Oshiomhole said Jonathan has set a standard that none of his successors can afford to go below
By Emma Ogbuehi
Seven years after being among the arrowheads of the forces that frustrated former President Goodluck Jonathan from realizing his second term ambition, erstwhile Edo State governor Adams Oshiomhole, has literally eaten his words against the ex-President, describing him as a good leader that was not appreciated during his time in office.
According to Vanguard reports, Oshiomhole, ex-national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) made the declaration at the one-year memorial lecture in honour of late Captain Hosa Okunbo, a prominent Edo indigene, in Abuja on Saturday.
The former Edo governor, who lost his position as the APC chairman to high wire intrigues in the party, confessed that he fought former President Jonathan out of office due to their differences in political interests.
He lauded the former President for setting a legacy of performance that stands as standard for his successors.
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Oshiomhole said: “You (Jonathan) left legacies even though that I had cause to fight because it is politics. The legacy you have left, there is no successor who can afford to do less.
“But the logic of multi-party democracy is that even an angel can be defeated. You have set a standard that none of your successors can afford to go below.
“Part of your (Jonathan) legacies was when you launched the Almajiri School and your thought was that no Nigerian child should be left on the street and also appropriated special funds.
“These ideas are not new but what we lack is the will to transform it to practice. We never know who are our friends until when we are no more.
“No one is appreciated until he or she leaves office,” he said.
Oshiomhole, former President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), was among the key figures in the then fledgling APC who criticised virtually every action of the Jonathan administration, to the point of dismissing the former President as being clueless.
For his ravenous attacks on Jonathan, he was rewarded with the post of APC National Chairman after the end of his term as Edo state governor. He had barely spent two years in the office, when he was shoved aside by certain tendencies in the party. He has ever since, virtually gone out of circulation.
