President Jonathan Restates Commitment To Peaceful Elections

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Wednesday in Abuja
reiterated his total commitment to ensuring peaceful, free, fair and credible
elections in Nigeria on Saturday and April 11.

Speaking at an audience with a delegation of the National
Committee on Peaceful Elections led by former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami
Abubakar, President Jonathan urged all political parties, their candidates and
supporters to approach the elections with more patriotism and a greater
willingness to place the larger interest of the country above personal
ambitions.

The President said that the Federal Government had worked
very  hard over the years to promote
strong democratic institutions that will sustain the country’s democracy.

He warned that the government will not tolerate any form of
violence during or after the polls, that could reverse the gains of the present
democratic dispensation in the country.

“My cardinal principle has always been, and still remains
that the ambition of any Nigerian is not worth the blood of any body. I am not
a violent person and I don’t tolerate violence in any form. I don’t believe
that violence can be used to achieve anything meaningful in life.

“I am giving my total commitment to peaceful elections in
the country, not because I am persuaded to do so, but because I believe in
it,’’ President Jonathan said.

The President called on religious and political leaders,
community heads and other senior citizens in the country to be vociferous in
condemning incidences of electoral violence in the country, such as the stoning
of opponents.

President Jonathan also said that he would be quite willing
to meet and sign another peace accord with the Presidential Candidate of the
All Progress Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to further emphasize his
total commitment to a violence-free poll on Saturday.

The Chairman of the National Committee on Peaceful
Elections, Gen. Abubakar commended the President for his consistency in
insisting on peaceful, free and fair elections in the country at all levels.

Other members of the delegation were Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe
(rtd.), Cardinal John Onaiyekan, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar,
Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, Prof. Zainab Alkali, Sam Amuka-Pemu​, Mrs.
Priscilla Kuye  and Justice Rose Ukeje.

At another meeting with a group of international election
monitors, President Jonathan gave an assurance that ​the coming elections will
not generate the type of violence that followed the 2011 elections.

The international observers were from the African Union
Group led by Dr. Amos Sawyer, the Commonwealth Group led by Dr. Bakili Muluzi,
the European Union, the International Republican Institute and the National
Democratic Institute.

Reuben Abati

Special Adviser ​to the President

(Media and Publicity)

 March 25, 2015