President
Goodluck Jonathan said in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV which aired yesterday
that: "I will not lose the
elections" Excerpts from the interview
after the cut
.....in the fight against Boko Haram, he said;
.....in the fight against Boko Haram, he said;
"Its out of
ignorance. In a political environment, if one party, particularly the ruling
party is going to the left, they(opposition) would have to go to the right.
They must find something. They must have something to tell the people"
...on whether
the elections will be postponed again, President Jonathan said:
"I don't
think so. I believe the elections will be conducted as scheduled by INEC, that
is National elections on the 28th of this month. I don't see why we should
postpone again because I am quite impressed with the successes going on in the
north. There is a misundestanding about the postponement. In 2011 we conducted
elections in Nigeria, we had Boko Haram. The fact is that within this period,
somehow the level of Boko Haram within this period was quite serious and from
all indications and from the signals the security agencies got, people are
trying to use them disrupt the elections. In 2011 there was no such signals and
if you disrupt the elections in a number of states especially for the presidential
elections, it will affect declaration of results. So the security services
don't want to take any chances. They did not tell Nigerians that they must
route Boko Haram 100% before the elections could be conducted but they want to
degrade Boko Haram to the extent that they would no longer have the kind of
strength that they would come out and disrupt the elections. That is the key
thing. In terms of taking over our territories, yes we will take over all our
territories and very soon there will be no part of Nigeria where they 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 inolated 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, then 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 would stop it"
On whether he
mishandled the seriousness and strength of the group, he said
"No it is
not a question of mishandling. Boko Haram didn't start with me"
.....on
allegations leveled against him by APC Senators that he plans to sack Chairman
of INEC Prof Attahiru Jega, he 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
INEC Chairman, Nigerians and non-Nigerians will ask questions. So, you cannot
wake up and change INEC Chairman. I have never discussed with any person on
earth about changing INEC Chairman”
Watch the video HERE
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