Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that a key aide to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua deliberately sabotaged efforts to make him acting president in 2010, plunging the nation into a constitutional crisis.
Jonathan made the disclosure during an interview with the Rainbow Book Club, which has been generating reactions across the country.
According to him, President Yar’Adua had written a formal letter to the National Assembly before leaving Nigeria for medical treatment abroad, with clear instructions to transfer executive powers to his then-vice president.
However, Jonathan explained that the aide, whose name he withheld, refused to submit the letter, leaving Nigeria without a constitutionally recognised acting president for several months while Yar’Adua remained incapacitated.
“There was a letter written by Yar’Adua before he travelled, as the constitution requires, informing the Senate and the House of Representatives to empower me to act. But the person entrusted with the letter, an aide of the president, refused to deliver it,” Jonathan said.
The former president described the situation as dangerous for the country, stating that although he could handle certain administrative duties as vice president, he lacked the constitutional authority to act as commander-in-chief.
Jonathan stressed that no country should operate with such a vacuum in leadership, comparing the situation to the United States, where even brief medical procedures require formal transfer of power to the vice president.
He commended the National Assembly for invoking the “doctrine of necessity,” which enabled him to assume full presidential powers despite the absence of the formal letter.
Jonathan added that political considerations also played a role in the resistance to him acting as president, given Nigeria’s delicate power-sharing arrangement between North and South, and between Christians and Muslims.
“There’s always a balance — North and South, Muslims and Christians. Yar’Adua was a Northern Muslim, and his health created fears about disrupting that balance,” he explained.
President Yar’Adua, who succeeded Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007, died in May 2010 after a prolonged illness. Jonathan completed the tenure and went on to win the 2011 presidential election.
