Goodluck Jonathan Deserves To Be Celebrated – Yakubu Dogara

Yakubu Dogara has described former President Goodluck Jonathan as the man who changed the narrative of politics in Nigeria.

Dogara said this at the launch of a book by the former President titled: My Transition Hours on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, in Abuja.

The Speaker also thanked Jonathan for conceding defeat in 2015, adding that his decision gave legitimacy to the 2015 elections.

Dogara said that the former President deserves to be celebrated for resisting the temptation of holding on to power, like those he described as ‘African demagogues and narcissists’.

“Your excellency, we celebrate you. Those who chose not to do what you did today are not being celebrated, as a matter of fact if they were to organise an event like this, nobody will even attend and I guess the high point would be the events in Cote d’ivoire involving Laurent Gbagbo and we all know where he is presently, where he has been confined to and that is lesson to anyone who will not want to follow this legacy of honour and dignity that you have established as a standard.

“We celebrate you today because your executive powers conferred you the authority to take a seat among the demagogues and the narcissists of Africa but you refused. You chose instead to take a seat at the table with all those statesmen of Africa and today, you are celebrated.

“That singular gracious call you put to your opponent was what brought our democracy to maturity and conferred legitimacy to our political process. Nobody ever is going to change that. We celebrate you today because by doing that you have brought honour to yourself and you have brought honour to all those that will identify with you.”