Goodluck Jonathan
President of Nigeria from 2010 to 2015
Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan () (born 20 November 1957) is a Nigerian politician who served as the president of Nigeria from 2010 to 2015. He lost the 2015 presidential election to former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari and was the first incumbent president in Nigerian history to lose re-election.
He was named Azikiwe by his grandmother in honor of Nigeria’s first President Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Previously, Jonathan served as the vice president of Nigeria from 2007 to 2010 under the administration of Umaru Musa Yar'Adua; and in oil-rich Bayelsa State as governor from 2005 to 2007, and deputy governor from 1999 to 2005. In 2015, Jonathan became the first Nigerian president to concede election defeat. It allowed the transfer of power to the opposition party in Africa's biggest democracy—a country that had hitherto experienced vote-rigging and violence.
Early life and education
Jonathan was born on 20 November 1957 in Ogbia to a Christian Ijaw family of canoe makers, in Otuoke, Bayelsa State. His father, Lawrence Ebele Jonathan, was a canoe maker and his mother, Eunice Ayi Ebele Jonathan, was a retired farmer. Their middle name Ebele or Ebelechukwu is of Igbo origin of the Igbo people.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Goodluck Jonathan” as president of Nigeria from 2010 to 2015. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q57380. VIAF identifies the subject as 4407716. The Library of Congress control number is n2008059658. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 2010, 2015 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Goodluck Jonathan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.