Nigeria’s former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has revealed reason he is still in pain and traumatised over the Christmas eve attack by gunmen on his country home in Otuoke, Bayelsa State.
The former president said he was still in pain for the fact that a soldier was killed in the attack.
Jonathan, who spoke in his office in Abuja on Wednesday when he hosted members of the executive of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) on a solidarity visit over the 24th December, 2019, attack said: “I thank you for coming to sympathise with me and my family. The fact that a soldier lost his life in that attack traumatizes me. That young man wouldn’t have died, the way he did, if he was not protecting me.
“Whenever people come to me, just as you people have come, to talk about that attack, I feel worried about the general society. Whenever I consider that people could do that to a former President who has reasonable security guarding him, my mind reaches out to the rest of Nigerians who do not have that level of protection. I am worried that so many people are becoming victims of sporadic shootings, kidnappings and so on. I believe that the country will get over the kind of insecurity it currently faces.”
Jonathan highlighted the importance of education and urged the students to be serious with their studies, adding that it is only when people are educated that the country would be able to manage governance and development issues better.
“For you young people, I urge you to believe in yourselves and believe in your country. Surely we will get to our destination, ” he further said.
Speaking earlier, NANS President Danielson Akpan said that the leadership of the umbrella student body had come to sympathise with the former President over the attack in his house and to thank him for his legacies in the education sector. Akpan told the former President that many students that enrolled in the 12 new federal universities he established had successfully graduated.
“The student that enrolled when you created those universities are now graduates. Some are gainfully employed; some are already employers of labour while some that have left the shores of our country are doing excellently well abroad.
“Your Excellency, Nigerians believe in you and what you stand for that elections should be freely conducted as you did in 2015. That particular call you placed to your successor on 31st of March 2015 is a notable achievement for which history will continue to hold you very dearly till eternity.”
