Nigeria’s former President, Goodluck Jonathan, has said he lost the 2015 presidential election due to betrayal within his political circle.Jonathan made the revelation on Thursday at the 70th birthday celebration of Chief Mike Ogiadomhe, former Deputy Governor of Edo State and his one-time Chief of Staff.
The ex-President, who sought re-election in 2015 but lost to the then opposition candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), recalled how disloyalty and betrayal undermined his campaign.
“Politics in the Nigerian standard is about betrayals. You find it difficult to see somebody who will say the same thing in the morning and in the evening. I’ve witnessed a lot of betrayals, especially in my 2015 elections,” Jonathan said.
Jonathan however praised Ogiadomhe for his loyalty, describing him as one of the few allies who stood firmly by him both in and out of office.
“I became President, then post-Presidency, one of the few friends who would give up their necks for me is Mike. Mike is somebody who would take a bullet on my behalf. He is somebody that you can take his word to the bank, but most other politicians, you cannot take their words to the bank. They will tell you something, the next hour they are saying another,” Jonathan stated.
It will be recalled that ahead of the official announcement of the 2015 poll results, Jonathan made history by conceding defeat through a phone call to Buhari, a move he later explained was to avert post-election violence in Nigeria.
