Jonathan Celebrated by Friends for Winning 2025 Sunhak Award

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The stock of former president, Goodluck Jonathan, waxed stronger on Easter Sunday as his friends hosted him to a reception for winning the 2025 Sunhak Peace Award at the Abuja home of Azibaola Roberts, managing director of Kakatar Construction Company.
He received the award in Seoul, South Korea, on April 11 for his consistent mediations and pro-democracy activities to bring peace to the African continent since he peacefully relinquished power in 2015 after losing the presidential election. Jonathan received the 2025 and sixth series of Sunhak Peace Award, organised by Sunhak Peace Prize Foundation in Seoul, South Korea.
Jonathan is the third person and the first African leader to win this category of the award after former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, and Prime Minister of Cambodia, Mr. Hun Sen.
Friends of the former president, and his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, popularly known as Mama Peace, who also received an award for peace, honoured them at a cocktail reception.
Roberts, who was emotional about Jonathan, said the former president represented to him the ideal model and mentor of a lifetime. He described him as an encyclopedia which he has been understudying, and offered to give up his palatial home to Jonathan should he as much as express a need for it.
“We know Goodluck as a man of peace, easygoing, hardworking and full of energy. I’m personally motivated by him.”
He said if he would write an epitaph for Jonathan, it would read, “The most peaceful person I have come across.”
Delving deeper into the Jonathan persona, he revealed, “If you report his friends to him, he will always tell you, ‘That’s the nature of human beings.’ When he goes to his farm, you’ll be panting to keep up with his pace. He wakes up at 5.00am, prays, bathes, goes to the office by 8 am and stays till 7pm. He comes back, bathes, eats and receives visitors till late.”
Roberts, Jonathan’s cousin and confidant, further opened the former president’s spiritual nature. “He fasts more than any other person in Nigeria. He fasts with Muslims, and he fasts with Christians. He doesn’t care where he lives. Money and wealth are not his things.”
On Jonathan’s impact, Roberts called him “Pope Goodluck Jonathan” and explained that his mantra is, “Be at peace with your neighbour.” He said the peace in Nigeria today is because Jonathan is a man of peace. “Thank you, my brother, for giving us peace. You made a sacrifice in 2015 and handed over. That is a legacy all Nigerians cherish. Continue to make yourself available to the global community for leadership.”
He described Patience Jonathan as “the woman Jonathan built peace with.”
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 presidential election, who was the chairman of the reception, said the award was well deserved. “There is no special day to celebrate this award than today, Easter Day, which is a day of sacrifice. We will continue to celebrate you for the sacrifice you made for this country to be at peace. You have put in a lot of efforts to ensure there is peace in Nigeria, Africa and the world as a whole,”
Labran Maku, a minister of information under Jonathan, lamented that Jonathan has been recognised in faraway South Korea, like the Biblical prophet without honour in his community. He reminded Nigerians that Jonathan asserted that his political ambition was not worth the blood of anyone. That philosophy saved the country from wanton bloodshed.
Maku, described Jonathan as a patriot and transformer. “All Nigerians are delighted in this award, because Mr. President, for all his days in power, both as governor of Bayelsa State and President of Nigeria, upheld the ethics of peace and national transformation. It is not easy to find in our clan, around this continent, a leader that will say the presidency of a nation is not worth the blood of the citizens.
“That statement was epochal, and it stood him out. In 2015, he made a national sacrifice, he refused to fight. He handed back government, the first time in Nigeria that someone would lose an election and refuse to go to court. May the significance of this event impact on our nation and our search for peace in all communities in Nigeria, yield fruits with this recognition from far away South Korea.”
Hassan Tukur, a former Principal Private Secretary to the former President, described the Sunhak Global Peace Prize Award as well deserved. He said Jonathan demonstrated his love for peace during the crises in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Guinea-Bissau during his tenure as president of Nigeria.
Jonathan led the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, African Union, AU, and the United Nations, UN, to restore peace in Côte d’Ivoire during the crisis that followed the disputed 2010 presidential runoff election between former president Laurent Gbagbo and his former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.
“Without President Jonathan’s intervention, the peace wouldn’t have been possible. He saved life, he saved people, and he saved the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. Today, the country is one of the most peaceful countries in this sub-region. There was also crisis in Mali when Jonathan was in office. He was the only President that took his plane and went to Mali in the middle of crisis, sat down there for 12 hours negotiating with all the various interested parties. Up to date, the Malians are grateful that he was the only sitting president who visited their country in the height of their crisis and addressed their problems.
“This honour is not only to former president Jonathan and his family, but to Nigerians and the country. He is a humanist. He is a man of peace. He is a man of integrity. And he is a man of foresight,” Tukur said.
Venerable Onwuzurumba, chaplain of Aso Villa Chapel then, spoke from the heart. “My prayer for you is that nobody, no group of people or politicians should disgrace you. The Nigerian political space doesn’t deserve you; they call black, white and white, black! This is the time Nigerians will know they lost a gem. Jonathan had the team and the plan to rescue Nigeria.
“Since he left office, he has devoted his life to peace. He has a good heart and is Godfearing. God gave Nigeria a gift and they rejected it. May God forgive Nigeria!”
Jonathan said the award was not just a personal honour to him but to all that are dedicated to democracy in Africa. He described the reception as a “most humbling day”. His first impulse was to tell Roberts “Not to bother” but he relented.
He revealed what drives him. “Actually, I hate to see people suffering. That was why I wanted to stay in small Bayelsa State and help the people. That has been my fear, and that was why I was very reluctant when I was approached to come to the centre to be vice president. I said, look, Bayelsa is a small state, let me see what I can do with this small state, whether I can make significant changes, but today here I am.
“I wouldn’t say much, but only to thank you and to reassure you that my commitment to peace will continue. I will continue to do my little best until the last day I will live on earth. I believe that’s the only way I can serve God, by serving man,”
Among the dignitaries at the event were King Amalate Turner, paramount Ruler of the Oloibiri Kingdom in Bayelsa State; and Olori Elizabeth Opeoluwa Akinmuda, wife of Ooni of Ife, who proposed the toast at the event.
President Bola Tinubu had congratulated Jonathan on the award, which he described as a landmark achievement.
The President stated that Dr Jonathan’s winning the Sunhak Peace Award affirms his bold efforts in peacebuilding and promoting democracy in Africa and beyond.
“The President recalls the former President’s historic acceptance of the results of the 2015 presidential election and his peaceful handover of power to an opposition party, which bolstered the nation’s democratic profile,” the President said in a statement issued by Bayo Onanuga, Senior Special Adviser on Information and Strategy.