Former President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on Wednesday admonished African leaders to cultivate the culture of sacrificing short-term personal gains for long time benefits of their country.
He, however, stressed that whatever a leader is doing, he or she needs to understand the fact that the perception of his policies and decisions would be a critical factor upon which the governed will rate the performance of the leader in question.
“But when a leader is doing his best for his people and the perception is right, he might even lose an election due to misunderstanding, but when the perception is right, he can even be called upon to come and rule again.” – Goodluck Jonathan
Jonathan made the remarks while speaking at a two days consultative retreat for political party leaders on the draft constitution for the government of The Gambia.
He urged the party leaders to seize this opportunity of making a new constitution for their country to sacrifice short-term personal gains for long time benefits of their country.
His words: “Whatever a leader is doing, he needs to understand the fact that the perception of his policies and decisions would be a critical factor to be considered because he is there for the people.
“A leader can be doing all the right things to be done for nation-building but if the perception among the people does not match what he is doing, hen he can never go very far in politics.
“But when a leader is doing his best for his people and the perception is right, he might even lose an election due to misunderstanding, but when the perception is right, he can even be called upon to come and rule again.
” People have asked if I have any personal; relationship with your President, but I have never had any official dealings with him since he got into office.
“But since providence has brought us here to work on this constitution, I will try and do all I can to persuade him to understand and allow the process to work so that he can have the honour of having a brand new constitution for your country under his tenure.
” If it even happens that the constitution becomes operational and he has the benefit to hand over to a successor without rancour, he would also enter into a prestigious class of African leaders who are peace lovers who place the country above their selfish interests.
” I will like to warn here that if we say because we have a few things to change in the old constitution and we would not allow it to work for the country then decide to set this aside and continue with business as usual, one day, our grandchildren will come after us and make a better constitution that would make the country function
” This is a golden opportunity that we have to make a constitution that would stand the test of time for the next one or two hundred years and it would guarantee justice, peace and progress for everyone in the country,” President Jonathan submitted.
