Goodluck Jonathan : announces second term bid today

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday formally declared that he will seek a second term of office at next year’s general election.

“After seeking the face of God, and in the quiet of my family, I, Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, have accepted to present myself on the platform of the PDP,” he told supporters of his Peoples Democratic Party at a mass rally in Abuja.

The event was attended by various groups, including students, women, labour, youths and elder statesmen. They all urged Jonathan to continue his transformation agenda.

The groups, including farmers, Fulani pastoralists, market women, artisans and others from various walks of life, endorsed Jonathan’s ambition to run again in 2015 polls.

Jonathan had arrived at the Eagle Square Abuja, to a tumultuous reception by an unprecedented crowd of supporters and party faithful.

The president, amidst water-tight security, acknowledged cheers and applause from the surging crowd.

PDP top notchers, representing various zones nationwide, including former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa; Senate President, David Mark; former Gov. Peter Odili of Rivers, all endorsed the president’s ambition.

Mark assured the president of the National Assembly’s support for his transformation agenda and continuity in office.

He urged Jonathan to accept the overwhelming pressure on him to continue in office, adding that if he failed to do so, all the efforts under the transformation agenda would collapse.

He said Jonathan had used the agenda to transform education, power sector and the entire economy, adding that he had laid a solid foundation for the country’s transformation.

Gov. Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom said PDP had been robbed of some states but assured the president that the party would reclaim them and win in 30 states.

He urged the president not to be intimidated by the negative things the opposition was saying about him.

Akpabio, who spoke on behalf of PDP Governors Forum, said although the road to 2015 was not going to be smooth, the forum would assure the president that it would work hard for PDP to win the 2015 elections.

Sen. Ken Nnamani, on behalf of the South West, said Jonathan should continue and complete the Niger Bridge and give good roads to the people.

He urged the president to address the security challenges in the country, stressing that “the president knows where the problem is coming from’’.

The venue of the event was filled to capacity with supporters both within and outside the square.

Various entertainment groups were not left out as many of them played and danced to different tunes to the delight of crowd

Jonathan has been head of state of Nigeria since 2010, when he took over following the death of president Umara Yar’Adua. He won the election of 2011.

As a politician, he has repeatedly defied expectations in his rise through the country’s ruthless political world.

Many have described his ascent to power as accidental — or simply a matter of luck.

Mild-mannered Jonathan is from a family of canoe makers who became a zoology lecturer before joining 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 International New York Times.

“He was plucked from obscurity because he was considered pliable.”

– The right place at the right time –

As for his distinctive name, his late father was quoted as saying 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”.

Fortune certainly seems to have favoured Jonathan as he grew older.

An unconfirmed report 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 in government 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 Peoples Democratic Party as Yar’Adua’s running mate ahead of 2007 polls, most Nigerians had never heard of Jonathan.

A magazine once described the Nigerian leader as “hardly a man to set the pulse racing”.

– Boko Haram, corruption –

Jonathan has launched his re-election campaign with Boko Haram controlling more than two dozen towns and villages in the northeast and the day after a suspected member of the Islamist group massacred nearly 50 students in a suicide bombing during morning assembly.

Analysts have said the five-year Boko Haram insurgency will likely hurt Jonathan politically in the northeast, an opposition stronghold, but doubt its electoral impact in the mostly Christian south where tribe and faith are often key factors in determining votes.

Earlier in his tenure, Jonathan won international praise for staffing his cabinet with accomplished technocrats, notably ex-World Bank vice-president Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is his finance minister.

But there have been countless accusations of major government graft, notably from ex-central bank governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who said the state oil company misused nearly $20 billion in public funds through 2012 and 2013.

And Jonathan has failed to connect Nigeria’s masses with the nation’s huge oil wealth.

Despite being Africa’s top oil producer, most of the country’s 170 million people live on less than $1.50 a day and only receive a paltry supply of electricity.