(updates with quote, background) ABUJA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Nigerian ruling party presidential candidate Umaru Yar'Adua said on Sunday Goodluck Jonathan, governor of Bayelsa state in the oil-producing Niger Delta, would be his running mate in next year's elections. The choice of Jonathan, an ethnic Ijaw, could be seen as an attempt to address a rising wave of militancy -- some of it linked to the 2007 election -- in the vast southern wetlands, home to the oil and gas resources of the OPEC member nation. "I have picked Bayelsa State Governor Goodluck Jonathan as my running mate," Yar'Adua said on Nigerian television just hours after he was chosen as the People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate to stand for president in April. The vote is set to be the country's first fully democratic transition in Nigerian history. Yar'Adua, 55, is a reclusive Muslim governor from Katsina state in Nigeria's north. His candidacy rests almost exclusively on the support of President Olusegun Obasanjo. He is little known even among the political elite, having rarely left his remote northern state in seven years as governor. Having a running mate from the south of the country will extend the geographic appeal of his candidacy.
