Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has recounted how he endured tension in the Presidential Villa when he was serving as Vice President.
Speaking during an interview with the Rainbow Book Club about his memoir ‘My Transition Hours’, recounted what transpired between him and some northerners when his former boss, Umar Yar’Adua, was battling ill health.
He alleged that there were conspiracies aimed at booting him out of the Villa in a bid to deny the South the opportunity to succeed Yar’Adua.
According to the former Nigerian leader, the country was at that time, tense following the “North-South, Christian-Muslim divide. “Every day I was hearing about a coup”, he noted.
He revealed that sometime when Yar’Adua was out of the country following his deteriorating health condition, he was advised by some friends to vacate the Presidential Villa for his safety.
Jonathan said he turned down the advice and decided to stay back in the Presidential Villa, not minding what may happen to him.
“I remember one day, I was still Vice President, they had not even moved the Doctrine of Necessity, and some of my friends came and said, ‘No, you don’t have to sleep here. You have to come and sleep in my guesthouse.
“I said, ‘No.’ I will stay in the State House. If anybody wants to k!ll me, you should k!ll me in the State House so Nigerians will know that they assassinated me in the State House. They know I have not committed any offence,” he said.
In a previous interview, Goodluck Jonathan narrated the same sentiment. He said: “When YarAdua was too ill to govern, he wrote a letter to hand over power to me but one of his aides refuse to deliver the letter. Nigeria had no president, and no commander in chief. I was hearing about coup and some people felt I could be killed.
“They advised me to move to a guest house but I said no, if they (coup plotters) want to k!ll me, let them kill me inside the state house. Before I will go to a guest house and get k!lled then the story will be that some Indian girls came to give me apple in a hotel” -Goodluck Jonathan on his time as VP.
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