By Charles Pemu 
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has disclosed that a close aide to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua deliberately withheld a crucial letter intended to transfer presidential powers to him during Yar’Adua’s medical leave in 2010—triggering a major constitutional crisis.
In a newly released interview with the Rainbow Book Club that began trending on Saturday, Jonathan revealed that President Yar’Adua had signed the letter before traveling for medical treatment abroad. The letter, as required by Nigeria’s constitution, was meant to empower then-Vice President Jonathan to function as acting president. However, the aide entrusted with submitting the letter to the National Assembly failed to do so.
“The letter was written, but the person who the letter was handed over to—one of the aides of Yar’Adua—refused to submit it,” Jonathan stated, without naming the individual. “And Yar’Adua became so ill that he had no control of issues.”
This failure left Nigeria without a constitutionally recognized leader or commander-in-chief for months, as Yar’Adua was incapacitated and Jonathan lacked the legal authority to assume full presidential powers.
Jonathan explained that while he continued presiding over cabinet meetings and signing ministerial approvals as vice president, he could not act as commander-in-chief without formal authorization—creating a dangerous leadership vacuum.
He praised the National Assembly for eventually invoking the “doctrine of necessity,” a rare constitutional intervention that allowed him to assume presidential powers in February 2010, despite the absence of the official letter from Yar’Adua.
“We had a country where the president was not available, and there was no acting president,” Jonathan said. “There’s nothing like acting commander-in-chief. Either you’re commander-in-chief or not.”
Drawing a comparison with the U.S. system, he noted: “A country like America doesn’t allow that gap. Even if the president is unconscious for five minutes, they hand over to the vice president. But we stayed for some time without that.”
The former president acknowledged the political sensitivities at play, particularly the North-South, Muslim-Christian power-sharing dynamics that shaped the hesitation to transfer power to him, a Southern Christian, while Yar’Adua, a Northern Muslim, was still expected to serve a full term.
Yar’Adua passed away in May 2010. Jonathan completed the term and went on to win the 2011 presidential election. His revelations shed new light on the events that tested Nigeria’s constitutional resilience and political maturity during one of its most turbulent democratic moments.