Author of a biography of President Goodluck Jonathan in the person of Professor Matthew Uzukwu has said that he was moved to write the book to correct some distortions about the President.
“For one, the opposition is fund of making derogatory remarks about him; that he is weak. That he is not governing the country well and in the cause of my research, I discovered most of that descriptions are not true. To me, even though I am not his spokesperson, in my view and many may think I’m biased, but I am coming from a point of objectivity, because I would have added the negative aspects as well if it were true. But he has performed creditably well in the economy and there are facts to back up his performance.”
The book, titled: Moving Forward, was launched on Tuesday night at The Pierre Hotel, in New York City, United States of America. It was spearheaded by House 2 House organization, mainly to correct the distortions of his achievements and to deliberately reintroduce him to a larger global audience.
Professor Uzukwu said that the book judiciously integrates the President’s personal narrative from his humble beginnings in 1957, in Otuoke in Ogbia local government area to 1998, just before the onset of his political career, with his professional narrative from his election in 1999 as Deputy Governor to his current full term as the President of Nigeria.
According to Uzukwu, who is an adjunct Professor of Operations Management at Bowie University, Maryland, USA: “I found out that there are lot of misinformation about Mr. President and so I decided to research about the man and his life; to know his achievements and try to correct some of the distortions about him and I thought to add his personal story to it as well so that it will be a complete book.”
In his remarks, the Chairman Board of Trustees of House 2 House Initiative, Dr. Reuben Jaja said it decided to take the message of the President’s performance to all communities in the country with regards to the transformation agenda and why he should be given a second term to continue.
“It is to ensure our electorates are well informed that they should vote for performance should he decide to run. There are about 8,000 organisations that are asking him to run and they span from the south to the north, saying that Nigeria is better off today under his leadership and should be allowed to continue.
“We decided to take ours to another level because we believe that the diasporans have contributed enormously in supporting the nation’s economy. We are the only campaign
organisation that decided to write a book of our president so that people will know him better from his birth up to date.
“Our diasporans are intellectuals and they understand what the President has done and will help us share with the international community”.
At another event at the sideline of the ongoing 69th United Nation’s General Assembly, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Canada, Chief Ojo Madukwe, has said that Nigeria’s economy will go beyond being among the top 20 economies in the world with President Jonathan’s continuation in 2015.
At a dinner organised by the Leadership centre in New York Tuesday night, Madukwe , who noted that good leadership should be celebrated said since 1999 Nigeria had moved progressively into the promised land.
He said, “But in every journey to the promised land, when a Moses commences, a Joshua completes. So, I believe that the progress we have made since 1999 shows that the leadership that a Moses provided to move us away from Egypt, take us through the land of the wilderness including tough decision that has to be taken because the journey through the wilderness is not a polite journey because of the tough decisions that has to be taken.
“A Joshua has now come to finally take us to the promised land, and that Joshua is President Goodluck Jonathan. We are not just sighting the promised land we are about entering into it. Extraordinary things are happening in the power sector. If with 4,000 megawatt we are already a leading economy in Africa and the demand profile is 40,000 megawatts you can imagine what will happen if we can have 40,000. It means under President Jonathan the economy will be among the best in the world in the life time of even the older ones here.
“We shall see Nigeria move beyond being among the 20 economies in the world to one of the top in the world. So, I want to salute the courage and the wisdom for the organisation and the mobilisation of those in the US. This is not just another gathering to sell a man and say nice things about a man in the office and then when the person goes, it goes with him. The transformation agenda, the dynamics of Goodluck Jonathan is a subject matter for continuous reflection long after he has served the constitutional two terms of which he has a right to and we the party has unanimously endorsed”.
In his remarks, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Senator Philip Aduda, who represented President Jonathan at the event, described as a general practise worldwide the endorsement of the President as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sole candidate, saying there is nowhere in the world that a sitting president is denied his party’s ticket.
Aduda said what PDP did by endorsing the president as its sole candidate was to give him the first right of refusal, which, according to him, Jonathan deserves having done very well for the country, especially in the area of infrastructure.
Aduda said, “I want to also thank the PDP leadership, from the national working committee to the NEC as well as the BoT for deeming it fit to endorse Mr. President. It is a general practise the world over that no sitting president as in the case of President Jonathan that would be refused the ticket of the party. He is supposed to be given the first right of refusal, afterwards he can carry on and the party did the right thing in giving him this right of refusal by endorsing him.
“He has done very well for the country, especially in the area of infrastructure. Never has a president injected funds in the development of infrastructure like President Jonathan has done in the past few years. First, it was the privatisation of the power sector. What other past administration could not dare, the Jonathan administration dared it. The president ensured the unbundling of the PHCN and ensured that it was privatised, while the Transmission Company of Nigeria was also given on contract to be managed by Manitoba and a Canadian company to make sure that our transmission grid is taken care of”.
Aduda also appealed to the media to send out only balance reports about the government in order not to create room for the opposition to mischievously project government in bad light.
“As much as possible, whatever the media writes is either against the system or it makes the system better. So, there must be a balancing act to ensure that nothing but the truth is reported in order that the image of our country is properly placed in the committee of nations.” [myad]
