Former Nigerian President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, has opened up about the intense political pressure and fear he endured while serving as Vice President under the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua.
Speaking during an interview with the Rainbow Book Club about his memoir “My Transition Hours,” Jonathan revealed that he faced serious threats and conspiracies during Yar’Adua’s prolonged illness, particularly from northern political interests who, according to him, sought to prevent the South from taking over the presidency.
Jonathan described the period as one of great national tension, marred by ethnic and religious divides.
“The country was very tense at that time because of the North-South, Christian-Muslim divide,” he said. “Every day I was hearing about a coup.”
He further recounted how some of his friends urged him to leave the Presidential Villa for his safety as Yar’Adua’s health continued to deteriorate and the political uncertainty deepened.
“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 recalled.
“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.”
Jonathan eventually became Acting President through the National Assembly’s invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity in 2010, following Yar’Adua’s incapacitation, and later assumed full presidency upon Yar’Adua’s death.
