Powerful Nigerian men who ‘stay awake’ to keep President Goodluck Jonathan in power

Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan announced on May 29 that the University of Lagos, also known as UNILAG, would be renamed Moshood Abiola University. Photo/FILE

By EMMANUEL MAYAH, NATION Correspondent in LAGOS

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan must be a ‘lucky’ man, not because of his name, but allies who have made it their duty to keep him in office.

Three days to May 29, the day President Jonathan celebrated one year in office, Mr Asari Dokubo, a member of the Ijaw politburo, declared that there was a plot to kill the president.

“I know that armed resistance will re-occur in the Niger Delta. The signs are everywhere because there are two options open to these people; to kill Jonathan or make him capitulate. The two options will be unacceptable to our people. We will not allow it happen to Jonathan”.

Mr Dokubo, leader of former militia group, the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, is one of the behind-the-scenes men sleeping with one eye closed to keep the Nigerian president in power.

Save for the military government of General Yakubu Gowon that fought a civil war between 1967 and 1970, no other government in Nigeria has had as many battles to fight as that of President Jonathan.

In a country whose leadership was pretty much predetermined by the Muslim Hausa-Fulani oligarchy, Goodluck, an Ijaw from the minority oil-rich Niger Delta, made history as the first civilian president to clinch power without being a former military officer or a protégé of the military hierarchy.

He also did not benefit from the anointing of either the fabled Kaduna mafia or the blessing of the Sokoto Caliphate, the supreme Muslim authority in Nigeria.