A former Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, has identified the deepening of democracy through electoral reforms as prime among the many profound legacies for which the five years administration of President Jonathan will be remembered for.
This was as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in Nasarawa State revealed that he ditched the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, under whose government he served as minister because of the excesses of the party’s estranged former chairman, Adamu Mu’azu.
Describing the presidency of his former boss as a historic one, Maku said that, “I remember President Jonathan once telling us that whenever he sat with his colleagues at international forum, Nigeria does not get the kind respect that is due to the country as the notion had gone abroad that the leaders were not properly elected.
And he said he must reverse the ugly trend that Nigeria must cultivate the right influences around the world that we deserve by making its democratic process transparent and that leaders were elected according to the wishes of the people. So, he set out for himself from the beginning to achieve this objective.
“We encouraged him to do so and in the last five years, this country will remember him for making our democracy more efficient and consolidating on the gains so far made. First, he concluded the Yar’Adua Electoral Reforms which began with the setting up of the Justice Uwais Committee on Electoral Reforms to review the electoral process.
President Jonathan completed the process thoroughly and tabled the reports to the National Assembly. Today, the Independent National Electoral Commission that we inherited in 2007 is a different INEC.
“The electoral commission is now more independent, assured of its funding – takes decision breathing over their head. If you look at the President appointing a Professor Attahiru Jega that he didn’t know purely on the basis that he didn’t want someone who could be easily influenced, then you would appreciate the sincerity of President Jonathan.
“All the elections that have been held have seen a departure from the past where the process is often predetermined.
Today we have an electoral process that has the confidence of Nigerians and the international community except for some pockets of misnomer as recently seen in Nasarawa State.
If the country today could transit peacefully because a sitting president refused to manipulate the process for himself, it is the greatest legacy this president is bequeathing to the future Nigeria and the entirety of Africa,” he said.
The governorship candidate further listed the freedom of the media as another enduring legacy of the Jonathan Presidency, arguing that, “The signing of the Freedom of Information Act by President Jonathan after past administrations failed in this regard is a testimony of his sincerity of purpose.
The media has never been free under any government since 1960 as it was during President Jonathan’s reign. Not only did he tolerate all manners of unfair criticism by columnists, commentators and politicians, he never took them personal nor put anyone in jail. The media is so free today that the Nigerian media is the freest in Africa and the world,” he added.
On how Mu’azu contributed to his defection from the PDP, he pointedly said, “Adamu Muazu simply told the PDP in Nasarawa not to allow Labaran Maku fly the party’s flag because he is a Christian” adding that “I was one of those who fought apartheid in South Africa during my time in the university and we cannot come back today to see racial apartheid being replaced with theocratic apartheid in Nigeria”.
He continued that, “All attempts to return to a path of reason and commonsense failed because Muazu was committed to actualising his ulterior motives. When all these became evident, the most appropriate line of action was to prove to Nigerians that we could do better without politics of religion and sentiment and my joining APGA was to prove that point”.(Daily Post)
