" if you don’t have a forgiving heart, if you don’t have a clean heart, you cannot rule Nigeria": 5 quotes from GEJ’s speech

At the launch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Wards’ Volunteer Scheme at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, President Goodluck Jonathan delivered a fiery speech in which he criticised the opposition, accusing them of being angry, bitter and frustrated.

The Wards’ Volunteer Scheme is a campaign strategy targeting the grass-roots using about one million volunteers.

1. On why the opposition cannot rule Nigeria:

“And I always say that when you see people talking and you see the bitterness in their hearts, you see the frustration, the anger, and you see them as people who are already feeling guilty, if you don’t have a forgiving heart, if you don’t have a clean heart, you cannot rule Nigeria because you cannot give out what you don’t have.”

2. On the standards he has set:

“At the state level and at the national level; well, at the national level, we cannot compare our standards with theirs because they have not had the experience, and we will not give them the opportunity. But I know they will not do well.”

3. On the reach of the PDP:

“There is no other party whether two, three, four, five parties coming together. They cannot reach that level. PDP has members in every voting unit in this country”

4. On how the PDP’s problem was a failure to market its achievements:

“PDP has done very well, but we have not been marketing the achievements of our party. Sometimes, you see people that have done nothing coming to intimidate us. We’re doing better than others. It is only in PDP states that things are working. If I compare the quality of Government Houses and Presidential Lodges, the ones in PDP states are better in quality, even state universities opened by PDP states are better.”

5. On the intimidation which the PDP is going through:

“The PDP states are committed to education. But sometimes, people come and say we have done nothing. The intimidation is more, to the extent that even in the states where we are more, where we even have PDP governors, they come to intimidate us. And we have to resolve that we cannot allow people who are not up to us to intimidate us”.

Credit: thescoopng