Jonathan: Set to paddle the giant canoe again

He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But the power of luck that has directed the affairs of his life has been legendary. So dramatic has his journey to the esteemed seat of Nigerian presidency been that his story has convinced more people that there is a lot in a name.

But if it was luck that made Goodluck Jonathan the Bayelsa State governor, later the vice president and acting president until he was eventually inaugurated president on May 6, 2010, that luck has proved another point. With the outcome of the keenly contested April 16 presidential race, luck has proved that it can withstand the stiffest opposition, and that Jonathan possesses other values that can make him triumph in open competitions.

Indeed, this seems to be a point that bookmakers must pay attention to in the analysis of Jonathan’s triumph in Saturday’s election. Had he performed poorly, for instance, analysts would have been tempted to propound theories in the mould of ‘the limit of luck’, ‘when good luck is not enough’ etc. In other words, Jonathan’s victory has elevated him beyond the realm of the beneficiary of a strange luck that some might even have seen as opportunism.

This is apart from the fact that the election and the build up to it have won him what can be described as double victory. While the first is the presidential mandate, the second is also very important: the successful conduct of free and fair elections, for which Nigerians and other enthusiasts the world over had for long been yearning. Both the National Assembly and presidential elections have been generally hailed as credible. The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Atthairu Jega, deserves all the accolades he has got for this. But the fact remains that if Jonathan did not really believe in the gospel he preached concerning credible elections, the positive change being celebrated now would have remained elusive.

Of course, if Jonathan was not determined to sanitise the democratic process, he would not have risked appointing Jega in the first place. He could just have appointed another umpire who would be ready to endorse the feast of electoral illegalities that described the tenure of Prof. Maurice Iwu at INEC. To underscore the importance of the ‘second’ victory of the lecturer-turned politician, it is reasonable to note that his place in the hall of posterity would still have been amply secured even if he had lost the presidential election. Nigerians, and many apostles of sane democracy everywhere, would still have forever honoured Jonathan as the reformer of the electoral process in Nigeria.

Born on November 20, 1957 in Otueke in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Jonathan hails from a family of canoe makers, a humble profile that was played up in the course of the campaign for the presidential election. With that background, he had to engage life and its uncertainties like every other child from the lower class. If there was anything he peculiarly had, it was an element of fortune that his Ijaw father, Ebele Jonathan, realised his son had, which prompted him to name him Goodluck.

But the old man also realised the role that education would play in the life of his son, despite the promise of luck. That is why Jonathan remains the first Nigerian President with a doctorate degree. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Zoology (Second Class Honours, Upper Division). He also holds an M.Sc. degree in Hydrobiology and Fisheries Biology, and a Ph.D. degree in Zoology from the University of Port Harcourt.

After working as an education inspector, lecturer, and environmental-protection officer, he began his career in politics in 1998, when he joined the Peoples Democratic Party, a move that soon paid off when he became the Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State. The super luck that had since trailed him reared its head when his boss, then Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was impeached by the state assembly after being charged with money laundering in the United Kingdom. Jonathan thus became the governor.

In December 2006, he was selected as running mate to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua for the ruling PDP presidential ticket in the April 2007 election and became the vice president upon the party’s conquest in the poll that was characterised by gross irregularities. Jonathan remained loyal to Yar’Adua in health and sickness, but he was simply set to reap again where only his luck had sowed.

After the prolonged intrigues that trailed Yar’Adua’s ailment, the Senate, on February 9 2010, determined that presidential power should be transmitted to the Vice President. Jonathan was thus appointed as the Acting President and eventually became the President on May 6, a day after Yar’Adua passed on.

There were arguments over the zoning arrangement in PDP – following the death of the former President. But the reality of Jonathan’s interest to contest in last Saturday’s election dawned on stakeholders on January 14, 2011, when he was elected as the party’s flag bearer, winning 77 per cent of the total of valid votes cast in the primary. Now, by his performance in last Saturday’s election, yesterday’s humble lad from Otuoke is set to paddle the canoe of the Giant of Africa for another four years.