Former President Goodluck
Jonathan has said that his administration fought corruption in the country
without bragging about it.
Mr. Jonathan said this on Monday
while speaking at the Oxford Union of the University of Oxford in the United
Kingdom.
Jonathan spoke on the theme
“Promoting Youth Entrepreneurship”.
Responding to questions by some
of the students regarding his administration’s fight against corruption, the
Jonathan said he would not like to “interfere with the legal processes” because
“several matters are pending in court”.
Jonathan however said he did
enough to reform anti-corruption agencies to enable them function effectively.
“We reformed the institutions
and introduced various mechanisms to stop the corruption problems in our
country without publicity,” he said,
It can be recalled Mr. Jonathan
lost his bid for a second term in 2015 .
Using his Twitter handle, the
former president paid glowing tributes to Nigerian youth and said “any Nation
that does not spend its wealth and resources to develop the capacity of its
youth, will be forced to use them to fight insecurity.
“As a leader, you can decide through your policies to educate the youth, or
face the consequences of failing to do so,” he said.
Mr. Jonathan also said his administration
put in place some youth related policies, which, he said, grew the Nigerian
economy.
“Despite incredible challenges,
Nigerian youths are achieving great things and placing Nigeria positively in
the world map. They inspire us,” he said.
He also said his administration
increased the allowances due to Youth Corps members by more than 100% in 2011.
Mr. Jonathan added that the PDP
administration that he led “identified Nollywood as a sector that can employ
many young people and provided a grant of $200 million to boost the industry”.
“As a result, Nollywood became a
major contributor to our GDP and in 2014, the industry contributed 1.4% to our
GDP,” he said.
“We may not have been perfect,
but we did our best, and our best yielded an era of unprecedented economic
growth for Nigeria. A growth that proved the truism that a Nation’s wealth is
not underneath the ground but between the ears of her people.
“Under my watch, Nigeria was
projected by CNN Money to be the third fastest growing economy in the world for
the year 2015.
“While serving as President of
Nigeria, I worked for the next generation and not for the next elections. I
have no regrets for what I did,” he said.
JMK
