Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan was born on the 20th day of November 1957 in the little water-locked town of Otuoke in the Ogbia Local Government Area of present day Bayelsa State, South-South, Nigeria. His parents Mr. Lawrence and Mrs. Eunice Jonathan were from the minority Ijaw tribe and earned a living by engaging in canoe making, subsistence farming, and small-scale fishing and thus hadn’t the privilege of adequate financial resources.
However, by a measure of grit on his parents’ part, a combination of academic willingness, plus strokes of good fortune on the young Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s part, he was able to attend school and successfully completed his primary education at St. Michael’s Primary School in Oloibiri and his secondary education at Mater Dei High School in Imiringi; where in 1975 he sat for and passed the West African Examinations Council’s O' level examinations with flying colours. Much later, in several of his political campaign speeches leading up to the 2011 Presidential elections in Nigeria, Mr. Jonathan would recount the experiences of those days where he had to trek to and from school without any shoes because his parents’ meager earnings couldn’t support the “luxury” of a decent pair of footwear.
