Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan accepts his party’s nomination to seek a second term

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday formally accepted the nomination of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to seek a second and final term of office at next year’s presidential and general election.

“I, Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, have accepted to present myself on the platform of the PDP,” he told party supporters at a rally in the country’s capital Abuja.

Jonathan has been head of state of Africa’s most populous nation, leading economy and top oil producer since 2010, when he took over following the death of president Umara Yar’Adua, winning elections in 2011.

However, some state rebel governors and legislators are unhappy at Jonathan, a southern Christian, seeking re-election in defiance of an unwritten rule to rotate the presidency with the Muslim north.

For the country’s main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), Jonathan’s tenure has been far from a success, particularly on security and his perceived failure to tackle Boko Haram.

The Islamist violence, which began in 2009 a year before Jonathan stepped up from vice-president when President Umara Yar’Adua fell ill and later died, has been a defining feature of his tenure. The violence has claimed more than 5,000 lives in 5 years.

On Monday, a Boko Haram suicide bomber killed at least 47 high school students in Yobe state, northeast Nigeria, in one of the worst attacks on a school teaching a so-called Western curriculum.