Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan was born on 20 November 1957 at Otuoke, an Ijaw village in present-day Ogbia LGA of Bayelsa State, the son of Lawrence Ebele Jonathan, a canoe-maker, and Eunice Ayi Jonathan. He attended St Stephen's Primary School Otuoke (1959–66) — through the Biafra-era school closures — Mater Dei High School Imiringi and Anglican Modern School Otuoke before reading zoology at the University of Port Harcourt (BSc 1981, MSc Hydrobiology and Fisheries Biology 1985, PhD Zoology 1995). He taught at Rivers State College of Education, worked as Education Inspector with the Bayelsa State Civil Service, and was a lecturer at the College of Demonstration Secondary School, Port Harcourt.

He entered politics in 1998 as Deputy Governor candidate to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of the PDP in the newly-created Bayelsa State; they won the 1999 and 2003 elections. When Alamieyeseigha was impeached in December 2005 (following his September 2005 arrest by the London Metropolitan Police on money-laundering charges and his celebrated escape from London disguised as a woman), Jonathan became Governor on 9 December 2005. In 2007 the PDP picked him as running mate to Umaru Musa Yar'Adua — the South-South Christian balance to a North-West Muslim presidential candidate — and he was sworn in as Vice-President on 29 May 2007.

The 2009–10 Yar'Adua medical crisis tested the constitutional order. After Yar'Adua was secretly flown to Jeddah on 23 November 2009, Jonathan was kept from constitutional authority for 78 days by the 'cabal' centred on First Lady Turai Yar'Adua. The Doctrine of Necessity adopted by the National Assembly on 9 February 2010 made him Acting President; on Yar'Adua's death on 5 May 2010 he was sworn in as substantive President. He won the April 2011 election against Muhammadu Buhari with 22.5 million votes (58.9%); the post-election riots in twelve Northern states killed over 800 people in three days, including ten NYSC corps members serving as electoral officers.

His administration's defining technocratic achievements were the GDP rebasing of 6 April 2014 (NBS, under Coordinating Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala) that made Nigeria Africa's largest economy at $546 bn nominal; the Sovereign Wealth Fund (NSIA, 2012); the YouWin youth entrepreneurship programme; the Almajiri school programme; the unbundling of PHCN and the November 2013 power-sector privatisation; the 2014 National Conference (Confab); and the Petroleum Industry Bill that was never passed in his term. His defining failures were the January 2012 subsidy-removal that triggered #OccupyNigeria (rescinded after a week), the Chibok abduction of 14 April 2014 (276 girls), the rise of the Boko Haram caliphate in the North-East (Gwoza captured August 2014), and the Dasukigate arms-procurement scandal disclosed after his exit ($2.1 bn allegedly diverted, per the El-Rufai panel).

He conceded the 28 March 2015 presidential election to General Muhammadu Buhari by telephone on the evening of 31 March 2015 in six words: 'Hello General. I have called to congratulate you on your victory.' It was the first time in Nigerian history a sitting president conceded electoral defeat; the concession averted what was widely feared to be the worst electoral crisis since June 12. He has since chaired ECOWAS election-observer missions in Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Zambia, Sierra Leone and most recently the post-coup negotiations in Niger. He published the memoir My Transition Hours (2018), is patron of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, and was repeatedly courted (and declined) by the APC to contest the 2023 presidency. He is married to Dame Patience Faka Jonathan, the centre of an ongoing EFCC asset-recovery case involving more than US$15 million in linked accounts.