Ex President was not pressured to concede defeat – media aide says

The statement followed a report in which the former president was said to have been persuaded to concede defeat at a meeting, where ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo reportedly told Jonathan “if you win, I will support you; but for God’s sake, if you lose, just go quietly.”

A statement by the ex-President’s aide read in part: “Our attention has been drawn to an interview where one Mr. Kenny Martins faulted the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent assertion that he conceded defeat after the last Presidential election without anybody’s prompting, because he believed it was the right thing to do.”

The Sun Newspaper reported that the statement noted that Jonathan’s visit to Obasanjo at the height of the campaign for the 2015 Presidential election was highly publicized, adding that it was a visit undertaken by Jonathan to seek his predecessor’s support for his re-election bid.

“We wish to place it on record that the issue of ‘losing and conceding defeat’ was neither mentioned nor discussed at the meeting. We deplore the mischief of needlessly dragging in the names of the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye and Bishop David Oyedepo, Winners Chapel General Overseer, simply because they were in attendance”.

“We can however confirm that the two respected men of God were at the meeting, to the extent that they believed that Obasanjo and his political godson Jonathan, who were then having some differences, should be reconciled for the good of the nation,” the statement read.

Written by Osiri Ndukwe