“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”-Forrest Grump.”
By OFONIME UMANAH
What happened in May 2010 is likely to repeat itself. Before then, Dr Goodluck Jonathan was just minding his business before the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State, brought him out to become his deputy.
On the day that Jonathan was presented to stakeholders from Bayelsa, at a hotel in Port Harcourt, neither the former lecturer nor the political heavyweights in Bayelsa dreamt that the former OMPADEC director could be considered for that office. But it happened.
Jonathan served Alamieyeseigha faithfully until what happened happened and the music changed. He saw himself as governor of the state, against the run of play. Before he could say Obasanjo, he was nominated to run as vice president to the late Musa Yar’Adua. He got into Aso Rock without doing what normal Nigerian politicians do to get power. Then, even without midnight prayers or whatever, he became Nigeria’s president on May 6, 2010. Just like that, a man from the sleepy, petit Otuoke village, in the Ogbia Local Government of Bayelsa State became Nigeria’s president.
History is about to repeat itself, 16 years after. Another south-south academic from a sleepy, petit village-Prof Sandy Ojang Onor-from Nsofang, Etung Local Government Area, of Cross River State is making history. Incidentally, Onor is a professor of history.
Just like Jonathan, Onor, a former governorship candidate of the PDP in Cross River State, may just become without any popular family background, or wealth or history, to become the president of Nigeria. He has already picked his box of chocloates. And, like Forrest Gump said, it is not known to man what the content of that box could be, just like Jonathan never knew ab initio.
On May 2, 2026, Onor strolled to the PDP secretariat in Abuja, with friends, fans, party members and loyalists, to do the unexpected. He picked the nomination form of the PDP to contest an election against a sitting Nigerian president.
As at Saturday, nobody from any other political party in Nigeria had picked a presidential form for the 2027 election outside Tinubu. Picking the PDP form has turned out to be his first uncommon feat under the current political dispensation.
In the next few months, two things are likely to happen. It is either he fails or je would succeed. If he fails at the end of the day, he would have gone down in history as a former presidential candidate. But if he succeeds, he would be the second person from the minority of minorities to emerge president of Nigeria. And politicians will always tell you that in politics, anything can happen.
