WikiLeaks report on Jonathan inaccurate – Presidency

The Presidency on Thursday picked holes in accounts about an alleged confidential meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and former United States Ambassador, Ms. Robin Sanders, published by online whistleblower, WikiLeaks.

The disputed portion relates to a discussion between Jonathan, when he held office as Acting President, and Sanders over the implications of then President Umaru Yar’Adua’s health condition for Nigeria. The meeting took place on February 26, 2010 at the the vice-president’s official residence in the Presidential Villa known as Akinola Aguda House.

Jonathan resided in Akinola Aguda House until he assumed the office of president, following Yar’Adua’s death on May 6.

According to the leaked cable, Jonathan and Sanders met “to review the current political situation, following the return earlier this week of ailing President Yar’Adua.”

Excerpts from the cable suggested that Jonathan told Sanders that he (Jonathan) lacked ‘political and administrative experience.’

He was quoted as saying, “I was not chosen to be Vice-President because I had good political experience. I did not. There were a lot more qualified people around to be Vice-President, but that does not mean I am not my own man.”

“I am not a politician and had very limited experience as an administrator; I will not tolerate a brawl.”

The account also said Jonathan blamed some influential persons for the political crisis in the country at the time.

“This terrible situation in the country today has been created by four people: Turai Yar’Adua (the ailing President’s wife), his Chief Security Officer (CSO) (Yusuf Mohammed Tilde), his Aide-de-Camp (ADC)(Col. Mustapha Onoyiveta) and Professor Tanimu Yakubu (Yar’Adua’s Chief Economic Advisor).”

However, the Presidency, in response to the publication, said the website’s accounts of the discussion was ‘a souped up version,’ aimed at portraying the President in a bad light.

In a statement titled, ‘On Wikileaks and all that,’ the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Communication, Mr. Ima Niboro, said Jonathan, with all his experience in public office before becoming vice-president to the late Yar’Adua, could not have told Sanders that he lacked political and leadership experience.

The statement reads, “WikiLeaks is the new travesty that international diplomacy has to deal with. Nigeria is no exception. The point to be made is that the accounts of meetings between President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and US diplomats are essentially third party narratives, and are largely inaccurate.

“The President, in those tempestuous days during which the nation tottered on the brink, held meetings, and then more meetings, with different groups, the diplomatic community inclusive. The President met with different diplomats and special envoys, who offered different suggestions on a way out of the impasse that our late leader’s health had imposed on the nation.

“We note that this account is largely silent on these suggestions. Instead, what is served up is an unfair account severely impacted by selective perception and individual expectations. For instance, how can it be said that a man who had been a Deputy Governor, an Acting Governor, a Governor, a Vice-President, and then Acting President could have described himself as lacking in administrative experience?”

“That the President holds a Ph.D, was a lecturer for 10 years and was an Assistant Director in the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission do not make the statement less rankling. This only goes to show that the report itself is a souped up version of the standard conversation that takes place in such meetings.

“We find this account as wholly unfortunate and we are only employing the best of diplomatic finesse in that statement!

@Teeteelaryo
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