What I Will Be Remembered For - Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan believes he had done much for the country, despite the economic and security challenges Nigeria has been plunged into. In an interview in Addis Ababa he spoke with Zuriel Oduwole, a 10-year-old Nigerian girl based in Los Angeles, California who has already interviewed three other African leaders for a documentary she is producing on the 50 years of the African Union (AU). LEON USIGBE who witnessed the interview brings the excerpts. "There are key things that I would want people to remember me for. I started with one; clean elections, free and fair elections. In a democratic setting, to strengthen democracy so that you prevent the issue of military intervention to make sure that people decide who govern them, who represent them at the parliament, who run their affair at the local government level; the country never had that opportunity and the elite were no longer interested even in really voting. Democracy was almost left floating in the hands of people who ordinarily have no place there. We are sanitising the electoral process. Now, Nigeria can select who they want to be their president, who wants to be their governor, who wants to be their senator, who wants to be their House of Representatives member or even their state Houses of Assembly or even chairman of their council. We are doing that and I want that to be internalised in all the ways we do things. I want people to remember me for that. "Another key thing is that for you to develop now, you talk about IT; when you talk about nascent technological development, power is key and that has been our priority, to make sure that we stabilise power in the country. Because when you stabilise power, you are encouraging micro, small and medium scale enterprises. These are the areas that really create jobs for people, improve the economy, create wealth for people and reduce poverty to the barest minimum. I wouldn’t want to say more but if we can stabilise the electoral process, sanitise the political environment, then you make sure that you have power in this country and of course, security, every other things will take off on its own, even education because the private sector is very much involved in education. So, it is not just government. Health, the private sector is involved but they need this kind of environment for them to excel. So, the thing is: stable democracy, rule of law, security in the country and power, then everything will follow."