Presidential elections were held in Nigeria on 16 April 2011, postponed from 9 April 2011. The election followed controversy as to whether a northerner or southerner should be allowed to become president given the tradition of rotating the top office between the north and the south after the death of Umaru Yar'Adua, a northerner, when Goodluck Jonathan, another southerner assumed the interim presidency.

Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is a Nigerian politician who served as the president of Nigeria from 2010 to 2015. He lost the 2015 presidential election to former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari and was the first incumbent president in Nigerian history to concede defeat in an election and therefore allow for a peaceful transition of power.