Former President Goodluck Jonathan, has replied former United Kingdom,s Prime Minister,David Cameron saying he never any assistance to rescue abducted Chibok girls by the Boko Haram.
In a statement by Jonathan entitled: My Response To David Cameron’s Claim said: ”In fact, meetings were held at the Obama White House and at the Portcullis House in Parliament UK, with the then Nigerian opposition to disparage me, after I had signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law
”Jonathan’s Full Statement reads:
”I read the
comments by former British Prime Minister,
David Cameron, in his new book, For the Record,
in which he accused me and the Nigerian
Government, which I headed, of corruption and
rejecting the help of the British Government in
rescuing the Chibok Girls, who were kidnapped
on April 14, 2014.It is quite sad that he Mr. Cameron would say this
because nothing of such ever occurred.
As President of Nigeria, I not only wrote letters to
then Prime Minister David Cameron, I also wrote
to the then US President, Barrack Obama, and the
then French President, François Hollande, as well
as the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, appealing to them for help in rescuing
the Chibok Girls. How could I write to appeal for help and then
reject the very thing I appealed for?
Also, history contradicts Mr. Cameron.
On March
8, 2012, when the same Boko Haram linked
terrorists abducted a British expatriate named
Chris McManus, along with an Italian hostage
Franco Lamolinara, in Sokoto, I, as Nigerian
President, personally authorised a rescue effort
by members of the British military Special Boat
Service supported by officers and men of the
Nigerian Army, to free the abducted men.So, having set a precedent like that, why would I
reject British help in rescuing the Chibok Girls, if
it was offered?
I also authorised the secret deployment of troops
from the United Kingdom, the United States and
Israel as a result of the Chibok incident, so how
Mr. Cameron could say this with a straight face
beats me.
Moreover, on March 8, 2017, the British
Government of former Prime Minister, Theresa
May, in a widely circulated press statement,
debunked this allegation and said there was no
truth in it after Mr. Cameron had made similar
statements to the Observer of the UK.
In his book, Mr. Cameron failed to mention that I
wrote him requesting his help on Chibok. Why did he suppress that information?
I remind him
that copies of that letter exist at the State Houses
in Nigeria and London. He never called me on
the phone to offer any help. On the contrary, I
am the one that reached out to him.
He accused me of appointing Generals based on
political considerations. How could that be when
I fired my service chiefs twice in five years, to
show that I would not tolerate anything less than
meaningful progress in the war on terror.
I was completely blind to ethnic or political
considerations in my appointments. In civil and
military matters, I appointed people that I had
never even met prior to appointing them, based
on their professional pedigree. Though I was
from the South, most of my service chiefs came
from the North.
I do, however, know that Mr. Cameron has long
nursed deep grudges against me for reasons that
have been published in various media.
On July 24, 2013, while celebrating the passage
of the United Kingdom’s Marriage (Same Sex
Couples) Act, 2013, Mr. Cameron said “I want to
export gay marriage around the world”.At that occasion, he boasted that he would send
the team that successfully drafted and promoted
the Bill, to nations, like Nigeria, saying inter alia:
“I’ve told the Bill team I’m now going to reassign
them because, of course, all over the world
people would have been watching this piece of
legislation”.
As President of Nigeria at that time, I came
under almost unbearable pressure from the
Cameron administration to pass legislation
supporting LGBTQ Same Sex marriage in Nigeria.
My conscience could not stomach that, because
as President of Nigeria, I swore on the Bible to
advance Nigeria’s interests, and not the interest
of the United Kingdom or any foreign power.
As such, on Monday, January 13, 2014, I signed
the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law
after the Bill had been passed by an
overwhelming bipartisan majority of Nigeria’s
parliament, in line with the wishes of the Nigerian
people. This happened shortly after a study of 39
nations around the world by the U.S. Pew
Research Center came up with a finding which
indicated that 98 percent of Nigerians were
opposed to the idea of Gay Marriage.
Immediately after I took this patriotic action, my
government came under almost unbearable
pressure from Mr. Cameron, who reached me
through envoys, and made subtle and not so
subtle threats against me and my government.
In fact, meetings were held at the Obama White
House and at the Portcullis House in Parliament
UK, with the then Nigerian opposition to
disparage me, after I had signed the Same-Sex
Marriage Prohibition Bill into law.
On the issue of corruption, it suffices to say that
Mr. Cameron is not as competent as
Transparency International, which is globally
acknowledged as the adjudicator of who is
corrupt and who is not.During my administration, in 2014, Nigeria made
her best ever improvement on the annual
Transparency International Corruption Perception
Index, moving from 144 the previous year, to
136, an 8 point improvement. As a nation, we
have not made such improvements on the CPI
before or after 2014.
In line with these facts, I would urge the public
to take Mr. Cameron’s accusations with a grain
of salt. I will not be the first person to accuse
him of lying on account of this book, and with
the reactions in the Uk so far, I definitely will not
be the last.
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Chairman of the
Goodluck Jonathan Foundation and President of
Nigeria 2010-2015″ the statement explained.
Young-po Reporters 