Twice in recent presidential election cycles, Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s former one-term president, allowed speculations to spread like wildfire that he would seek the presidency again. But twice, without as much as a whimper, the speculations fizzled out into thin air like a puff of wind. Recently, Jonathan issued an angry rebuttal to an allegation that he was offered N500bn to run against Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, to split the South-South votes. But such allegations only arose because of the cowardly manner Jonathan has pursued what’s truly his ambition to become Nigeria’s president again after failing to secure a second term in 2015, the only incumbent president, so far, to suffer that fate.
Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, former President Jonathan told supporters who urged him to run again: “The political process is ongoing. Just watch out!” Later, a group of pastoralists and Almajirai reportedly bought Jonathan APC’s N100mn nomination forms. Then, he held a long closed-door meeting with APC’s then national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, presumably to see if the party would field him as its candidate. Leaving aside that it was APC that dislodged him from the presidency in 2015, Jonathan’s overture to the party was utterly naïve as the party would have to pick him over Bola Tinubu, APC’s co-founder, who strongly believed it was his turn to be president (“Emi lokan”), given he “made” Muhammadu Buhari president in 2015. Well, Jonathan abandoned his not-too-subtle, yet craven, attempt to join the race.
