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During President Jonathan valedictory speech at the special
thanksgiving and farewell service organized by Aso Villa Chapel yesterday, President
Jonathan asked for forgiveness from those who might have felt offended by any
of the moves his government made. ''He said no human institution is ever
perfect. He
urged everyone to pursue work towards a better Nigeria even as they
leave government positions.''
"No system is
perfect. Every human system must have an element of imperfection. For the
period of eight years that we have been here. I will take the period as a block
because my transition from VP to President was gradual and complicated. It was
intertwined so you cannot actually draw the line.
Because when the President
was challenged within major health issues, I was running the country for
sometimes even before the doctrine of necessity made me as acting president.
Then I took over at first and conducting the 2011 election I won and I had to
run my full four years as an elected president. So for the eight that one has
been there, definitely one is not perfect. We have certainly done things that
probably we wouldn’t have done that way, but we didn’t do things deliberately.
So for those who we have offended it was not deliberate, it was circumstances
of the office. So we also plead that those people should forgive, we think we
have done our best.
You can do your best and your friends may misunderstand
you. Today we are talking about leaving, it is only God that knows why things
go the way they do.We came in as Vice President and my wife, today we are
leaving as the former president and former First Lady. We have achieved it
through you. Let me specifically thank the chaplain, the clergymen, the pastors
and their wives. For the past eight years we have every reason to be thankful
to God. Every individual has his/her own calling.
I also believe that people
who take over political leadership have their own callings to do specific
things. No one, head of a government, be it at the national level or the sub-
regional levels can do every thing. But when you leave, you will want to do
something to show that yes I was here. The chaplain has said that nothing is
perfect, if you wait for perfection, you cannot achieve anything. Ordinarily
24th of May would haven been the last Service here.
But that 24th, we will all
go to the National Christian Centre for the inauguration service. So for me and
my wife, this is our last day of worship here. Though we are leaving as
president and First Lady, but we have not left you, because we are still in
this country, we will continue to interact one way or the other, probably along
the line we may even come closer. I believe some of you may even come closer,
and even do more meaningful things together when we leave office.
I don’t
really believe that it is only in government that you can do thing, even
outside government you do a lot of things. The richest people in the world
don’t even serve in government. Dangote has never been in government, so you
don’t need to be in government to be rich. Bill Gates has not been in
government. So outside government a lot of things happen, it is for us to be
committed and continue to be focus. Me and my wife really love all of you.”he
said
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