Supporters of APC surround a jester dressed as Nigeria's President
Goodluck Jonathan as they celebrate the election victory of APC
Presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari on the streets of northern
Nigeria's city of Kano on Tuesday, March 31, 2015.. AFP PHOTO | AMINOU
ABUBAKAR
LAGOS, NIGERIA
Goodluck Jonathan's rise to the top of the pile in Nigeria's ruthless political world had been described as accidental — a matter of good luck.
But
the amazing run of coincidence and chance that brought the son of a
canoe-maker to the presidential villa in the capital Abuja, has come to
an end, with his electoral defeat at the hands of challenger Muhammadu
Buhari.
The 57-year-old southern Christian -- the first
head of state from the oil-producing Niger Delta -- was thrust into the
presidency in 2010 following the death of his predecessor Umaru Musa
Yar'Adua, a Muslim from the north.
The mild-mannered
Jonathan, often seen with his trademark fedora traditionally worn by
Niger Delta natives, is from a family of boat makers. He became a
zoology lecturer and worked on environmental issues before entering
politics in 1998.
"I personally call him the
accidental president. It was chance, good luck," said Adewale
Maja-Pearce, a Lagos-based writer and contributing columnist for the New York Times.
"He was plucked from obscurity because he was considered pliable."
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
As
for his distinctive name, his late father was quoted as saying in a
biography of the president that he "called him Goodluck because although
life was hard for me when he was born, I had this feeling that this boy
would bring me good luck."
His mother, Eunice, said
although she had a history of lengthy labour in childbirth stretching
for several days, Goodluck was born in record time.
Fortune certainly seems to have favoured Jonathan as he grew older.
An
unconfirmed report has long circulated in local media that Jonathan,
elected assistant senior prefect at his secondary school, grabbed the
top post when the head prefect was expelled.
His rise
to the top was similarly fortuitous, becoming governor of his native
Bayelsa state in 2005 after his predecessor was impeached over
money-laundering charges in Britain.
The night he was
nominated by his People's Democratic Party (PDP) as Yar'Adua's running
mate before 2007 polls, many Nigerians had never heard of Jonathan.
In
one of the US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Jonathan
purportedly acknowledged his inexperience in a meeting with the US
ambassador while he served as acting president during Yar'Adua's
illness.
"I was not chosen to be vice-president because
I had good political experience," Jonathan said. "There were a lot more
qualified people around to be vice-president."
A magazine once described the Nigerian leader as "hardly a man to set the pulse racing".
LACK OF CLARITY
Though always calm in public, Jonathan headed a nation plagued by a range of crises.
Nigeria
is consistently ranked as one of the world's most corrupt nations and
the north is wracked by the brutal Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.
The
main opposition All Progressives Congress had made Jonathan's perceived
failure to tackle both problems a central plank of its campaign.
Jonathan
earned praise however for staffing his cabinet with internationally
regarded technocrats, notably ex-World Bank managing director Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, who was his finance minister.
But
despite living in Africa's top oil producer, most of the country's 173
million people live on less than $2 a day and only receive a paltry
supply of electricity.
Jonathan was accused of failing to take on such endemic problems.
"He
has always said 'Oh yes, we will take care of that,'" said Pat Utomi, a
professor at Lagos Business School and prominent political commentator.
"I think he meant to do well... but it seems there was never clarity in his head of where he wanted Nigeria to be."
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