Former President Goodluck Jonathan says ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, is against him because he signed the Ant-Same sex Marriage Bill into law.
Jonathan said this while reacting to claims by Cameron that he (Jonathan) prevented UK troops from rescuing some of the 276 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from Chibok, Borno State.
Cameron, in his recently published memoir titled, ‘For the Record’, had claimed that a team of UK soldiers had located some of the Chibok girls but “Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, seemed to be asleep at the wheel. When he eventually made a statement, it was to accuse the campaigners of politicising the tragedy. And absolutely crucially, when we offered to help rescue the girls we had located, he refused.”
In his response, however, Jonathan described the former UK leader’s claims as a tissue of lies.
Jonathan said as President of Nigeria at that time, he came under almost unbearable pressure from the Cameron administration to pass legislation supporting LGBTQ Same Sex marriage in Nigeria.
The former President said his conscience could not stomach that, because as President of Nigeria, he swore on the Bible to advance Nigeria’s interests, and not the interest of the United Kingdom or any foreign power.
He said, “As such, on Monday, January 13, 2014, I signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law after the bill had been passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Nigeria’s parliament, in line with the wishes of the Nigerian people.
“This happened shortly after a study of 39 nations around the world by the US Pew Research Centre came up with a finding which indicated that 98 per cent of Nigerians were opposed to the idea of gay marriage.
“Immediately after I took this patriotic action, my government came under almost unbearable pressure from Mr. Cameron, who reached me through envoys, and made subtle and not so subtle threats against me and my government.”
He said meetings were held at the White House and at the Portcullis House in Parliament UK, with the then Nigerian opposition, All Progressives Congress, to disparage him, after he had signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law.
On the allegation of corruption, Jonathan said Transparency International, which is globally acknowledged as the adjudicator of who is corrupt and who is not, stated that Nigeria made great improvements in the fight against corruption
