The man whose name is Goodluck

Goodluck Jonathan has got to be Nigeria’s luckiest politician. Three times, Fortuna, the goddess of luck, has smiled on Nigeria’s vice-president. Mr. Jonathan’s rise from a lowly university teacher to the corridors of power, a career path that has seen him serve as deputy governor, governor, and vice-president, owes entirely to luck, and, well, good manners. Aptly named, Goodluck cannot be divorced from his luck-laced career. The question now is: Will Fortuna smile on him once more?

Mr. Jonathan is Nigeria’s second most powerful man. In the event that the president is incapable of discharging the functions of his office, he is, by the demands of the constitution, next in line to become the president and the Commander-in – Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation. If this happens, it will be the fourth time that Mr. Jonathan is catapulted into a position he had not bargained for.

Back in 1998, Mr. Jonathan, one of the leading scholars of the Ogbia ethnicity from the broad Ijaw nation, got a call from a fellow Ogbia man, the very influential late Chief Judge of Bayelsa State, Justice Emmanuel Igoniwari, asking him to get ready as running mate of the former governor Diepreye Alamiseigha’s for the Bayelsa State gubernatorial election under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Mr. Igoniwari, a confidant of Mr. Alamiesegha, reportedly prodded the shy scholar who was then an environmental protection officer at the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission, (OMPADEC) “to look ahead than look back.”

Eventually his boss was impeached and fate thrust Mr. Jonathan to the upper deck as governor. The most dramatic event, however, was in December, 2006, when Umaru Musa Yar’Adua selected him as running mate for the 2007 presidential elections, dumping the former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili.

The hurdles on Jonathan’s path

The Niger Delta difficulties that contributed to Mr. Jonathan’s rise, will eventually test his staying power in the event of the incapacitation of a substantive president. Presidency insiders say four fault lines are set in opposition towards him: the James Ibori camp, the Victor Attah camp, the security camp, and the Peter Odili camp; all of which had sparred against him since he became vice-president.

A Jonathan presidency will be tested by two key highlights: the Yar’Adua Niger Delta amnesty programme, and the Sanusi banking reforms. The amnesty programme had always been Mr. Jonathan’s option in opposition to the bazaar programme of the Ibori camp which always favoured a Niger Delta Conference. Presidency sources say Mr. Jonathan had argued unceasingly that the Niger Delta doesn’t need another conference again but the amnesty programme and a couple of concrete development programmes.