The emergence of Dr Goodluck Jonathan as Governor of Bayelsa State may well be described as an act of fate. As Deputy Governor, he showed himself to be an exemplary lieutenant, and a pillar of support to his boss. Providence, however, played the impartial umpire when, on 12 December 2005, Jonathan mounted the lofty saddle of office, following the impeachment of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, 16 months to the expiration of their joint tenure.
From the onset, Jonathan did not leave anyone in doubt that he had come to make a difference. His vision was to lift the land and people of the state from the doldrums of poverty and underdevelopment, and place them on a higher pedestal of growth and progress. The policy thrust of his government was grounded on the resolve to create wealth and accelerate the pace of infrastructural development around the state, district by senatorial district.
A modest leader, not given to flamboyance or idle promises, he believed simply in work as a daily code of conduct. To be at the helm of affairs, for him, was to be entrusted with a sacred duty to lead his people into a new season of industry, with tangible results to show for it. As he put it, the people of Bayelsa had come a long way from a past of pain and misery. It would be self defeatist to return to those turbulent and unholy years, while the door of hope was still open.
Indeed, Jonathan’s emergence as Deputy Governor has an intriguing story to it, a plot with a classic twist, no less. In 1998, Alamieyeseigha approached Jonathan, and invited him to be his running mate in the 1999 Bayelsa State governorship race on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Jonathan was absolutely green to politics. He was little known outside his regular circle of friends, school mates, and colleagues at the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), where he worked.
Okpoitari Diongoli, Press Secretary to the Deputy Governor, who went on to become the paramount ruler of Opokuma clan, went so far as to say that Jonathan was an unknown quantity, politically speaking. Apart from the friends he made in Ogbia while growing up, and those he made while at the University of Port Harcourt, he was largely seen as an introvert. Jonathan affirms this in his book, “Wind of Hope”.
According to the author, while in the university, many of his colleagues tagged him as the triangular student. His movement could be predicted from the lecture hall to the refectory for a meal, and off to the hostel. The schedule repeated itself every day, from the hostel to the lecture hall, to the refectory, and back to the hostel. The man simply kept to himself, shy of the crowd.
When Alamieyeseigha and his campaign team went fishing for a running mate from the eastern axis of Bayelsa, they had in mind a young, reasonable fellow who would work hand in hand with the Governor. He would be enlightened, humble, dependable, and loyal to the his principal at all times. By the political equation, he had to be from Ogbia, Nembe, or Brass Local Government Areas, all three comprising Bayelsa East senatorial district.
The team beamed its searchlight wide and eventually zeroed in on Jonathan, who was then serving as a Deputy Director with the OMPADEC. The other choice was Senator Inatimi Rufus-Spiff, a core politician from Brass, who once served as Secretary to the Rivers State Government in the old Rivers State. Applying the criteria it had set for itself, the campaign team settled for Jonathan, an intellectual gentleman, and an accomplished public servant with little or no political record to his name.
The plot took a different, abrupt turn in no time, taking everyone completely by surprise. After all the political stakeholders and the PDP had settled for Jonathan as running mate to Alamieyeseigha, Chief Melford Okilo, first civilian Governor of old Rivers State, one-time Minister, and former Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, took exception to the common choice.
He preferred Rufus-Spiff instead, on the grounds of his being a practiced politician, while Jonathan was altogether new to the field. He made his opinion point blank, even though he and Jonathan were both from the same Ogbia brotherhood. That was how Okilo prevailed on Alamieyeseigha to change the nomination to Rufus-Spiff, and forward a letter forthwith to that effect, which Alamieyeseigha should personally submit at the national secretariat of the PDP in Abuja.
News of the change soon filtered out, and Chief Gordon Bozimo, who had been a member of the PDP Board of Trustees representing Bayelsa State, did not like the idea at all. As far as he was concerned, this was an outright betrayal of the collective trust of the campaign team which had made a resolution with one united voice.
Bozimo pretended not to be aware of the change. He put a call through to Alamieyeseigha on his Turaya mobile. The retired Squadron Leader said he was on his way to the airport en-route Abuja. Bozimo caught up swiftly with him at the VIP lounge of the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa. In the course of their chit-chat, Alamieyeseigha divulged his mission.
Bozimo demanded to see the letter which Alamieyeseigha was going to submit. He read through it slowly and carefully and, having confirmed that a change had been made in the choice of running mate, tore the letter to shreds in a fit of anger. Alamieyeseigha had no choice but to revert to the original choice, and that was how Jonathan began a new phase of his life as a politician.
Already, members of the party executive at the state level, led by Engineer Austin Ogionwo-Febo, had mobilised to the national secretariat of the PDP at Wadata House, Abuja, to protest against the decision to replace Jonathan. They did not have to bother. The correction had been duly made. Like a true gentleman, Jonathan earned his place eventually, and proved himself to be a faithful and committed member of his party from the day he joined the PDP in 1998.
Jonathan proved to be a good student of politics. As he under-studied his boss and leader from day to day, he began to build bridges of friendship across the River Niger, and erected a platform upon which to launch his rising political profile. A diligent member of his party, he spared no effort at deepening the values and principles of democracy, while promoting the ideals and philosophy of the party. As Deputy Governor, working alongside Alamieyeseigha, they set themselves up as an example of dependable and inseparable partnership, promoting good governance and service delivery to the people.
Jonathan was largely seen as the engine room of government, especially when the Governor was away. He was always on ground to oversee the day to day running of programmes and activities. He stood by a man he considered to be his boss and leader, even under very difficult times. Like everybody else, he had no idea about what was to happen until Alamieyeseigha was impeached by the state House of Assembly. He had no apparent ambition to succeed his boss. But Jonathan was deputy leader of the party, and it was only to be expected that he should step into the office of leader.
By 2005, when the mantle of leadership fell on Jonathan after Alamieyeseigha’s impeachment, he had shown remarkable progress in everyday governance. Sitting at the helm as Governor came to him naturally. No less amazing was his subsequent choice as running mate to Alhaji Umar Yar’Adua, in the run up to the presidential election of 2007.
Their joint tenure in the presidency, and Jonathan’s elevation from Vice President to Acting President, and then to substantive President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, had the dramatic twist of a divine intervention. The story began on a very humble note in Otuoke.
