former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, was in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was honoured by an association of international diplomats, the Cercle Diplomatique, based in Geneva, for the roles he played during the smooth transition of power in 2015. As part of the activities lined up for the event, he addressed a press conference, where he answered questions from a group of Swiss and international journalists. ONUOHA UKEH is one of the journalists present.
Could you tell us your relationship with African leaders since you left office, as it concerns your foundation and others?
I thank you for the issues raised. First, you wanted to know if I am in touch with some other leaders in Africa over my passion for the need to deepen democracy on the continent. I will say yes and even go ahead to state that there is another area of intervention that is of equal importance to me; and this is the area of wealth creation through special programmes to encourage men and women to get involved in medium and small-scale enterprises. We intend to be doing this by assisting them through training to acquire capacity in their areas of interest as well as help them with access to funding. There are good investment areas that are beckoning to them, like food processing, light manufacturing as well as exploring the agriculture value chain. We did this in Nigeria during my time in office and it was quite successful. These are areas that are of interest to me and we will be intervening through my foundation.
In terms of consultation, it is an ongoing process and I have so far been talking with people. I have been to the United States, where I visited some former presidents and the foundations of former presidents, especially Virginia, which is home to many former presidents. Back home, we are also make a lot of consultations, talking to other African leaders on what we intend to do. So, we are actually on track such that by the time we take off, we would hit the ground running.
What do you think about security in ECOWAS?
On the issue of security in Africa, especially the specific issue of kidnapping in Nigeria and other West African countries, which you raised, this is also of concern to all of us. I just left office and I knew what we had done as ECOWAS leaders to combat the ugly trend, especially during my time as the Chairman of the regional bloc. Then we had challenges in many countries, including Mali, Burkina Faso and others. I personally visited these countries in search of solution and we executed intervention programmes that worked. Yes, we still have challenges, but definitely progress is being made and we would get over it.
Yes, there is the issue of terrorism, which Nigeria and other countries are facing, like we recently had an incident in Ouagadougou. On this, I will say that there is an effective collaborative mechanism being evolved in the region and I believe that we will get over it too.
In Nigeria, the issue at stake is the alleged diversion of the $2.1 billion arms purchase fund. Could you tell us your side of the story?
Thank you very much for that question. I would have loved to speak extensively on this issue because even back home, I had read in the papers where a few people are saying that President Jonathan should add his voice to this controversial issue. But you know, in our country, there are laws. When a matter is already in a court of law, the people who had one thing or another to do with the matter are not expected to make comments because such would be considered as prejudice. As a former president, any comment I make at this point would affect the witnesses and ongoing proceedings in court and I would be going against the law of my country. So, I will not make any comments at this point until all these are sorted out. But definitely I will speak on it.
One thing I will want Nigerians to know is that we had issues in the country. On my part, I tried to build institutions. I strengthened the judiciary and that is why I wouldn’t want to go into areas that are not in line with standard judicial practice. I encouraged the separation of powers among the three arms of government because that is the standard practice in any true democracy. I reformed the electoral system by strengthening the electoral body, INEC, making it possible for it to seamlessly conduct the 2011 and 2015 elections. Subsequently, the election was adjudged transparent, free and fair, by local and international election observers. Some of you still remember the tension that had built up before the 2015 elections, so much so that doomsday predictions emerged from many quarters, including from agencies in the United States that Nigeria would disintegrate in 2015. The country became even more polarised along the North and the South divide and also between Christians and Muslims. Don’t forget that we still had issues of terrorism then. So, to conduct election along the whole length and breadth of the country, given the circumstances was going to be difficult. But still we were able to conduct a peaceful, free and fair elections. So, to answer you directly, I would not want to speak on the controversial $2.1 billion issue. But I will speak my mind on the matter at the appropriate time.
It appears that Boko Haram gained strength at a time. What happened?
Boko Haram started in Nigeria about 2002, not really quite recent. It started off initially as a religious group. Although they were fanatical about their belief, they were not terrorist from the very start. But over time, just like any of the other terrorists groups the world knows about, they became radicalised, may be through some local and even foreign interests and influence. We just discovered that a group that was just being fanatical about their belief started resorting to extreme cases of violence and assuming all the characteristics of terrorism. As a government, we worked very hard to combat them. It started when I was a vice president. The first major clash that happened between the Boko Haram agents and the Nigerian military was in 2009. Then, the first leader of the sect was killed by the police. From that time, we started having more challenges and don’t forget that the country’s security architecture was not designed to combat terrorism at that time. You and I know that combating terror requires different approach, with new technologies. This is because they are not ordinary criminals like armed robbers, who would not want to die.
Terrorists are a strange group that is not afraid of death; they are not frightened by the sight of the gun and other weapons. The security forces can manage armed robbers and other criminals better because the criminals are also being careful not to lose their lives. But for terrorists, they even have suicide bombers who have already made up their minds to die, especially after inflicting maximum damage and killing as many people as possible. So given this challenge, you need a different security architecture with superior technology. At that time, Nigeria had not developed that superior technology. When I became the President, we had to start by building the capacity of various security outfits in terms of intelligence, monitoring and interventions to enable them develop the capacity to take preemptive actions. We built that capacity over time. That was why we were able to push Boko Haram back and degrade them to a level that we were able to conduct elections in all parts of the country. And I believe that with commitment of the present government we will be able to get to a level when Boko Haram will no longer constitute any obstruction to our social and economic life.
There is the issue of Syrian and African migration to Europe. What’s your message to Europe?
This is a serious and unfortunate situation that needs to be tackled. If you look at Africa, for instance, you can divide the continent into three key areas: the precolonial, colonial and post- independence. Of course, during the colonial period, Africa was designed for commodity trading. It was not really designed for real development. Then of course, we had the independent era. During this time, there was not so much progress recorded also because of instability occasioned by the military through frequent coups and counter coups. We have now moved to the post-1990s, which can be classified as the democratic era, where most African countries are governed by elected representatives. There is more stability now and the economies of these countries have begun to grow. There is also a lot of urbanisation going on, with unrelenting pressure from a teeming population requiring jobs. And as you know, economic activities are still too low to cope with the pressures. So this also speaks to the issue of many young Africans wanting to leave home for the West.
I think the solution lies in the West working with us to ensure that we create more wealth within the continent. If we don’t, the tendency for people to move will continue. Africa cannot be a continent that will be perpetually encouraged and prepared for commodity business. Africa must evolve and be supported to go into manufacturing, to be able to add value to the raw materials they produce. Currently, the condition for global trade is not controlled by Africa. It is controlled from outside the continent and I can tell you that the conditions are not favourable to Africa. And that is not helping in terms of wealth creation. Africa needs to get to the stage of having robust economies, not necessarily to compete with any other part of the world, but to get to a stage where the economic needs of the people must be taken care of. Africa needs policies that will encourage growth and investments. If you have such policies in place, the pressure of Africa wishing to migrate to Europe and other places will, indeed, reduce. A people migrating are mainly unskilled people. But we have also many well-educated young Africans with skills leaving the continent. If we don’t build the kind of economy that will create opportunities to absorb this category of people, the migration train cannot then be slowed down as we wish.
