Patience Jonathan, wife of former president Goodluck Jonathan, has explained why she does not want to return to the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock.
Goodluck Jonathan first became acting president after the death of his boss, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, on May 5, 2010. He became the substantive president in 2011, after defeating Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential election.
However, he lost his bid for a second term in office in 2015, following his defeated by Buhari in the general election.
Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), commemorated its 60th anniversary and the former first lady spoke at the occasion.
Patience Jonathan gave a speech on ‘Public Relations, Value Reorientation, and Economic Transformation’.
According to her, the stress of being the first lady of Nigeria is very demanding and she does not want to thread that path again. She said she now looks younger than when occupying the presidential villa.
“The stress of Nigeria is too much,” adding that she looks younger than she was while her husband was president.
“If you call me now for the villa, I won’t go there. I won’t. Don’t you see how young I am? The stress is so much,” she said.
“The stress of Nigeria is so much. If God manages to bring you out of it, you should glorify God and thank him. It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.
“He has taken you there once, why do you want to go there again? Me I won’t go ooo”.
In order to avoid bloodshed, Jonathan willingly left power in 2015, and phoned Buhari to congratulate him.
Patience said she never made any efforts to persuade her husband to hold on to power, so as to avoid crisis in the country.
“When we failed the election, I was with him (Jonathan). We were in the room when we were told you had lost. I did not whisper to him that he must stay because we will shed blood,” the ex-first lady stated.
