Jonathan: Uncommon journey to greatness

President Goodluck Jonathan comes across as one of the
favourites in tomorrow’s election. Having learnt the ropes as a
deputy governor, Vice-President, acting-President and
President, he appears well groomed for the position he is
seeking.
President Goodluck Jonathan
The fact that he is the incumbent President, creates an aura
of edge around him, but that is limited by arguments that
incumbency does not seem to be an asset in this race.
His journey from the creeks of the Niger-Delta region to the
highest office in Nigeria, was obviously very unlikely.
Such journeys are only possible in a few places and hardly
possible in this part of the globe.
Jonathan’s rise from a shoeless son of a local ship builder to
the highest office in the land is a remarkable reflection of the
Shakespearean quote that ‘’Some are born great, some
achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon
them,’’ Jonathan had greatness thrust upon him.
That does not imply that the President did not arm himself
with the prerequisites required for greatness to be thrust upon
him.
Just as his name ‘’Goodluck’’ suggests, Jonathan, who was
born in 1957, has been extremely lucky in his public career,
leading to the belief that he is being favoured by unseen
hands.
Jonathan, who has a doctorate degree in Zoology had often
been at the right place at the right time, thereby becoming a
beneficiary of various top leadership vacuums that had existed
in Nigeria’s political trajectory.
Until mid 1998, he was a deputy director in the Oil Minerals
Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC, residing
in the OMPADEC quarters, Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.
Sometime late that year, he played host to a former military
man who incidentally, he was meeting for the first time.
For that visit by the then Bayelsa State gubernatorial aspirant,
Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Jonathan would have by now
been approaching his retirement from the civil service.
Alamieyeseigha, who was accompanied on that trip by one
Gordon Bozimo, went there with the simple request of telling
Jonathan, who he had never met to resign from the services
of OMPADEC to become his running mate.
Though Jonathan accepted after some time, Alamieyeseigha
was to change his mind upon some intrigues that arose and
had proposed to drop Jonathan from the ticket but one
incident or another delayed the process of substituting him
putting him in good luck to become the deputy governor of
Bayelsa State at the advent of the Fourth Republic.
In the second term of that administration, luck again fell on
Jonathan in December, 2005 when Alamieyeseigha was
removed from office. Jonathan was not directly involved and
he according to sources took safety in Bauchi under the
protective comfort of the then governor of the state, Adamu
Mu‘azu while the political intrigues played out in his native
Bayelsa State.
After becoming governor, all he wanted was to win the 2007
election and was on his way in that regard after riding the tide
of incumbency to edge out the more rooted Timi Alaibe. But
his course and the nation’s course was changed when luck
again smiled on him to pick up the vice-presidential ticket of
the party.
Not long after the luck of Jonathan came calling again when
he was elevated to the presidency in 2010 after the death of
President Umaru Yar‘Adua. Before then he had become he had
by the Doctrine of Necessity, projected by the National
Assembly been declared as acting president.
In the election that followed in 2011, Jonathan triumphed over
two of his main challengers to become the first person in the
history of Nigeria to have served as deputy governor,
governor, vice president, acting president and president.
It is a record that has put him as the most experienced
executive office holder in the history of Nigeria.
His record, however, is a matter of divided opinions between
his passionate supporters and his critics.