I’d have relocated my mother if Diri had lost Bayelsa poll, says Jonathan
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said he would have moved his mother, Eunice Ayi Ebele Jonathan, a retired subsistence farmer, to Abuja if Governor Douye Diri, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate, had lost the election.
Madam Jonathan, an octogenarian, lives in Otuoke, Bayelsa State, where she and her late husband, Lawrence Ebele Jonathan, a canoe maker, lived when Jonathan was born on November 20, 1957.
Jonathan stated this on Friday when he visited Diri in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
“I was saying before this election that if Diri loses this election, I would have relocated my mother to Abuja.
“We don’t want to go into unnecessary crisis in the state. Results have been declared and we believe the election was conducted. We believe the Governor won the election and we plead that people should accept it and work with the governor. Let all of us support him so that the state will move ahead.
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“There should be nothing that will push the state backward. We should think about the development of the state starting from the issue of peace and security in the state which within this last period, three years plus, there are significant improvements in terms of cultism and kidnapping and so on and so forth,” he said.
The former President hailed Diri’s efforts at tackling insecurity, saying the governor’s re-election means the state would be a lot safer.
He said if Douye had lost, the gains made in curbing insecurity would have been lost.
Speaking about his cousin’s kidnapping and murder, Jonathan was hopeful that the crisis would soon come to an end since Diri would be returning as state governor.
He said: “My cousin was kidnapped two times on one of those occasions, one of my cousins, Solo, was killed because they threw him into the river and he didn’t know how to swim,” he added.
“So, we’ve passed through hell in this state and we’ve seen a little light at the end of the tunnel. So, people should calm down, and allow Diri to focus on governance so that he will be able to propel this state forward so that we will benefit as citizens of the State.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had given Diri his certificate of return earlier in the day for a second term in office.
He will be sworn in for another four-year tenure next year.
- The Nation