AN OPEN LETTER TO FORMER PRESIDENT Goodluck JONATHAN.
By Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP
Sunday(Nkwo) 21-09-2025.
It is with utmost respect and sincerity of purpose that I write this letter to His Excellency, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, President And Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2010-2015.
To begin with, I would wish to state that I was one of the Peoples Democratic Party National Delegates from Abia State that voluntarily and excitedly voted for you at the Party’s 2010 National Convention at Eagle Square, in Abuja. Like millions of other Party Members and supporters, I contributed my little quota in making sure you were successful in the 2011 Presidential Election.
In 2014 National Convention, I was again privileged to be a National Delegate from Abia State, and, even though some of your Advisers misled you to print only one Presidential Nomination form which became the root cause of PDP’s crisis, as it scared away other Aspirants, especially from the North, I still voted for you.
I was one of those who grieved over your electoral loss in 2015. That was because, you acquitted yourself as a liberal-minded Leader, and a genuine friend of the Igbo.
Your failure in 2015 Presidential Election was obviously as a result a combination of many factors but notably as a result of betrayals. Many that you had considered as reliable allies were mere traitors. At the crucial moment when their loyalty should have been displayed, they stabbed you mercilessly at the back. You lost! We lost!! Nigeria lost!!!
Interestingly, you calmly walked away. You did not complain. You did not approach any Election Tribunal. You just went your way. You kept to your belief and conviction that your election was not worth the blood of any Nigerian. You were right because some ethnic desperadoes had brought in their ethnic terrorists from all over West Africa and the Sahel to cause mayhem if you had won. To their shock and bewilderment, that plot against humanity was not for you. That problem they imported, you carefully and statesmanly left it for them to solve. Till date, they have not been able to solve it. It has, rather, overwhelmed them. Terrorists here! Bandits there!
Many things have happened since you peacefully packed your personal belongings out of the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock. The summary of it all is that you have undeniably become a Statesman of immense global description and status. Currently in the world, Your Excellency, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, wear the tag of a respectable troubleshooter.
Your voice has a lot of weight. Your intervention stands as recipe for confidence, global peace and stability. Your manifestation of statesmanship has become a global standard to measure world Leaders. Your composure and peaceful disposition are now a source of pride to Africa and the Black Race.
Not many Presidents will attain your global stature.
Your Excellency, an Icon held in very high esteem as you are, is not expected to be cajoled into taking a leap into a ditch which depth is uncertain.
I have read and heard that some Nigerians are urging, no, luring you to join the 2027 Presidential race. You are eminently qualified to do so. But Your Excellency, I do not see the sincerity in this urge. I have a very strong impression that the likes of Rufai who may appear to be the brains behind this move, not forgetting that they were the same group of Politicians that ruthlessly fought you from 2013-2015, may only be laying a destructive snare for you, to mischievously achieve two things; (1) use you to make sure that the current President, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, who is of Southern Nigeria extraction is voted out by splitting votes between him and you while Atiku would coast home with victory, and
(2) to badly dent your credentials and image as a quintessential Stateman, so that after you would have lost in the 2027 election, that global respect you now command would no longer hover around you.
Whoever that is a critical observer of Nigerian Politics should know that a Leopard does not change its spots. Rufai and members of his league of desperate power adventurers can not just become your admirers or friends overnight. They only want to use you as a mere instrument to facilitate their time-held goal of making sure no Southerner governs Nigeria or, at best, enjoys stability in governance. That objective was handed to them from generation to generation, starting from their patriarch, Usman Dan Fodio.
President Tinubu, it is well known, worked against your reelection in 2015. That was then. Two wrongs do not make a right. You are urbane in every material particular. The idea of using a Southerner to destabilize another Southerner should stop.
President Tinubu has shown vision, determination, resilience, courage and objectivity in navigating the storms of governance in Nigeria. He has done quite well in all departments of governance. He should, rather, be encouraged instead of being subjected to a fierce divisive competition with a fellow Southerner which only objective is to divide the South and rule it.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
