( CNN ) -- Nigeria will not fall into violence over his decision to stand for elections next year , President Goodluck Jonathan said in an exclusive interview with CNN . `` I can tell you very clearly that violence will not break out because of my interests . I can tell you very clearly , '' Jonathan said in a wide-ranging interview at the presidential palace in Abuja ahead of October 1 celebrations marking 50 years of independence . Read a transcript of the interview . In September , Jonathan declared his intention to run in the October presidential primaries for his party , the People 's Democratic Party . Under Nigerian `` zoning '' rules , power must rotate between the north and the south every eight years . Jonathan -- a native of the Niger Delta region in the south -- was vice president under President Umaru Yar'Adua , from the north , when he died in May three years into his first term . `` In the first place if this country had agreed the presidency rotates between north and south I would not be the president today . I could n't have been if there is an agreement in this country that it rotates between north and south , '' Goodluck reasoned . `` I could n't have been the president the day Yar'Adua died -- another northerner would have taken over and I could have continued as the vice president . Goodluck acknowledged that Nigeria is grappling with limited resources , corruption and high poverty , despite being a world leader in oil production . However , he said , `` one thing that I know and I feel Nigeria will celebrate is continuity and peace . Yes we experienced civil war that lasted 13 months . Some other countries experienced civil wars that lasted for years . ''
Jonathan intends to run in the October presidential primaries for PDP . Jonathan was vice president under late President Yar'Adua . Yar'Adua 's death upset `` zoning '' rules , under which power rotates every eight years between regions . Jonathan is from the south ; Yar'Adua is from the north .