I ask for forgiveness from those we have offended - Pres. Jonathan

While delivering his valedictory speech at the
special thanksgiving and farewell service
organized by Aso Villa Chapel yesterday May
17th, President Jonathan asked for forgiveness
from those who might have felt offended by any
of the moves his government made, stating that
such moves were not intended to deliberately
hurt anyone. He said no human institution is
ever perfect. He urged everyone to pursue work
towards a better Nigeria even as they leave
government positions.
"No system is perfect. Every human
system must have an element of
imperfection. For the period of eight years
that we have been here. I will take the
period as a block because my transition
from VP to President was gradual and
complicated. It was intertwined so you
cannot actually draw the line. Because
when the President was challenged within
major health issues, I was running the
country for sometimes even before the
doctrine of necessity made me as acting
president. Then I took over at first and
conducting the 2011 election I won and I
had to run my full four years as an
elected president. So for the eight that
one has been there, definitely one is not
perfect. We have certainly done things
that probably we wouldn’t have done that
way, but we didn’t do things deliberately.
So for those who we have offended it
was not deliberate, it was circumstances
of the office. So we also plead that those
people should forgive, we think we have
done our best. You can do your best and
your friends may misunderstand you.
Today we are talking about leaving, it is
only God that knows why things go the
way they do.We came in as Vice President
and my wife, today we are leaving as the
former president and former First Lady.
We have achieved it through you. Let me
specifically thank the chaplain, the
clergymen, the pastors and their wives.
For the past eight years we have every
reason to be thankful to God. Every
individual has his/her own calling. I also
believe that people who take over political
leadership have their own callings to do
specific things. No one, head of a
government, be it at the national level or
the sub- regional levels can do every
thing. But when you leave, you will want
to do something to show that yes I was
here. The chaplain has said that nothing
is perfect, if you wait for perfection, you
cannot achieve anything. Ordinarily 24th
of May would haven been the last Service
here. But that 24th, we will all go to the
National Christian Centre for the
inauguration service. So for me and my
wife, this is our last day of worship here.
Though we are leaving as president and
First Lady, but we have not left you,
because we are still in this country, we
will continue to interact one way or the
other, probably along the line we may
even come closer. I believe some of you
may even come closer, and even do more
meaningful things together when we leave
office. I don’t really believe that it is only
in government that you can do thing, even
outside government you do a lot of
things. The richest people in the world
don’t even serve in government. Dangote
has never been in government, so you
don’t need to be in government to be
rich. Bill Gates has not been in
government. So outside government a lot
of things happen, it is for us to be
committed and continue to be focus. Me
and my wife really love all of you.”he said