Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed the tense and uncertain days he endured at the Presidential Villa during his time as Vice President, especially in the wake of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s prolonged illness.
Speaking in an interview with the Rainbow Book Club about his memoir, My Transition Hours, Okay.ng reports that Jonathan described how political conspiracies and ethno-religious divisions shaped his early days at the seat of power, amid efforts by some northern elements to deny the South a chance to succeed the ailing President.
Jonathan recalled that the political atmosphere in Nigeria at the time was deeply charged, marked by the “North-South, Christian-Muslim divide,” and said rumours of a coup were a near-daily occurrence.
“Every day I was hearing about a coup,” the former president said, reflecting on the instability that gripped the country during Yar’Adua’s health crisis.
According to him, there were suggestions from close allies urging him to leave the State House for his own safety, especially as Yar’Adua was receiving medical treatment abroad and had left a power vacuum.
“I remember one day, I was still Vice President, they had not even moved the Doctrine of Necessity and some of my friends came and said, ‘No, you don’t have to sleep here. You have to come and sleep in my guest house,’” Jonathan recounted.
However, he insisted on staying at the Villa, asserting that he had committed no wrongdoing and would rather be killed in office than hide in fear.
“I said, ‘No.’ I will stay in the State House. If anybody wants to kill me, it’s better you kill me in the State House so Nigerians will know that they assassinated me in the State House. They know I have not committed any offence,” he said.
Jonathan would later become acting president after the Doctrine of Necessity was invoked by the National Assembly in 2010, and subsequently took office following Yar’Adua’s death.
