BY EMAMEH GABRIEL
A whisper is crawling into the ears of former President Goodluck Jonathan these days. It happened late last year, just the way it came and went before the 2023 presidential election. I do not know who is whispering. I cannot see or hear the source. But I can smell it from a distance.
The newspapers are filled with stories that Jonathan is plotting a return to contest the 2027 presidential election. Apparently, he wants to come back and complete some unfinished business, maybe the business he left behind when the Nigerian electorate politely showed him the exit in 2015.
If Jonathan were Peter Obi, I would have concluded that he is taking advice from a wandering man who has no address. But Jonathan is not Peter Obi. So I am forced to consider another possibility. Perhaps something unusual, something not entirely human, is whispering to him from the shadows of his library in Yenagoa. Because what else can explain a former president, already resting comfortably in history’s good graces, deciding to jump back into the lion’s den?
Let me help Jonathan with some information that his new whispering companions have probably forgotten to mention.
Jonathan was never a popular politician. Let the record show this clearly. He was not a grassroots mobilizer like Awolowo. He was not a charismatic firebrand like Abiola. He was not even a regional strongman like some of his contemporaries. What Jonathan had was something far more powerful than popularity. He had luck. And then he had more luck. And then when the luck ran out, he had even more luck on the rebound.
He became deputy governor in 1999 after being chosen as running mate to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who won the Bayelsa State gubernatorial election. He became governor in 2005 after Alamieyeseigha was impeached by the Bayelsa State House of Assembly on corruption charges. He became vice-president in 2007 after being selected as running mate to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who won the presidential election, one of the most controversial elections ever conducted in the history of the country. He became president in 2010 because Yar’Adua died after a long illness, and the constitution demanded that the vice-president complete the term. That is four promotions in one political lifetime. Even in the Nigerian civil service, where people sleep on their desks waiting for a step-up, that kind of acceleration is unheard of.
He won his own election in 2011, yes. But popular? No. He was simply the man on the ballot who had the machinery of the state behind him. There is a difference. A big difference.
And here is the truth that Jonathan’s new admirers, the ones who suddenly discovered him after 2015, will never tell him. The country would have been in a much deeper, darker, more dangerous hole if he had continued in 2015. By the time he was packing his bags, Boko Haram had turned the North-East into a graveyard. Chibok girls were missing. The economy was coughing blood. Corruption had become so brazen that public officials were literally caught on video stuffing dollars into their personal safes. It was not a pretty picture.
Do not mistake me. Buhari was no miracle worker. He tried. He failed in many ways. But the rot the PDP left behind was generational. You do not fix sixteen years of damage in eight years. You do not even fix it in sixteen. The evidence is not hidden. It is in the unemployment numbers. It is in the abandoned projects. It is in the empty treasury they handed over. Let us not rewrite history.
But somehow, magically, the moment Jonathan handed over to Buhari, something strange happened. His image began to undergo a miraculous transformation. The man who was being criticised daily suddenly became a saint. The president who was accused of sleeping on the job became a statesman. How did this happen?
The only reason, the only reason, Jonathan is now loved by so many Nigerians is because he made one telephone call on March 31, 2015. That call changed everything. When he realized that he had lost the election to Buhari, some bad eggs in his government, the same bad eggs who had been feasting on the national treasury, gathered around him and whispered sweet, dangerous things into his ears.
“Declare a state of emergency.”
“Suspend the results.”
“You are the president. You cannot be defeated.”
“Remember what they did in Ivory Coast.”
But Jonathan refused. He picked up the phone. He called Buhari. He congratulated him. And then he made do with the seven words he used during the campaigns that will forever be engraved on his tombstone: “Nobody’s ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian.”
That one sentence, one moment and one act of grace was the entire foundation upon which Goodluck Jonathan’s post-presidency reputation rests. One phone call.
And for that, Nigeria says thank you. We mean it. Thank you, Goodluck Jonathan. You saved us from what could have been a catastrophic meltdown. You chose the nation over your own ego. That takes courage. That takes character. That takes something that many African leaders do not have.
But thank you does not mean welcome back.
Jonathan has nothing left to prove to Nigeria. Nothing. He has already secured his place in history as the man who conceded defeat and walked away peacefully. That is a legacy that most former African leaders can only dream of. Why would anyone want to trade that legacy for the humiliation of a second defeat? Why would anyone want to return to Aso Rock just to be shown the door again, this time without the grace of a concession call because there is no second miracle?
Unless something is whispering to him. Something that does not have his best interests at heart.
Now, Let Us Talk About the Man Who Finally Got What He Has Been Running From
While Jonathan is busy listening to whatever strange creatures are murmuring in his ears, Peter Obi just stumbled into another political opportunity of his life. And I say “stumbled” deliberately because he did not fight for it. He simply showed up as usual, and the door opened by itself.
Yesterday, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the new opposition party that Obi recently joined after his usual quick exit from the ADC, has gone ahead and zoned its presidential ticket to the South. The decision was made at the party’s convention in Abuja. One motion. And just like that, Peter Obi, without doubt, will become its frontrunner.
Now, why is this funny? Because Peter Obi has never, I repeat, never, contested and won a competitive national primary in his entire political career.
In 2003, he wanted to run for governor of Anambra under the PDP. But when the primaries became too hot, too crowded, too unpredictable, he found his way to APGA and rode on the coattails of the late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. No primary battle. No cutthroat contest. Just a direct lane.
In 2019, he became Atiku’s vice-presidential nominee. No primary needed. Atiku chose him. Simple.
In 2023, he landed in the Labour Party. There were other aspirants, yes. Pat Utomi was there. Others were there. But they all stepped aside or were pushed aside. Obi walked in and collected the ticket like someone picking up a takeaway order. No serious contest and that was it.
And then came 2026. Obi joined the ADC. Atiku was there. Amaechi was there. Hayatu-Deen was there. For the first time in his life, Obi was looking at a primary where he would have to face two political heavyweights with deep pockets, deeper networks, and hunger that matched his own. What did he do? He did what he has always done. He packed his bags. He grabbed his followers. And he relocated to the NDC.
This is observable, repeatable, predictable behaviour.
Now, in the NDC, the zoning has done all the hard work for him. Kwankwaso, his main rival in the coalition, is from the North. The ticket is zoned to the South. That means Kwankwaso cannot even stand on the starting line. The only southerners left in the race are people whose names do not invoke the kind of frenzy that Obi’s name does. Which means Obi will walk into the NDC primary, the delegates will nod their heads, and the ticket will be his.
At the convention, when the zoning motion was moved, Obi was seated in the hall. Witnesses said he was smiling. Not a small smile. A wide, generous, almost-too-big-for-his-face smile. And why not? He had just been handed the keys to the opposition presidential ticket without a single vote being cast against him.
His supporters will call this strategy. They will say he is a chess master, moving pieces across the board while others are still trying to find their seats. They will say he saw the ADC was rigged against him and wisely jumped to a safer ship. They will say many things.
Peter Obi has built an entire political career on finding the path of least resistance. He does not fight primaries. He avoids them. He does not defeat rivals. He outruns them. He does not win contested battles. He finds a battlefield where no one is standing.
And you know what? That is not necessarily a bad thing. Politics is about winning, not about how you won. But let us not pretend that Obi is a political gladiator who has slain giants in the arena. He is more like a man who keeps finding back doors that lead straight to the throne room.
The Parting Note to Jonathan and the Whisperers
So here we are. Two opposition figures moving in opposite directions.
Jonathan, who already has a legacy that any former African leader would envy, is being whispered to by voices that seem determined to drag him back into the mud. Someone needs to tell those voices to shut up. Jonathan has done his part. He should sit down, eat his yams with fresh fish, read his books, and watch the drama from a safe distance.
Obi, on the other hand, just received another freebie of his political life. The NDC handed him a zoned ticket on a golden platter. Now the question is simple: what will he do with it?
Will he finally face a real, contested election against the formidable machinery of President Bola Tinubu? Or will he find another back door before the main event?
Only the next chapter will tell. But for now, let us all laugh a little. Because in Nigerian politics, if you are not laughing, you are probably crying. And crying is expensive. Laughter is free.
So laugh. Laugh at Jonathan’s mysterious whisperers. Laugh at Obi’s permanent allergy to primaries. Laugh at the beautiful, ridiculous, endlessly entertaining circus that is our democracy.
And pass the popcorn.
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