Goodluck Jonathan Was Joking When He Said, He Won't Go For A Second Term- Abati

Contrary to claims made by Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu, President Goodluck Jonathan never promised to only serve one term in office. The Niger state governor had earlier in an interview asked President Jonathan to keep a promise that he, the president, purportedly made to the Northern PDP Governors in 2011.

Namely that he, GEJ, in return for the governors' support, would not run for office again in 2015.

Clearing the controversy, Abati took the unprecedented step of revealing what actually transpired during the secret meeting in which his boss was meant to have made the unconstitutional agreement.

According to Abati, the PDP Governors did indeed ask Mr President whether or not he would run again for President in 2015, and the President, in his characteristic humorous nature, assumed that the governors were joking with him because any sane governor wouldn't normally be asking such a silly question in the first place.

In his reply to what he rightfully believed was a joke, the President jokingly answered the governors saying "One term is enough to make it!" But the Governors, according to Abati, took him seriously and inferred from his return of jest that he had acquiesced to their illegal and immoral demand for him to unconstitutionally disqualify himself from running for the office of President of Nigeria on a future date.

Concerning 2015, Abati noted that "The focus should be on the best man for the job; not the man who promised not to do the job."