Former President Goodluck Jonathan, who returned to Nigeria last night, left his country home in Otuoke before the news of his return filtered into Bayelsa, SaharaReporters sources have confirmed.
Reports of his return from foreign lands seemed to authenticate a reported statement from him denying our story that he was in exile in Ivory Coast, but it is unclear why he departed abruptly.
By Thursday afternoon when some of his kinsmen thronged his Otuoke home, he had slipped out, and they were all told that the former President had left for Port Harcourt.
At the premises, some security men were seen turning visitors back.
"He just left for Port Harcourt en route Abuja; the aircraft just left," one of them was overheard telling visitors at about 2.30 pm local time on Thursday.
Kinsmen of the former president habitually throng his residence to felicitate with him and solicit financial support whenever he is in town.
Our sources have not identified his presence either in Port Harcourt or Abuja. A political analyst suggested that those destinations may have been publicized to throw interested parties off his scent.
It would be recalled that in his last letter to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Jonathan expressed his intention to launch his foundation this summer.