As his name suggests, Nigeria's
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 from the
south of the country to a low-key
president from the north. But then, President Umaru Yar'Adua was
taken to hospital in Saudi Arabia and was
not seen again in public until he died on 5
May 2010. Step forward, Mr Jonathan. After months
of political wrangling, Nigeria's elite
finally accepted him as acting leader in
February 2010 when the ailing president
returned home, but remained too ill to
govern. 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. Not bad for a man who has never been
elected to major public office in his own
right. He defied the ruling People's Democratic
Party's tradition of alternating
presidential power between north and
south after two terms of office by
winning the party's primaries. Now he seems sure to secure a massive
victory in the election itself. Hand-picked 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. He worked as an education inspector,
lecturer and environmental protection
officer before going into politics in 1998. Just as his rapid rise to power in the
federal government owed a lot to luck, so
too did his promotion to state governor. Elected as deputy governor for his home
state, Bayelsa, in 1999, he was once
again 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 Profile: Nigeria's Goodluck JonathanPDP'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 had been suggested that Nigeria's
many groups of powerbrokers agreed to
let him formally become acting president
only because he was not seen as a threat
- and would not seek to contest April's
elections. But the huge margin of his victory at the
PDP primaries, with several central and
northern states backing him, proves his
political acumen and the relative
smoothness of his assumption of power. "There has not been any rise that's been
so meteoric in Nigeria," analyst Charles
Dokubo said in 2010. On the relevance of the acting president's
name, he said: "What is luck? Luck is
when you can take advantage of an
opportunity. He was in the right place at
the right time." Journalist Ben Shemang is among the
many Nigerians who believe Mr
Jonathan's name has given him an
advantage. He told the BBC's World Today programme
that Mr Jonathan was doubly lucky as his
other given name is equally propitious -
Ebele, which means God's wish. "That tells you that it was the wish of the
parents for him to be successful," he said. Militant work 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
$13.5m (£8.5m). She has never been convicted of any
wrongdoing over the affair and officials
told AP the case was "an old one". If Mr Jonathan's time as vice-president
was distinguished at all, it was through
his negotiations with militants in the
Niger Delta, who are mostly his fellow
Ijaws. Many of the major militant groups have
laid down their weapons as part of a
government amnesty. His presidency so far will mainly be
remembered for the Independence Day
bombings last October
source:
Http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12192152