BY News Agency
President Goodluck Jonathan says Nigerians, both home and abroad, are yearning for good governance and urged the people to pray for the success of the incoming government.
He also appealed for prayers for him, his wife and those who served in his administration to be able to live peacefully after service.
Jonathan was speaking during the 2015 presidential thanksgiving and inauguration service, which held at the national Christian centre in Abuja on Sunday.
“I call on you to pray for us who are leaving, members of my family and my administration as we leave,” he said.
“But you should even pray more for the incoming government because we are leaving as private people to manage our private businesses; they are coming in to manage the whole country.
“So they require more prayers because I can make mistakes that will affect me and very few people, but if they make mistake it will affect the whole nation.
“So I call on all Christians and the religious bodies to pray for the incoming government to succeed, because all what we want as a nation, both Nigerians at home and abroad, is for good governance, prosperity, unity and peace. We cannot achieve that without the help of God.’’
Jonathan expressed happiness that Christians had converged to celebrate the unity of the country rather than mourn its disintegration.
“We are here not having mass service for mass burial but we are here having service to inaugurate an incoming government,” he said.
“Nigeria is relatively young; from the amalgamation in 1914, we are just about 101 years old as a nation and from independence in 1960, we are just about 55 years old as an independent nation.
“If we compare ourselves with other nations; some of them that have stayed up to 200 years, then of cause, we will know that we are not doing too badly.”
Jonathan said that Nigeria fought a civil war within the period while the political succession had not been easy, following “the untimely abortion of the first, second third republics”.
However, he noted that the fourth republic had been sustained for 16 years under the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while power would now transmit to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“From 2007 to date, we have always been here for the inauguration service and today we are here,” he said. “That shows clearly that whoever is the president or the vice-president we have one nation, we have one God.”
He recalled that in 2007 he called on Nigerians to pray for him when he became the vice-president because he knew he was not perfect.
Jonathan said he could have done things in the wrong way but that he had prayed that any decision he wanted to take that could affect the nation should receive God’s guidance.
In his sermon, Nicholas Okoh, primate of the Anglican Church, urged the incoming administration to build upon the unity and peace laid by the administration of Jonathan.
“This peace is a theological and political capital that will hold the country together if well invented,” he said
Okoh, who said God loves Nigeria, urged the people to pray that the incoming president would be directed aright by the creator.
Okoh added that Nigeria lacked certain basic things as a “rich country” but appealed to Nigerians to exercise patience with the incoming administration.
He also asked for forgiveness across board for God’s favour to get to the people.
Okoh said that Jonathan had done well for the country and that it is left for Nigeria, Africa and the world to learn from his principle of “one’s ambition not worth the blood of anyone”.
He expressed satisfaction that the service held on Pentecost Sunday, saying the holy spirit would breed peace into the country and its leaders.
At the service were Jonathan’s wife; Yemi Osinbajo, vice-president-elect; Dolapo, his wife; David Mark, senate president; Emeka Ihedioha, deputy speaker of the federal house of representatives; John Oyegun, national chairman of APC; Yakubu Gowon, former head of state; Pius Anyim, secretary to government of the federation; Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the christian association of Nigeria (CAN); and a host of Jonathan’s aides.
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