Rascal Statement: I Was Grossly Misunderstood -Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan said on his facebook page today that he was “grossly misunderstood” over his statement at the zonal presidential campaign rally of Peoples Democratic Party in Ibadan, Oyo State, last Tuesday, in which he was quoted as describing the governors of some states in the South West as “rascals”.

The President was quoted to have said at the rally that the “South West is too important to be left in the hands of rascals” while emphasizing that the PDP will take region in the coming general elections.

The comment was widely interpreted to be referring to the governors of South West states who were not members of PDP.

President Jonathan has come under heavy criticism over the statement which many have described as “unpresidential”.

The President however claimed in a posting on his facebook wall this afternoon that he was misunderstood, while other complimentary things he said about the South West were also neglected in newspaper reports on the issue “I spoke about the place of the South-West in the Nigerian federation. Without mincing words, I spoke about the level of education and sophistication in the region”, the President said.

Jonathan said his exact words as accurately captured by the Nigerian Tribune of Wednesday, February 9, 2011 were: “The entire South-West is too important, too sophisticated and too educated to be in the hands of rascals.”

He then explained what he meant by it: “I had referred here to the fact that unreliable or mischievous behaviours or notions ought not to be acceptable in any part of our body politic especially not in the South-West where the population has had the privilege of a head start in education compared to other parts of the country”.

He added that: “In other words, I had indicated that abhorrence for such behaviour should be our proclivity, especially considering the disposition of the people of the Western States to governance standards”.

The President claimed that his sentence was twisted beyond intended meaning. “But by laying so much emphasis on the latter part of the sentence we dither profoundly on nuances, and this typifies the general tendency to dwell on the negative which we must, as a country, refrain from. My qualification of the West as highly educated and sophisticated was easily dispensed with, while the fact that we should not expose such civilized and educated populace to rascality was played more upon, with emphasis on the rascality”, the President said.
Nevertheless, Jonathan said he took responsibility for any misunderstanding that arisen over the statement. “However, as true leadership requires, I take responsibility for any misunderstanding of the context in which my statement was made.

But the President pleaded that the statement should not be allowed to cause disaffection among Nigerians. “In a time of active politicking, when scoring political points have taken precedence over our overarching goal of nation building, we must not allow those strong bonds which tie us together as a nation,  and which brought  our people to the streets, for the common cause of seeing that the right thing is done by all  and for all the people of our country – an ideal which the western part of  Nigeria has always been in the fore-front of aspiring for -  to be dispensed with by the mere nuance which we attach to words.