President Goodluck Jonathan will return to Otuoke if he lose Nigeria's presidential general election

President Goodluck Jonathan has stated that Nigeria isn’t his father’s estate and as such he would return to his Otuoke home in Bayelsa State, if he loses the March 28 presidential election. Jonathan, however, said he was optimistic that he “will not lose the election,” because he has performed well. “If by default somebody wins the election, of course, I will go back to my village. The country is not my father’s estate,” the President told AlJazeera on Monday night.

 Jonathan also denied that he was scared of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and its Presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari. On the insinuations in some quarters that the sudden step-up of military operations in the fight against Boko Haram was because he was scared he might lose the election on the grounds of insecurity, Jonathan said, “It is out of ignorance. “In a political environment, if one party, particularly the ruling party, is going to the left, the opposition would have to go to the right. They must find something. They must have something to tell the people.”

 According to the President, Boko Haram were able to launch their attacks on parts of the country for long because the military “lacked certain weapons to confront them.” He, however, assured that with the procurement of new modern weapons, the security agencies would rout the terror group soon. He also denied that he mishandled the Boko Haram insurgency in the country, adding that the activities of the insurgents did not start with his administration.

Jonathan also reassured Nigerians that the rescheduled elections would not be postponed further. He, however, said the security agencies did not promise to rout out Boko Haram completely before the elections. He explained that the military said it would degrade the insurgents to a level where they would no longer have the strength to disrupt the elections. Jonahan said, “That is the key thing. In terms of taking over our territories by the sect,we will retake them and very soon, there will be no part of Nigeria where the insurgents will erect a flag and say this is a Boko Haram territory. “That we will do but what I am saying is that even if you do that, that does not mean you are isolated from terror attack, but gradually with improvement in terms of technology and monitoring we will able to bring it down.

“When we take over all the territories they are holding, they are becoming weaker, now we will improve our monitoring using superior technologies to monitor their activities. We will begin to pick them and then of course, frustrate their activities. So over the period, it will go. We cannot live with terror. No, we can’t. We will stop it.” He also dismissed the allegation by some APC senators that he was planning to remove the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega. Jonathan said, “Except somebody is insinuating that the chairman has done something wrong. You cannot change an officer, except the person has done something wrong. Government, whether at the federal or state level, president or governor, does not wake up and change somebody, especially somebody like the INEC chairman; except that person has done something wrong. “INEC is a very sensitive body. For me to change the INEC chairman, Nigerians and non-Nigerians will ask questions. So, you cannot wake up and change the INEC Chairman.” Jonathan also dismissed insinuations that corruption had worsened in the country under his administration. He said, “Even the corruption issues –even if you look at the Corruption Perception Index…yes, people talk about corruption now because it has become almost a political issue. And when you move something to the level of politics, of course normally the issue is blown out of proportion. “Yes, we have cases of corruption but it’s not as bad as people make it to be. Yes, we have cases of stealing; I always say it that, call a thief a thief. I am not staying that Nigeria doesn’t have an element of corruption or stealing. “Start from ex-CBN governor who said $48.9bn was missing. What is the budget of this country for God’s sake? Our budget has been about N3.something trillion. That’s roughly about $18 to $20bn a year. “And someone is saying we lose N48.9bn. If we lost that huge amount both federal and state governments would not be able to pay salaries. I don’t know how he came about that figure. The next thing was for him to reduce the figure. Up to this time I don’t know which is the correct accusation.”