President Goodluck Jonathan has told members of the Diplomatic Corps that the protest over the sudden increase in the cost of petrol has been a blessing in disguise for the country.
Jonathan said it has made the country stronger.
Jonathan, who spoke when he hosted the envoys to a dinner at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja on Tuesday, also thanked the envoys for standing by the country in the face of the onslaught by the dreaded sect, Boko Haram.
He said: “Let me also use this opportunity to express my appreciation and that of the government and good people of Nigeria for the goodwill messages your organisations and your governments sent to me, my government and my country because of the ugly incident of Boko Haram. Even the UN secretariat was bombed.
“Your organisations and the head of government sent letters of commiserations to me. Let me again express my appreciation to them.
“Let me assure all of you that Nigeria will continue to maintain a very warm relationship with all the organisations and all the countries in spite of our experiences with the Boko Haram. The Nigerian government is totally committed to the maintenance of peace and order in line with the UN Charter.
“We believe that all citizens of the world should live freely and peacefully wherever they find themselves. We will work with you and all your countries and organisations to make sure that the world is a place where all of us will live without fear or favour.”
Jonathan said it is a challenging period now all over the world, adding: “We have crisis here and there. If you look at the international media you will begin to think about history and you begin to ask yourself when the world will be in peace. But collectively, we will work towards that.”
He thanked the ambassadors for the roles they and their country played in last year’s election.
He said: “For us, let me thank you for the role you played in our elections and assure you that democracy has not just come to stay in Nigeria but democracy that is sanctioned by an election that is credible, election that is free and fair. And using our own slogan, election that the votes of Nigerians must count, where we say one man one vote, one woman one vote and one youth one vote.
“We believe that democracy that is not dictated by the vote of the people is not a good democracy. Until the vote of the people account, that is when we can say this is a democracy. And I believe also that is difficult for you to topple such a democracy because it is the people that elect those that are ruling. But if people impose themselves on ordinary people, of course such a democracy may not be able to stand on a solid ground.
“With a little turbulence such a government will fall. In Nigeria we are totally committed to democracy and enduring democratic culture that the votes of individuals will count.
“At the end of our elections in April, we did promise the whole world that our subsequent elections will even be better and promising. But as we march towards 2015 for another round of elections, that the elections will be conducted better than the elections in 2011.”
Jonathan said the protest over the increase in pump price of fuel was regrettable, adding: Let me again thank you for your various role and assure you that as we move into the new year even though we started the year with some kind of protest, I regret the inconveniences some of you passed through because of the government attempt to look at the way we look at our oil industry by adjusting the pump price and the issue of deregulating the oil sector that led to demonstrations by labour and civil societies. I believed some of you suffered some inconvenience because you couldn’t go out for a week, you couldn’t visit people you would have loved to visit.
“I can assure you that it has even made us stronger and indeed better. We promise that we will continue to grow from strength to strength and the incident of last week, we have put them behind us and we are moving forward. We will not experience that kind of situation again.
“We will make sure we work hard to ensure we will not experience that again. We appreciate your understanding. I know some people must have come to you and send all kinds of messages to your various governments. I believe that you know that the position of the government is the best for the people.
“Government will ensure that while adjusting the pump price, we will not do it in a way that will bring suffering to the people. We know we were misunderstood.”
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