Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan
says he fired his service chiefs twice between 2010 and 2015 when he presided
over the country.
Jonathan said this while
responding to some allegations in the memoir of David Cameron, ex-British prime
minister.
Cameron had accused the Nigerian
leader of frustrating the efforts to release the schoolgirls Boko Haram
abducted in Chibok, Borno state, 2014.
He also said the Nigerian army
was unable to participate in operations the US and UK forces organised for the
rescue of Chibok schoolgirls because of “politically appointed generals”.
But Jonathan said this was far
from the truth, adding that he replaced his service chiefs in order to get
results.
“He accused me of appointing
Generals based on political considerations. How could that be when I fired my
service chiefs twice in five years, to show that I would not tolerate anything
less than meaningful progress in the war on terror,” he said in a statement.
“I was completely blind to ethnic
or political considerations in my appointments. In civil and military matters,
I appointed people that I had never even met prior to appointing them, based on
their professional pedigree. Though I was from the South, most of my service
chiefs came from the North.
“On the issue of corruption, it
suffices to say that Mr. Cameron is not as competent as Transparency
International, which is globally acknowledged as the adjudicator of who is
corrupt and who is not.
“During my administration, in
2014, Nigeria made her best ever improvement on the annual Transparency
International Corruption Perception Index, moving from 144 the previous year,
to 136, an 8 point improvement. As a nation, we have not made such improvements
on the CPI before or after 2014.”
The ex-president said Cameron
nursed animosity towards him because he refused to legalise homosexuality when
he was in power.
“I do, however, know that Mr.
Cameron has long nursed deep grudges against me for reasons that have been
published in various media.
“On July 24, 2013, while
celebrating the passage of the United Kingdom’s Marriage (Same Sex \Couples)
Act, 2013, Mr. Cameron said “I want to export gay marriage around the world”At
that\
occasion, he boasted that he
would send the team that successfully drafted and promoted the ill, to nations,
like Nigeria, saying inter alia: ‘I’ve told the Bill team I’m now going to
reassign them because, of course, all over the world people would have been
watching this piece of legislation.’
“As President of Nigeria at that
time, I came under almost unbearable pressure from the Cameron administration
to pass legislation supporting LGBTQ Same Sex marriage in Nigeria. My
conscience could not stomach that, because as President of Nigeria, I swore on
the Bible to advance Nigeria’s interests, and not the interest of the United
Kingdom or any foreign power.
“As such, on Monday, January 13,
2014, I signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law after the Bill
had been passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Nigeria’s parliament,
in line with the wishes of the Nigerian people. This happened shortly after a
study of 39 nations around the world by the U.S. Pew Research Center came up
with a finding which indicated that 98 percent of Nigerians were opposed to the
idea of Gay Marriage.
“Immediately after I took this
patriotic action, my government came under almost unbearable pressure from Mr.
Cameron, who reached me through envoys, and made subtle and not so subtle
threats against me and my government.
“In fact, meetings were held at
the Obama White House and at the Portcullis House in Parliament UK, with the
then Nigerian opposition to disparage me, after I had signed the Same-Sex
Marriage Prohibition Bill into law.”
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