Why I’ll never accept opportunity to return to Aso Villa — Patience Jonathan

Patience Jonathan, wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, has revealed reasons she would never accept an opportunity to return to the Aso Rock Villa.

Mrs Jonathan’s husband was Nigeria’s president from 2010 to 2015.

Before becoming Nigeria’s president, Mr Jonathan served as the vice president to the late President Umar Yar’adua. He initially stepped in as the acting president when Mr Yar’adua fell ill, and fully assumed the president’s position when Mr Yar’adua died in 2010. However, he lost his reelection bid, which would have enabled him to stay in the Aso Villa for another four years, to former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.

At an event in Abuja on Friday, Mrs Jonathan reminisced about her time as the president’s spouse and key figure of the first family in the Aso Villa. The event was a colloquium arranged to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

The 58-year-old, known for her humorous but confident English-speaking quirks during her husband’s administration, said: “The stress of Nigeria is too much. I won’t go there if you call me now for the Villa. I won’t. Don’t you see how young I am looking? The stress is so much.

“The stress of Nigeria is so much. If God manages to bring you out of it, you should glorify God and thank him. It is the Lord’s doing, and (it is) marvellous in our eyes. He took you there once, so why do you want to go there again? I won’t go.”

Election Aftermath

Sharing her reflections about her husband’s defeat in 2015, Mrs Jonathan said she encouraged her husband not to cling to office.

In 2015, there were speculations before the election and the release of the poll’s full results that Mr Jonathan would not leave office even if he lost the election to Mr Buhari.

Refuting the speculation, Mrs Jonathan said his husband never opted for such a path but gracefully accepted the outcome and conceded defeat to his opponent, Mr Buhari, without resistance or public outcry.

“When we failed the election, we were together in the room when we were told we had lost. I did not whisper to him that we must stay because we would shed blood.

“Innocent people would die, and we didn’t know who would die. It might be me, it might be you or my brother and sisters. We didn’t need anybody to die”, she added.”

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After completing the late Mr Yar’adua’s four-year tenure as president, Mr Jonathan won election for a fresh four-year term in 2011.

However, he lost his reelection bid to former President Buhari in 2015.