Opposition Criticisms Don’t Bother Me Anymore – Jonathan

Nigeria's President Jonathan speaks during an interview with ThomsonReuters in New YorkPresident Goodluck Jonathan may have developed thick skin to the barrage of criticisms that trail his administration’s performance a la policies as he recently declared that he is the least bothered by them.

Speaking at a family dinner organised by the national leadership of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the Banquet Hall of the Aso Villa on Thursday night, Jonathan said such verbal missiles by the opposition was one of the best ingredients of democracy.

The occasion drew mammoth crowd of PDP top supporters from across the country, where they exchanged ideas on how to move the party forward, while also patting themselves on the back for what they called their unprecedented achievements.

In reference to the prevailing political environment, Jonathan said for the fear of being misunderstood, he would rather keep shut.

But he said: “I always tell people if I’m told that opposition parties are meeting, I used to tell them that there are two things to know. If opposition members are holding meeting everyday without sleeping then you should smile.

“But if they stop holding meeting, though sometimes out of the kind of character and sometimes type of person, I say if you see the opposition abusing the President, then go and sleep well.

“If they start clapping for the President then you should know that something must be wrong somewhere. Nobody should be deterred about conspiracy or gang-up, long as you are playing politics people must conspire, there must be gang-up. They have done it and they must continue to do.

“One thing about the PDP is that it is different from other political parties and that is one reason that PDP would continue to survive and endure. The party is not built on individuals; our founding fathers are here. PDP is not built on conspiracy against any individual or group of individuals.

“PDP believes that we have a country and we must protect this country, we must develop this country and we must prepare this country for our children and that is why PDP has the largest heart among all the political parties because we believe in the country.

“We do not discuss about individual, we don’t conspire against anybody; we have no business conspiring against anybody. There are political parties who come together because one person allowed them.

“All we have to do as members of this PDP family is to continue to unite. All of us who spoke raised issues. As long as there is a family, husband and wife must disagree; even twin brothers sometime disagree, siblings of the same family must disagree, sometime even father and son disagree so there must be some disagreements but the ability for us to resolve our differences amicably is even one of the reason we beat other political parties.

“They will think that PDP members are fighting themselves but at the eleventh hour they will see that we have come together and we will continue to come together and PDP will continue to win our elections.

“We have seen the characters, we have heard what they talk about us and still we are not worried that one political party will beat PDP; they will not beat PDP.”