WHY JONATHAN IS RIGHT

When former President Goodluck Jonathan claimed that Nigeria’s economy grew under his watch and Nigerians were better off in nearly all economic indices, it was no idle assertion and there is cause to agree with him fully.

The simple reason that buttresses this agreement is the fact that the word “recession” was not in the national consciousness prior to the termination of Jonathan’s tenure in 2015. When “recession” becomes part of the national dialogue it can only mean that the nation was coming from of an era of economic prosperity and now entering into economic slowdown with its attendant consequences of job losses, inflation, broken promises, and general degradation in standards of living.

The fact of job losses alone goes a long way to tell everyone that the govern- ment that held fort prior to the period of onset of recession did well on many fronts. I think this is the point that former President Jonathan made in his speech at the Peoples Democratic Party’s convention held at Eagle Square, Abuja.

It does not do the moral position of the present government any good to try to colour the previous PDP administration as “corrupt” whereas the Jonathan team ensured material prosperity for Nigerians. Now, Nigerians would wonder if it would not be a good idea to be governed by a “corrupt” government that ensured that the price of a bag of rice was steady at around N7,800 compared to be governed by a “holy” government under whose purview the price of a bag of rice hovers somewhere between N18,500 and N19,500.

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