The split within the PDP began in 2010, when President Umaru Yar’Adua, a Muslim northerner, died after only three years in office, and Jonathan, an ethnic Ijaw from the south and Yar’Adua’s deputy, took his place. Northern PDP leaders complained that Yar’Adua’s predecessor, a Christian southerner, had ruled Nigeria for eight years and that it was only fair that a northerner should hold power.