Goodluck Jonathan’s rise to become Nigerias new leader has been described as “meteoric”, BBC online writes Thursday.
As his name suggests, Nigeria’s new President Goodluck Jonathan has a habit of being in the right place at the right time. Until November 2009, he was serving out his time as a low-key deputy to a low-key president.
But then, President Umaru Yar’Adua was taken to hospital in Saudi Arabia and was not seen in public until he died on 5 May 2010. Barely 12 hours after Mr Yar’Adua’s death, Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as the new president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Africa’s most populous nation – one of its most fractious democracies.
Born in 1957 in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, Mr Jonathan is a Christian from the Ijaw ethnic group. His family’s trade was canoe-making, but he studied zoology at university.
Elected as deputy governor for his home state, Bayel-sa, in 1999, he was serving his time without particular distinction. Until, that is, his boss was impeached on corruption charges.
Mr Jonathan took over as governor and two years later was hand-picked by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to run on the ruling PDP’s ticket as vice-presidential candidate in 2007.
The BBC’s Fidelis Mbah says insiders regard him as a politician without a political base – and more of an administrator than a leader. It has been suggested that Nigeria’s many groups of power-brokers agreed to let him formally become acting president only because he was not seen as a threat – and crucially would not seek to contest the election due in 2011.
His rise to power, though, has not been without its share of controversy. His wife, Patience, was investigated by anti-corruption officials in 2006 over allegations she tried to launder some 13,5 million US dollar
If Mr Jonathan’s time as vice-president was distinguished at all, it was through his negotiations with militants in the delta, who are mostly his fellow Ijaws. Many of the major militant groups have laid down their weapons, others have formed uneasy truces with the government.
