President Goodluck Jonathan has assured the international community that in spite of what the country is going through; Nigeria will be totally committed to maintenance of peace and order in the world, in line with the United Nations Charter.
He also told them that democracy and democratic governance has come to stay and was being deepened, adding that the gains of popular mandate was that governments which come to power through the popular will of the people were not easily toppled while those who steal mandates or impose themselves were easily shoved aside.
The president was speaking at the president’s annual diplomatic reception for all foreign missions in Nigeria. He said that all citizens of the world should live freely and peacefully wherever they find themselves pledging to work with them to ensure that people dwell anywhere they like without fear. He identified this period as a challenging one for many nations and assured the world that Nigeria on its part will protect the democracy we have won.
President Goodluck Jonathan apologized to them for the inconveniences they suffered following the protests in the country, and expressed his optimism that though Nigeria started the year with protest over the removal of subsidy and the effort to manage the oil sector properly the country will be a better place for all.
“I believed some of you suffered some inconvenience because you couldn’t go out for a week, you couldn’t visit people you would have loved to visit,” he said.
“I can assure you that it has even made us stronger and indeed better. We promise that we will continue to grow from strength to strength and the incident of last week, we have put them behind us and we are moving forward. We will not experience that kind of situation again.
“We will make sure we work hard to ensure we will not experience that again. We appreciate your understanding. I know some people must have come to you and send all kinds of messages to your various governments. I believe that you know that the position of the government is the best for the people.
“Government will ensure that while adjusting the pump price, we will not do it in a way that will bring suffering to the people. We know we were misunderstood, prices couldn’t have gone up that way but that is a human society and is a human factor,” he assured.
Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Nigeria and Ambassador of Burkina Faso, Yamego Dramane commiserated with the country over the security challenges and pledged the cooperation of the diplomatic community in the country
