I left good legacies Nigerians will always remember me for, says Jonathan

Former President Goodluck Jonathan 

Goodluck Jonathan, former president of Nigeria has said that he left good legacies for the country during his tenure as president in 2015.

He said when he was still president in 2015, he had all the powers at his disposal to influence and manipulate the electoral process to his own advantage but he refused to do so because he placed the interest of Nigeria above his own personal interest.



The former president said this in an interview he granted to Premium Times on Friday.

Asked on what is the biggest and enduring legacy he left for the country he said, "A legacy of a tremendously improved electoral system, to such an extent that I, as an incumbent lost to an opposition candidate; a personal loss I consider a win for the Nigerian nation.

"I had every instrument of state coercion at my disposal to undermine and compromise the electoral process to my incumbent advantage but I refused to do such because I placed the interest of Nigeria ahead of my personal interest.




On the achievements of his administration he responded saying, "I wouldn’t have loved to comment on my tenure because I don’t fancy assessing and judging myself. I always prefer that other people be the ones to comment on my tenure. But if I may make some few comments on what my five years in office brought to the country, using your words ‘politically and economically’, I will say that we did our best.

"Talking about what I achieved politically, within the country we encouraged a stable polity. We encouraged people to live and associate freely in a hassle-free political environment. We stabilised the political and electoral processes. We recorded great successes there and people can attest to that.


"In terms of international politics, from 1960 till date Nigeria has been elected into the security council of the United Nations for five times. Two of those five times were within the five years I was President. This tells you that even in terms of international politics, we did very well.

"Since the establishment of the African Development Bank, which has Nigeria, Egypt and Libya as the biggest contributors, no Nigerian had ever been made President of ADB until my time. We were able to secure that position for the first time during my tenure because of my administration’s robust international relations.



"These are few milestones out of the numerous things we did that I thought I needed to mention just to answer your question directly and to let you realise that though we had challenges, we were able to move this country forward politically.

"We also recorded appreciable progress on the economic front. Nigeria was the number one destination for foreign direct investment under my tenure. We were rated the biggest economy in Africa.

"We transformed the agricultural sector and brought the nation closer towards food self-sufficiency. Our currency was stable and inflationary pressure was kept at single digit. We may not have been comfortable with the exchange rate of less than N200 to the dollar at that time but I can tell you that the economy was stable.



"The stability we had ensured that business people and investors could plan because you were sure of the exchange rate and the cost of your goods at any point in time, whether you were exporting or importing. Economically you could say that Nigeria was stable and strong.