how he was vindicated by the court after 6 years of litigations.
He continued, “I had a breakfast with him (Jonathan) on 21st November (2011) and I was accused of sponsoring Boko Haram.
“He was saying, ‘Kai’ the man doesn’t… I don’t think the security would see it that way and from there, I went to SSS and I was detained for 30 days. I went to court for 6 years.
“And when I was vindicated, I had the opportunity to run to meet him, and he said ‘Ndume, you have been patient and God has vindicated you. Take this as part of blessings from the Almighty’. He was genuinely speaking to me, and I believed in that.
“He wanted to be President but Nigeria being what it is, it was a different thing entirely. Like I said, he had left a landmark on this country,” Sen. Ndume said.