The outcome of the 2015 elections has thrown President Goodluck Jonathan up as a true hero of democracy. Wherever he goes, history will vindicate him as a man who genuinely served and left the stage when it became expedient under democratic circumstances.
For many, there was no how the polls would have been conducted without any crisis resulting from it. The fact that he could concede defeat was an act thought alien to the Nigerian politician.
By calling the president-elect, he enters into the pantheon of nationalists and many will accept and appreciate his good nature. There has been so much tension and apprehensions now with that singular act; he has through exemplary conduct doused tension and showed that the panic and hate speech that characterises the 2015 electioneering by Nigerians are needless.
President Jonathan has shown how well he is committed to allowing free and fair elections in the country. In the past, he displayed statemanly disposition when his party lost in Anambra, Ondo and Osun State. Although his party won in Ekiti, it cannot be linked to rigging.
Jonathan has restored hope in one Nigeria and obviates the feeling of insecurity and apprehension over possible outburst of crisis in the nation as the 2015 election erased the ignoble do or die agenda of most dye-in-the-wool poll.
While his party loyalists created a feeling of insecurity in the country with a view to exploiting such to achieve their “inordinate ambition”, Jonathan rose above the fray by insisting that his continued stay in power was not worth anybody’s life.
It is to his eternal credit that bloodshed has been averted. His stedfastness on ensuring that people’s votes count in the spirit of one man, one woman, one youth, one vote without unleashing the apparatus of state security on opponents makes him an undisputable hero of Nigeria’s transitional democracy.
Written by Bode Gbadebo