Former Nigeria President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday declared that but for the support he enjoyed from the late Ijaw leader and former Bayelsa State governor, Chief Diepriye Alamieyeseigha, he would not have become the nation’s president.

Jonathan made the declaration when he paid a condolence visit to Alamieyeseigha family at Opolo in Yenagoa yesterday.

Assuring the Alamieyeseighas, especially the widow and children, of his continued support, Dr. Jonathan acknowledged that without the role the late Governor-General of the Ijaw nation played in his life, he would not have risen to become the President of Nigeria.

Jonathan said: “I knew Alamieyeseigha during the UNCP days, when we were working for him. I never knew I was going to be his deputy governor because that was not my interest then.

“From that time, the political evolution in the country and the state brought me to run with him