The unfortunate death of former Bayelsa state governor, Saturday, who died reportedly of high blood pressure at the Port harcourt University hospital comes as the fourth death of intimate bosses, mentors and teachers in the lifetime of Nigeria’s former president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
The former president had earlier lost his Masters degree supervisor with whom he started his uncompleted doctoral degree.
Prof. Charles Bruce Powell who supervised Jonathan’s Hydrobiology Masters degree and uncompleted PhD passed in 1998. This must have been a painful loss for the former president and part of what led to his not completing the post graduate degree.
While elected as Vice president of Nigeria, Jonathan’s boss and the then president of Nigeria, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua passed in May of 2007 under suddenly severe-on-chronic medical conditions, though the the former president had suspected he was poisoned according to Wikileakes US cables.
This April, Professor Okachi Fyneface Okala passed. He was pioneer, Dean of the Post Graduate School and a permanent member of the university senate as well as former Deputy Provost of the then Rivers State College of Education and head of Campus Ndele, where Goodluck Jonathan worked from 1993 to 1998, as his only non political employment.
Late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who passed on the 10th of this month, was Jonathan’s boss as governor of Bayelsa state from 1999 to 2005. Jonathan took over from Diepreye Alamieyeseigha in 2005 when he was arrested for money laundering in the United Kingdom.
These four men have been influential and all the direct teachers and bosses of the former president and witnessing all their deaths would surely have an impact on him.
NewsRescue condoles the former president; we can imagine how hard it must be to have lost his teachers and all former mentors and bosses.
