IN Nigeria, 2015 began with numerous prophecies from several prophets who foresaw doom and disintegration once this year’s general elections are concluded. Conversely, the period coincided with the renewed vigour of former Head of State, Major-General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s quiet domestic diplomacy in the quest for enduring peace.

Even, long before then, he had been making visionary projections and pragmatic efforts that helped nullify predictions that Nigeria would disintegrate by 2015. For instance, on October 18, 2013, he strongly expressed his conviction that despite the growing fear of a possible breakup of the country by 2015, those drumming for disintegration of the country would be disappointed, as the umbilical cord of the federating units cannot be separated. According to Abdulsalami, “God has joined us together. Whether you break Nigeria into pieces, we will remain joined by our umbilical cord. No matter what happens, our umbilical cord is still there. We will live together either as neighbours or as communities.”

As a concerned elder seeing beyond present realities, he had consistently warned about the implications of various actions and decisions in the North and the nation. For example, while emphasizing the urgent need to end the insurgency in the North and allow peace to reign, he emphatically warned that it will take the North nothing less than about 20 years to clear the mess created by insecurity.

Before, during and after the 2015 general elections, Abdulsalami Abubakar’s passionate commitment towards ensuring peace helped Nigeria to successfully navigate landmines that political interests had laid at various points. Three days after the presidential election, Abdulsalami, who heads the 2015 Elections Peace Committee, was at the new Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja to commend President Goodluck Jonathan for conceding defeat to the All Progressives Congress’ presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

He said the committee was in the Villa to ensure that peace was maintained in the country and that he was happy that President Jonathan had already called Gen. Buhari before the committee arrived at the Villa. He said: “We were here to ensure peace is maintained at this moment; we thank Nigerians and all international community who came to support during the elections.

The elections have been very peaceful despite the hitches here and there. At the end of the elections, at the counting that there are a lot of upheavals that have happened but thankfully, they have been contained.

“We were at the middle of a meeting with the international observers to try to see how we can still water the tension down, when gladly I called Gen. Buhari that we are going to see him, he told me that Mr. President has called him at about 5:15 p.m. and congratulated him and conceded defeat.

“We were spell bound and the reason we have come here is to thank President Jonathan for this statesmanship. In the history of Nigeria, I think this is the first time where a contestant has called his rival to congratulate him and through this point, President Jonathan maintained a point that the blood of Nigerians is not worth his presidency and by his action he has proved that.

“He has proved that he is a man of his word‎ because during our interaction on this peace committee, he has always maintained that he is going to accept the result of the elections whichever way it is done. And he has proved this.”

Before the elections, the Abdulsalami Abubakar Peace Committee had drawn Buhari and Jonathan together to secure a second peace pact against post-election violence. The two candidates had earlier signed one when US Secretary of State, John Kerry, visited them. For millions of Nigerian citizens, the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, had consistently expressed his message of peaceful electioneering. He was once quoted to have said: “Without peace, development cannot be achieved. The people should be peaceful. For democracy to strive, they should embrace peace.”

For a man, who holds on to this credo of peace, it was not surprising that he was one of the first visitors to the Presidential Villa on a day President Goodluck Jonathan poured cold water on the burning tension across the land by not only conceding defeat but also speaking on the imperative for peace if Nigeria must move forward. He must feel proud that his interventions yielded the kind of result that has sent the entire country on a wild celebration.

Now in his twilight years, General Abdulsalami Abubakar can cast a retrospective glance backwards to behold the hands of destiny and joyfully, carry on with the quest for peace and consensus-building even as the nation is set for another democratic experience under a different government with a different ideology.

UNTIL the evening of last Saturday, President Goodluck Jonathan was at the verge of ending his six years in office on a very unpopular note. But a phone call he made to the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, congratulating him for his victory in the election even before counting was concluded, has in the estimation of many Nigerians transformed him into a hero of democracy.

Before Jonathan’s phone call to Buhari on Saturday, there appeared to be no love lost between the two presidential candidates. Seeing Gen. Buhari as the only threat to Jonathan’s continuation in office as president, his minders embarked on name-calling, mudslinging and, in some instances, outright assassination of Buhari’s character.

The PDP also conjured all manner of stories aimed at discrediting the General and securing his disqualification from the presidential race. One of them was the claim by the PDP hawks that Gen. Buhari had no secondary school certificate, the minimum educational qualification required of an aspirant to the office of president.

Buhari, who was accused by the party of not attaching his West African Schools Certificate to the nomination form he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as required by law, had responded by saying that his certificate was with the military authorities. Strangely, the military, after initially admitting that they were in possession of Buhari’s records, made a u-turn and declared that they were not in custody of his secondary school certificate.

Shocked by the response of the institution he considered a part of his primary constituency, Buhari rushed to the secondary school he attended in Katsina to obtain his WASC certificate. But rather than solve the problem, Jonathan’s men turned the move into a veritable source of acrimony, accusing Buhari of forging the certificate he claimed to have obtained from his alma mater.

The smear campaign against Buhari had begun with the branding of the General as a religious extremist on a mission to Islamise Nigeria. The APC had risen in his defence, wondering why the former head of state, who resisted the pressure mounted on him to take Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), would be tagged an Islamist while his successor, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who actually dragged Nigeria into the Islamic body, had not been so tagged.

When that would not wash, they came up with the story that Buhari was sick and was destined for a hospital in the US. At a point, it was even said that the APC presidential candidate had been flown out of the country only for him to be captured live on television in one of his rigorous campaign rallies. Buhari himself said he was fit as a fiddle, but the spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Committee, Femi Fani-Kayode, claimed to know Buhari’s condition better, insisting that he was sick.

In all this, Jonathan did nothing to call his men to order even though it was clear that they were heating the polity to bursting limits. Rather, he compounded the trend with a campaign strategy that sought to divide the country along ethnic and religious lines as if he was out to fulfill a prediction allegedly made by the US, that Nigeria might break up in 2015.

Matters came to a head at the venue of the collation of the results of the presidential election on Saturday, when a PDP agent, Elder Godsday Orubebe, appeared from nowhere and nearly truncated the announcement of results. Many had interpreted the scene he created at the venue as merely acting a script written by the President and his associates to subvert the process. The disclosure by former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, that President Jonathan had called Gen. Buhari to congratulate him over his victory in the poll, therefore, came as a huge relief not only to concerned Nigerians but the world at large. It instantly defused the tension that had enveloped the polity and effectively killed any prospect of electoral violence.

The spirit of sportsmanship demonstrated by the President was in spite of the fact that he was on the way to creating an unenviable record as the first sitting president to be defeated in an election in the nation’s history. As he himself would later profess, the act was a fulfillment of his promise to make the votes count by reforming the electoral process, on account of which he appointed Prof. Attahiru Jega, a man widely reputed as forthright and highly principled, as the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in June 2010.

President Jonathan, an Ijaw man from Bayelsa State, had earlier made history as the first Nigerian president to emerge from a minority ethnic group and the first Nigerian vice-president to be democratically elected. Before he was elected president in 2011, he had occupied the office for two years to serve out the tenure of his principal, the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, who died after two years in office.

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday took the first step towards his exit from office, holding his maiden post-election meeting with the President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

The meeting took place at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja as a follow-up to Wednesday’s telephone conversation between them.

The President had called Buhari to congratulate him on his victory in Saturday’s presidential election and asked him to “come, so that we can sort out how to plan the transition period.”

Presidency officials described yesterday’s meeting as private.

Also yesterday, President Jonathan said the public revelation of his personal accounts in office will have to wait for now.

He told State House reporters that he would speak on his experience and other issues “at the appropriate time.”

He spoke at the end of the Good Friday Service at the Aso Villa Chapel.

“Don’t worry, I will talk to you at the appropriate time,” he told the reporters as they swam around him.

The seven short exhortations that accompanied the lessons at the service focused on the sacrifice the officiating ministers said Jonathan made to keep the county united.

They likened his decision to accept defeat to the sacrifice Jesus Christ made to safe mankind.

They urged him to remain focus because his future is in the hands of God.

They also congratulated the President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on his victory

The service also featured renditions of special hymns as well as intercessory prayers for the President, for peace and for the country at large.

At the service were Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State; Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Christians Pilgrims Commission, Mr. John Kennedy-Okpara; Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Mrs. Joan Ayo; Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, Mr. Ima Niboro; and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali.