From
Left Wife of the Chaplain, Aso Villa Chapel, Martha Onwuzurumba;
President Goodluck Jonathan; First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan &
Chaplain Obioma Onwuzurumba at a special thanksgiving church service
for the First Family at Aso Villa Chapel, Abuja on Sunday (17/5/15)
In a heartfelt farewell message, President Goodluck Jonathan admitted his imperfections, and asked for the forgiveness of all those whom his administration has offended.
He delivered the touching speech on Sunday at a special thanksgiving/farewell service held at
Aso Villa Chapel,
The Nation reports.
Here is an excerpt from his speech:
“No
system is perfect. Every human system must have an element of
imperfection. For the period of eight years that we have been here. I
will take the period as a block because my transition from VP to
President was gradual and complicated. It was intertwined so you cannot
actually draw the line.
Because
when the President was challenged within major health issues, I was
running the country for sometimes even before the doctrine of necessity
made me as acting president. Then I took over at first and conducting
the 2011 election I won and I had to run my full four years as an
elected president.
So for
the eight that one has been there, definitely one is not perfect. We
have certainly done things that probably we wouldn’t have done that way,
but we didn’t do things deliberately. So for those who we have offended
it was not deliberate, it was circumstances of the office.
So
we also plead that those people should forgive, we think we have done
our best. You can do your best and your friends may misunderstand you.
Today we are talking about leaving, it is only God that knows why things
go the way they do.
We came
in as Vice President and my wife, today we are leaving as the former
president and former First Lady. We have achieved it through you. Let me
specifically thank the chaplain, the clergymen, the pastors and their
wives.
For the past eight
years we have every reason to be thankful to God. Every individual has
his/her own calling. I also believe that people who take over political
leadership have their own callings to do specific things. No one, head
of a government, be it at the national level or the sub- regional levels
can do every thing.
But
when you leave, you will want to do something to show that yes I was
here. The chaplain has said that nothing is perfect, if you wait for
perfection, you cannot achieve anything.
Ordinarily
24th of May would haven been the last Service here. But that 24th, we
will all go to the National Christian Centre for the inauguration
service. So for me and my wife, this is our last day of worship here.
“Though
we are leaving as president and First Lady, but we have not left you,
because we are still in this country, we will continue to interact one
way or the other, probably along the line we may even come closer. I
believe some of you may even come closer, and even do more meaningful
things together when we leave office.
I
don’t really believe that it is only in government that you can do
thing, even outside government you do a lot of things. The richest
people in the world don’t even serve in government.
Dangote
has never been in government, so you don’t need to be in government to
be rich. Bill Gates has not been in government. So outside government a
lot of things happen, it is for us to be committed and continue to be
focus. Me and my wife really love all of you.”
