The Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, said former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, believed he was in possession of the Chibok girls when they were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists from their school.
Shettima said this on Thursday at the launch of a book: “On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria,” written by a former Minister of Sports in the Jonathan Administration, Bolaji Abdullahi, but now the National Publicity Secretary of the APC.
The governor, who was the chairman of the occasion, also tasked politicians to work assiduously towards building the country in the interest of all.
He spoke extensively on the Peoples Democratic Party and President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, saying though Jonathan was a “decent person”, he was surrounded by wrong people.
Shettima said: “Sadly, Borno was the epicentre of the crisis that engulfed the Jonathan administration.
“I think President Jonathan is essentially a decent person, an unsophisticated country politician caught up in the vortex of power politics in Nigeria.
“When the Chibok girls saga started, they made the president to believe that there was no abduction, that the Chibok girls were kidnapped by the governor of Borno.”
Shettima said Jonathan believed the story, which was meant to embarrass his administration.
He said: “I was in Chibok, my wife was in Chibok and there was a global outcry on the issue, but Jonathan was in a world of his own created by the clowns and also the misfits around him.”
Shettima added that in spite of the situation, Jonathan was an honest man.
According to the governor, sheer display of bad governance, lack of political sagacity and will power squandered the enormous goodwill the Jonathan administration commanded.
He said such situation consequently got him voted out of office in 2015.
Shettima disclosed that because of Jonathan’s honesty, “he recently confided in Senator Ben Bruce that his major undoing was his poor relationship with the Borno governor”.
He wished Jonathan luck in his retirement, saying: “He can redeem himself by serving God, humanity and Africa.”
The governor insisted that rather than emphasising issues of restructuring the country, efforts should be made to improve governance.
He said: “Let us work for the people, invest in education and create jobs for our people.”
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