On a Platter of Gold, a book that gives definitive account of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency will be presented to the public next month.
Written by National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former minister in Jonathan’s cabinet, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the book gives detailed and largely exclusive account of the making and the unmaking of the Jonathan presidency, revealing, for the first time, some of the intrigues which surrounded the 2015 presidential election and its aftermath.
On a Platter of Gold is part history, part political thriller, which answers many of the often-asked questions about Jonathan’s incredible rise to the highest political office in the land and his unprecedented electoral defeat in 2015.
The book, which has the subtitle, “How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria” is introduced as follows: Was Goodluck Jonathan weak and clueless, as his traducers have claimed? Or, as his supporters have alleged, was he just a victim of vicious conspiracies by an entitled cabal that would stop at nothing to bring down this ‘intruder’ to power?
“From an unknown university teacher, Goodluck Jonathan rose to become president of Africa’s largest democracy, in less than a decade -most astonishingly, without winning a single vote in his name. In contesting the 2011 presidential election, he declared that growing up as the son of a fisherman in the creeks of Nigeria’s Niger Delta, he had no shoes. This message resonated with millions of Nigerians.
“‘If I can make it, then, you can as well,’ he had declared. He went on to win with the highest majority vote ever recorded in the nation’s history.”
Four years later, president Jonathan suffered a great reversal of fortunes; his magical ascendancy halted by a shocking electoral defeat. When he conceded to the winner, he was roundly celebrated as Nigeria’s hero of democracy. Not everyone agreed. But, what really happened?”
Asked why he wrote the book, Abdullahi said: “I believe journalists who find themselves in government owe it as a duty, to the profession, to tell a good story afterwards.”
A former columnist and editor, Abdullahi brought his perceptive power as a skillful analyst to bear, producing a great work of free-flowing prose. Although he was, himself, involved in many of the events that make up the book, he managed to keep himself out the story, thereby, demonstrating a rare fidelity to objectivity and balance.
in a way that only a thoroughbred journalist can do.