2027 poll: Can Jonathan defy wife's voice and run for president?

2027 poll: Can Jonathan defy wife’s voice and run for president?

By Ehichioya Ezomon

“Behind every successful man, there is a woman,” is the catchphrase a woman deploys to stress her importance and relevance in a man’s life. Is there also a woman behind an unsuccessful man? Perhaps not! Because, an unsuccessful man is alone in his failure. A woman credits herself for the success of a man. But she ascribes the man’s failure to refusal to take her advice.
The 2027 General Election is renewing the debate about the place of a woman (wife) in the success or failure of a man (husband). Nigeria’s former First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, is thrust in the middle of the discussion, as her husband, former President Goodluck Jonathan (aliased ‘GEJ’), weighs another presidential run at the behest of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The PDP – out of power at the federal level since its avowed unbroken 60-year suzerainty was cut short after 16 years (1999-2015) – has tried unsuccessfully to repair its battered image, which’s suffered three consecutive defeats at the poll, chiefly on account of its echelons’ rabid ambitions.
Ahead of 2027, the depleted party thinks Dr Jonathan’s candidacy can attract many of its defected heavyweights back, energise the base, and draw nationwide support to halt attempts by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to carve a pathway for President Bola Tinubu to secure re-election.
Not unexpectedly, Jonathan faces headwinds in several fronts, the most threatening being his “eligibility” for re-election, having been reportedly “sworn in twice” as President, as per the provisions of the amended 1999 Constitution of Nigeria.
The worry is, Jonathan will likely face provisions of the Constitution to wit, Section 137(1)(a), which bars a person from running for President if “he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections,” and 137(3) (introduced in the 2017 alteration to the Constitution after Jonathan left office), that says, “A person who was sworn-in as President to complete the term for which another person was elected as President shall not be elected to such office for more than a single term.”
“This will put GEJ’s eligibility directly in issue. The question will be simple: having inherited the presidency from President (Umaru Musa) Yar’Adua and served a full elected term from 2011 to 2015, is he still eligible to run again in 2027?” asked lawyer and teacher, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, in a piece, “#GEJ2027: A hostage in the lap of the judges,” published across mainstream and online media in the past week.
Odinkalu painted a scenario of what may happen: “On that question, the judges will not be apolitical. In litigation, this will be presented as a legal question. In reality, it is a political one and this is where the second issue arises. Where in 2015, GEJ enjoyed the favours of judicial complaisance and the presumption against judicial defection from incumbents, that presumption would count against him in 2027.
“And where in 2015, no judge could be found to bump him from the race under cover of judicial ceremony, there will be no end to the number of judges happy to oblige the incumbent in 2027 with precisely that kind of judicial cover for a political hit job.”
Odinkalu then entered the uncharted and forbidden political arena where you don’t advice a politician not to take a plunge because of your genuine fear of the uncertainties ahead. He’s telling Jonathan not to run!
His words: “GEJ should know that those importuning him for a tilt at the presidency in 2027 are clutching at withered straws. The judicial landscape he left in 2015 is radically different from what he will confront should he choose to throw his hat into the ring 12 years later in 2027.
“The odds are that, whatever GEJ does, his ambitions will fall to a judicial hit job made to look all very legal. He can choose to risk it, safe in the assurance that his ambitions will be crushed in the laps of the judges; Or he can choose to continue in the life of a statesman who still has a lot to offer to his country in meaningful leadership.”
But Odinkalu’s (and Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN)) counsel to Jonathan – not to fall for one-chance politicians baying to use him for selfish interests in 2027 – earned him an instant warning from Jonathan’s brother, Azibaola Robert.
In a Facebook post, Mr Robert asked Odinkalu to steer clear, as Jonathan “doesn’t need his unsolicited legal advice to take his political decisions.” The poser: Will Jonathan also defy his wife’s avowal not to return to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, but to support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election?
Former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, taking a stand for her husband on the anticipated 2027 presidential showdown between President Tinubu and opposition candidates, wasn’t entirely surprising given her strong-willed, no-nonsense disposition that courts controversies, as she treads where women fear to walk, and bares her mind on hot-button issues, unmindful about ruffling feathers in the process.
Mrs Jonathan’s in her element on Saturday, May 11, 2025, when she practically shot down any suggestion of her husband’s return to Aso Rock, noting that ascendancy to Nigeria’s presidency is “turn by turn.”
This comes as the canvassing to draft Jonathan into the race hadn’t gained its current traction, such that those for and against his running in 2027 are now evenly matched, offering unsolicited advice, and shouting themselves hoarse in the media.
Receiving an award, ‘The Women Icon Leader of the Year,’ from Accolades Dynamics Limited in Abuja, Mrs Jonathan, perhaps reflecting on the adage, “One good turn deserves another,” said that having received the support of Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi, in 2011, it’s time to reciprocate.
The audience included Tinubu’s daughter and Iyaloja-General of Nigeria, Mrs Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, who Mrs Jonathan addressed directly, as she asked other presidential aspirants for 2027 to “back off” and allow Tinubu an unfettered chance to complete eight years in office.
According to reports by multiple media outlets, Mrs Jonathan, telling Mrs Tinubu-Ojo not to lose sleep over her father’s re-election, said that Nigeria “can only have one president at a time.”
Mrs Jonathan’s words: “I was supposed to call her (Folashade) first, but I saved her for last: the daughter of our wonderful President, the President of Nigeria, the one and only we believe in, President Bola Tinubu.
“Iyaloja, thank you for standing with women because these are your women. Carry them along; they are with you. All the way, we are with you. No shaking. We will follow. Direct us, and we will follow because there is only one President at a time. We don’t have two Presidents.”
Refreshing the audience memory, Mrs Jonathan added: “I am outspoken. If I don’t like something, I will say it. But if I like something, I die with it. I believe in one President. I believe in turn by turn. When it’s your turn, I will support you. When it’s not your turn, step back, so that the country can move forward.”
Mrs Jonathan traced her cordial relationship with First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, to before Tinubu’s presidency, stating that rather than seek to return to Aso Rock with Jonathan, they’d stand by Tinubu to continue in office till 2031.
“I didn’t just know her (Mrs Tinubu) just because she’s the First Lady, no,” Mrs Jonathan said. “We worked together. We worked as a group. We are groups. We worked when I was a deputy governor’s wife. We worked when I was a governor’s wife.
“Even when my husband was the vice president (later sworn in as President after the death of President Yar’Adua in 2010), Oluremi stood with her husband and supported us during our first election (in 2011). They supported us. So, for me, I have a conscience. I cannot abandon my friend, whether you like it or not.”
Noted for being verbose and repetitive, Mrs Jonathan stressed the turn-by-turn presidency, saying: “You see, this is turn by turn. Today is my turn, I will go. Tomorrow, it will be another person’s turn, they we go. And when we go, will we still meet. Where will we meet, I don’t know.
“I stand by my friend (Oluremi). My friend is great. I told her I would campaign with her. I’m not denying her. I’m not running (to be First Lady again). I’m not going back to the Villa. If you call me, I will not go” – implying the Jonathans won’t return to the Villa for another four years in office.
Mrs Jonathan capped her remarks in anecdotes about how she looks these days outside of the Villa, where Mrs Tinubu metaphorically sweats. “I say it every day, ‘Don’t you like how young I look?’ (And) People say, ‘Mama, you are young, you are young!’ It is because I have rest of mind, yes,” she said.
“I don’t want to go (back) there (Villa); let my friend (Oluremi) be there. Let me also ‘wahala’ (trouble) her the way she used to ‘wahala’ me when I was there! Let me also tease her. And she will be young when she comes out. But for now, she won’t be young,” she added.
Is Mrs Jonathan’s declaration a kind of “the genie is out of the bottle,” which Jonathan can’t deny or defy as probably coming from his wife’s behind-the-scenes pleas, persuasion and subtle blackmail not to listen to the antics of PDP members and other power-starved partisans wanting his entrance into the 2027 contest to feather their nests?
And if Dr Jonathan listens to the magic wand-waving politicians offering him a free ticket, and a guaranteed victory against President Tinubu, will Dame Jonathan – as “the woman behind the man” – claim credit for his success at the poll, or in the event of a defeat, ascribe the failure to his refusal to take her advice? Surely, interesting times lie ahead!