Happy Birthday Presido!!!: GEJ @ 57

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Nigeria’s first president from the southern Niger Delta oil region, has enjoyed a meteoric rise to power largely through being in the right place at the right time.

He has managed to live up to his name, bestowed by parents who had high expectations, and also gave him a middle name that means “God’s wish”. As his name suggests, Goodluck has a habit of being in the right place at the right time.

He was born in Otueke in Ogbia Local Government Area of the then Eastern Region, later Rivers State, and now Bayelsa State  - to a humble Ijaw family of canoe makers on November 20, 1957, the year after oil was discovered in the region.

He started his primary education at St. Stephen’s Primary School (now State School, Otuoke) and later proceeded to St Michael’s Primary School, Oloibiri, and finished in 1969. In 1971, he proceeded to Mater Dei High School, Imiringi, and in 1975, he sat for the West African School Certificate and passed with distinctions.

In 1973, as a pupil in class three, he was appointed a class prefect and was also appointed secretary to the school food committee, because of his dedication to service. When he was in class four and five, he was appointed Masterson house perfect and later elected as chairman of the committee of prefects.

Goodluck proceeded to the University of Port Harcourt to study zoology as one of the pioneer students of the new university.

In 1981, he graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons.) Second Class (Upper Division) and proceeded for his National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) in the then old Oyo State between 1981 and 1982. He served as a classroom teacher in the Community Secondary School, Iresi, now part of Osun State.

Between 1985 and 1995, he bagged his Master’s and Ph.D degrees in Hydro-Biology and Fisheries Biology and a Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology respectively, from University of Port Harcourt while at the same time lecturing at Rivers State College of Education.

In 1998 he began a career in politics after joining the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and a year later was elected as deputy governor of Bayelsa, one of three main states in the Niger Delta.

Six years later, Jonathan found himself catapulted to high office after his boss was impeached, leaving the deputy to be sworn in as governor in the oil-producing state.

In 2007, just two years later, he was picked to run as a vice-presidential candidate in the 2007 elections, after other more influential politicians from the region were tainted by an anti-corruption investigation.

His selection to run alongside Umaru Yar’Adua, who became president that year, was also about regional politics, with the ruling party keen to find a solution to the conflict in the oil-producing delta.

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.

After months of political wrangling, Nigeria’s elite finally accepted Goodluck Ebele Jonathan 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.

In 2011, he won his first election – for president – despite opposition claims of fraud.

Many have based his rise on luck but what is luck? Maybe, luck is when you can take advantage of an opportunity. Well, the 2015 election will be another test of his luck.

Happy Birthday Goodluck Ebele Jonathan