Founder of Zeetin Engineering, Mr Azibaola Robert, has disclosed how he aand others who were very close to Dr Goodluck Jonathan while in the saddle as president gave him a nickname and addressed him as such behind him.
Robert, who trained as a lawyer, said it got to point in their relationship with former President Jonathan that they started referring to him as “Mr is he or she qualified?” He said this became a refrain in the circle of close loyalists without the former President knowing it.
The Zeetin precision engineering visioner gave this little insight at a cocktail on Tuesday night in Abuja to which he hosted family members and friends to mark his induction by the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) as a fellow of the body.
He said while in the villa, Dr Jonathan would always respond to their requests for appointment for anybody uthey recommended to him by asking them: “Is he or she qualified?”
Jonathan was present on the occasion with others such as Mr Timi Alaibe, Ambassador Godknows Igali.
Robert, who is Jonathan’s cousin, told the gathering that “by coming here to honour me, you are honoring Goodluck Jonathan, because he is my mentor, my brother; and I say it any day and everywhere.
“The bible has given us a lesson, lesson of Jesus and his disciples, namely: those who follow should not deny their master. So, for me and Jonathan, it is till death do us part. Today, tomorrow and forever, we are together. And there’s nothing he will do to me that will make me forsake him. He can’t get me annoyed.”
Robert, whose Zeetin Engineering is working on building electric cars and other machines in Nigeria, said he was grateful to God for starting the engineering architecture.
Read him: “I’m grateful I started this journey and the journey has just begun. I started a revolution and this revolution is about the technological development of Nigeria.
“I will, no matter what, produce a car engine for Nigeria. Nothing is going to stop us now because that is the bedrock of engineering. I am not denigrating the vivo Engineers but the truth is that the country develops through inputs of mechanical engineers.
“What we have today is that we have given emphasis to some aspects of engineering without focus on mechanical engineering. We need to do some that will make Nigeria great by producing the engines, spare parts and all the things we need to move the country forward. We have the intellectual ability to do that.”
Robert continued his remarks: “I told former President Goodluck Jonathan that I used to tease him that I am writing a book on him and that some of the things I will say there are not going to be pleasant and will not make him happy; but some will be pleasant and that he will be happy.”
Now read some of those things that may feature in the book that Robert is writing on Jonathan: “I was fortunate to be one of those who stayed very close to him when he was the president of Nigeria and I had the opportunity of bidding him goodnight every night and I know that most of the nights, dinner came at 3am. By 3am, somebody was still working, working for the progress of this country.
“By five o’clock, he will go for morning devotion, take a bath, go to the office by 7 /8 am. Come back by four pm, go to the gym, come back and then start seeing visitors until 3am. Every day, there was no exception. Saturdays, Sundays were inclusive.
“He (Jonathan) was an exceptional worker, a workaholic. I come from a human rights background; so, I don’t admire people easily, and in Goodluck I find somebody that I aspire to be, someone who does not hold grudges. He does not know how to be angry at people. Anybody who comes around, whether you are hurting him or not he accepts all as brother.
“I have not told him but, today, I will try because it is part of the book and I’m not going to tell everything I need to say in the book. But one thing is that the man (Jonathan) loved too much perfection; he felt that whoever he gave appointment must be perfect fit for that position.
“The consequence was that those of us who are his relatives and brothers suffered for it. So if you went and met him for something and you said there was this appointment or job, that your brother needed, the next thing was that he snapped: “is he qualified?”
“The next day you went to him that so, so person needed so and so and he was from your friend, the next thing you heard was “is he qualified?”. Everything you asked, he would ask this same question. He has a mind of being a pacesetter in Nigeria. So after a while, we started calling him “is he qualified?”. He did know his second name.
“With a sense of nostalgia, looking back, I see a person who genuinely wanted to do things the way it should be and tried. You know, humans can make mistakes. I make mistake everyone makes mistakes. This man (pointing at Dr Jonathan) genuinely had the interest of all of us, including the unborn generation and fought all the way through to become the greatest of the greatest.”
In his short response, former President Jonathan said: “Barrister, Engineer, I was a lecturer. I know I had a name. As a politician, I didn’t know I had a name.” There was an applause.
He continued: “My coming this evening is to join my younger brother to appreciate the Nigeria Society of Engineers for honouring him. I have to also congratulate my younger brother because is not easy. When he was in secondary school, he was more of a science student; there are a number of people that went that way. I know of people who studied mathematics and turned journalists, became book writers like the late Elechi Amadi who had a degree in mathematics or physics or so and became a literary giant.
“Society is that way that sometimes you are gifted in one way or the other, you read a different course because of peer influence, parental influence and so on. But it is always good to go where God has asked you to come and do some work on earth.”
Jonathan said that the same thing applied to great thinkers and philosophers like Aristotle whose influence cut across.
“And, today, you see that knowledge is converging because of IT . So, separation of knowledge into these compartments of Engineering, Civil, Mechanical Engineering is almost going. IT is now converging everything again. Knowledge is knowledge. My belief is that the degree you have is like atomic energy and you can use for good or bad depending on where your mind takes you.
“So, we have example of someone who has a degree in law and now making inroads into the field of Engineering. And I believe so many young people will use him as a role model, a mentor, kind of. So I have to thank sincerely the Nigeria Society of Engineers because if they did not recognize him and honour, we wouldn’t have been here today.”
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