Jonathan: I fired my service chiefs twice in five years

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.”