Jonathan’s gesture distinguished him as generous, gracious man – Buhari ---Vanguard Nigeria

File: Jonathan and Buhari

One year after he became the president of Nigeria, Mohammadu Buhari has said he was still shocked at how former President Goodlick Jonathan conceded defeat in the March 28, 2015 presidential elections and handed over the reins of power to him. 

The president said it was such an incredible development that a man who had occupied various political offices as a deputy governor, governor, Vice president and president could easily relinquish power to the opposition party. 


According to Buhari, Jonathan’s gesture had distinguished him as generous and gracious man. Buhari who gave the glowing tribute to his predecessor while hosting State House Correspondents to a luncheon at the New Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa on Monday was offering retrospective highlights of his early days in office after his inauguration. 

The luncheon however came on the heels of his first year in office. He said that the last one year had been “a tumultuous year for everyone in the villa.” 

He revealed that it was the singular congratulatory call Jonathan made to him that prompted him to visit the Villa in the company of former Head of State, Abdusalami Abubakar to the Villa for appreciation. 

He said: “I will talk about my experience here in Aso Villa. “I underrated the influence of the PDP for 16 years watching from outside as 8 consecutive governments. 

The experience of the staff, their commitment and zeal is different from what it is now. 16 years of development in the life of a developing nation is a long time. 

“When we came, there were 42 ministries. We cut it to 24. This is where I pay my respect to former President Goodluck Jonathan. 

This is actually a privileged information for you. He called me at a quarter past five in the evening. He said good evening Your Excellency, Sir and I said good evening. He said, I have called to congratulate you that I have conceded defeat. 

Of course, there was dead silence on my end because I did not expect it. I was shocked. I did not expect it because after 16 years, the man was a deputy governor, governor, Vice President and was President for six years. 

“For him to have conceded defeat even before the result was announced by INEC, I think it was quite generous and gracious of him.  

“Abdulsalam recognized the generosity of Jonathan to concede defeat and said we should go and thank him immediately and that was the first time I came here.” 

The president stated that reducing the Ministries to 24 from 42 was the best decision to take in the face of the circumstances his government found himself. 

“We had to do it on our own we found out that government could not continue with 42 ministers and the paraphernalia of office. 

So, we cut it down to 24. We had to cut down half the number of permanent secretaries and then do some cross postings. 

The permanent secretaries that were the for the past five to seven years the only thing that they know is how things were done in the previous years”, he said. 

What civil servants did to 2016 Budget President Buhari however regretted that some civil servants within the budgetary system “padded” his first budget for the country. 

He said it was a “nasty experience” for him and his Ministers who spent sleepless nights putting the document together. 

He said: “Whatever we did in the campaign, In fact, we were saying rubbish and that made it very difficult for us. 

Things were even more difficult during the budget which you all know about. “For somebody like me, for the first time I heard what is called “padding”. 

I think we will recover by the fourth quarter of the year. What padding means especially for ministers who had implemented what padding contains. 

There were very serious development which I never knew about. “So, really it was a nasty experience for us. It was also a nasty experience for some of the ministers who were never in government. For them to sit down day and night to work. I saw them. 

Some of them literary lost weight because they were sleeping less and eating less. Working on every kobo to be spent. “Because we became a mono-economy of oil rich Nigeria, everybody relied on oil and forgot about solid minerals, agriculture, making and exploring things. 

We recently just found out that we are poor because we don’t have anything to fall back to. This is the condition we found ourselves and this change mantra had to go through hell up till yesterday”, he said.