Jonathan: Politicians will act better when Nigerians reject bad behaviour 

Former President Goodluck Jonathan says the political elites in Nigeria will act better when citizens reject wrong things.

Jonathan spoke in Abuja on Tuesday at the public presentation of ‘Readings on Election Security Management’ and ‘Selected Readings in Internal Security Management’ authored by Solomon Arase, the former inspector-general of police (IGP).

Jonathan, Nigeria’s president from 2010 to 2015, suggested creating a hall of shame for past leaders who contributed to the country’s problems.

He lost his 2015 re-election bid to Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate.

He decried the conduct of elections in the country, noting that “people willingly do wrong things because we are in a society where people accept the wrong thing and celebrate those who do the wrong thing”.

“One gets worried when it comes to the Nigerian elections. Just as Arase said, the key actors in the elections are the electoral management body, in our own case, the INEC and the police. And sometimes elections are done anyhow we like,” Jonathan said.

“Why so? I don’t think I can say clearly; it’s because people lack the knowledge. They don’t lack the knowledge. People willingly do the wrong thing because we are in a society where people accept the wrong thing and celebrate those who do the wrong thing.

“And if we go to the level where society will not accept the wrong thing, people will no longer do the wrong thing.

“I believe one day when Nigerians will no longer accept the wrong things and a day, we all collectively say we will no longer accept the wrong things.

“We, the political class, will behave normally. People must reject us if we behave wrongly.

“Maybe, one day, we would have two buildings in Abuja where we will have places with pictures of people even if they are dead and say these are the people who really messed up this country so that their grandchildren will know that their grandfathers were part of the problems of this country.”

Jonathan noted that the military has been overstretched in the provision of election security, citing countries like Botswana and Senegal, where the police play major roles during the polls.

“In fact, here we overstretch the army. In most other countries, militaries don’t get involved in the day-to-day managing of the elections,” he said.

“In some countries, they use them to manage some strategic transportation, like the Air Force and the army in very dangerous areas, to convey materials.

“But manning polling booths, staying around, the military are never used for that. I just came back from Botswana some months back monitoring their elections.  “It’s a very small country with a small population, so almost all the police officers were used for the election.

“What the military does is that those regular duties that the police officers were doing, including securing the police headquarters, the military took over because almost all the police officers were sent to the field.

So, the military high command had to post military officers to secure government assets and facilities.

That’s what they do, and you don’t hear stories. Go to a country like Senegal, which is a West African country, for their election last year.

“Here, we talk about technology, technology, and still with the technology we still have problems. And I said that they use the simplest form of voting.”