abdulraheem
The charade that was the 2005 National Convention of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which took place last weekend, revealed for every discerning observer of our national life, how complete the conquest of the political landscape has become by the Obasanjo clique. Complete? Well, almost. The Obasanjo clique have on their hands a soulless party, peopled by yes men, whose only abiding principle is service to their stomachs. In a context of the generalised poverty that has become the hallmark of the Obasanjo stewardship of the Nigerian state, it made sense for those entrapped in the contraption called the PDP, to remain within, with the hope that they would get a bit of the largess that Obasanjo dishes out to his cronies. The leading members of the Obasanjo clique must really be feeling a great deal of delight, at how well they have done. But any student of politics will be able to analyse and reach the conclusion that in the long run, what they were doing in Abuja last weekend was closer to a funeral wake, than a celebration of their conquest of a party that originally came into life with lofty ideals but was ambushed by Obasanjo and his clique, suffering a mortal wound in the ambush process. President Obasanjo has now achieved his ambition of a PDP cast in his image: the crudely autocratic, “all-knowing”, “all-powerful” president, has been able to strip the much-vaunted largest political party in Africa of everything democratic: its leaders were imposed, not elected; the party does not have an inner party life; it is not democratic, but a conduit for the authoritarian, top-to-down relay of orders; it is also anti-people in its shape and policies. The Nigerian political elite that imposed the old military dictator on Nigeria now have to live with the trauma of his authoritarian ways; unfortunately, the Nigerian people have had to harvest the woes of his disastrous rule over our country. But it is also important for us to point out that under the guise of “discipline and loyalty,” that has become the ethos of the Obasanjo PDP, we are going to harvest a lot of pain in the months ahead. Obasanjo is throwing down the gauntlet, especially to the North, which has come out in an organized manner to oppose the third term agenda, and also to ensure that power returns to the region in 2007. From his speech last Saturday, it is clear that Obasanjo is feeling the heat and is therefore unhappy about the turn of events. I sincerely hope that the Northern political elite remember the essential elements of the Obasanjo persona: deceptiveness, an unforgiving spirit, cruelty, seeking vengeance, amongst others. During his speech, he reminded the Northern elite that brought him to power in 1999, and which he has outwitted through a deliberate marginalization of the North in his years in power, that their being fed up with him now was unacceptable. “I believe that credentials which were found to be good enough and acceptable for holding Nigeria together when the preoccupation of most Nigerians was how to prevent the country from disintegrating” Obasanjo warned, “should not now be subject to question when together, people have worked to stabilize, regenerate, and reposition the country for unity, peace security, stability and democracy”. For greater emphasis, Obasanjo further reminded all those working to truncate the third term agenda, especially in the North, that, we should “remember that the fabric of our unity and integration is still comparatively fragile.” This quotation goes to the sinister heart of the intentions of the Obasanjo clique. Here he is reminding us that he was actually brought to power in 1999, because his sponsors, the alliance of the military cabal and sections of the Northern political elite had lost all legitimacy, and needed his “credentials” to be able to stabilize Nigeria. After the crises of the Babangida and Abacha years, Nigeria was coming so close to disintegration with the emergence of ethnic militias, calling for the dismemberment of the country, the most publicized of which was the OPC; but we all know that there were equally restive organisations in the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta Region of the country. These different groups represented a major challenge to the legitimacy of the Nigerian state, under military dictatorship. Obasanjo in that speech described such groups as “iconoclastic”, dotting the nation’s political landscape. It is implicit in this veiled threat about “the fabric of our unity and integration (being) still comparatively fragile”, that Obasanjo means that he is the only one that can therefore hold the nation together, or if he is being pressured to abandon the third term agenda then there is the possibility that the fragility he has talked about, can some how be manipulated back into an active crisis situation. A move in that direction is the latest effort being engineered to build a Southern Nigerian platform of support for Obasanjo for the third term agenda. If that fails, to mobilize the South against any effort to get power back by the North in 2007: a win-win situation from his perspective and one that he is actively funding and organising. In his speech last Saturday, he appealed to the South-South Assembly, “with some understanding” about “their well-made case and well-marshalled points” (about producing president in 2007), which “nobody will turn deaf ears to”, and went further to appeal to members of the PDP, “as the leader of the party” that “when the time comes, they should accord (him Obasanjo) the opportunity to INTERPRET OUR POLICY AND PRINCIPLES OF POWER SHIFT TO SUIT THE OCCASION (emphasis mine)”. He did not disguise the fact that this was a riposte to what he described as “the seeming agitation from the North of the country.” Obasanjo’s game plan is clear; he wants to get a third term in power. However, he has many fall back positions, and the most important one is that a crisis situation can arise out of a deadlock in the political terrain making it difficult for Obasanjo to leave office so by default earning his extra term or at the more unattractive level, to be the determinant of who will win power in 2007, if a combination of factors that have started building up, would truncate his plan to stay in power beyond 2007. The build up of opposition from Northern Nigeria to his third term bid and the effort to get power back by the North in 2007, have largely been built on the back of the deeply felt sense of frustration with Obasanjo’s conduct in power since 1999. Unable to shake off the sense of humiliation he received in the hands of General Sani Abacha, Obasanjo has turned against the North in vengeance, almost as if it was not the same North that smoothened his way back into power. He has systematically used his years in power to manipulate religious, ethnic and other loyalties to divide the peoples of Northern Nigeria, and therefore shoring up his stay in power on the back of a divided and frustrated Northern Nigeria. Northerners have watched the systematic narrowing of opportunities for our people, including the significant drop in investment in infrastructure in the region; while on the other hand Obasanjo the so-called ‘nationalist’ has systematically empowered the South West political and economic elite, pushed a lot of strategic investments into the South West, but always pretending to be the super-patriot. Obasanjo had a consistent trend of removing people from positions and somehow ending up replacing them with people from the South West. Even the sale of government houses in Abuja is said to come from an original agenda to ensure that the South West elite gets the opportunity to own as much property as possible in the FCT, because it was said that they did not come to Abuja on time, believing then that it was not going to be a reality; yet they have a preponderance of population in the Federal Civil Services, so sale of houses would benefit them most. Obasanjo is well aware that there is no love lost between him and the North today, that is one of the many reasons why he would do everything to secure the third term, or where that fails, he would stop power coming to the North and if push comes to shove, he would choose to hand over to a Northerner so beholden to Obasanjo, that the whole process of manipulating such a character into power could lead to a major crisis in the country. On the same track is the effort to mobilize other sections of Southern Nigeria against the North. The next couple of months are going to be very complex in the explosive game of power in Nigeria in the context of Obasanjo’s ambition and or intentions. A few days before the PDP Presidential Convention in 2003, a group of Editors had been invited to the LEGACY HOUSE headquarters of the Obasanjo campaign to meet with Chief Tony Anenih. It was the only time I ever met the Chief, who was surprised that the Editor of the “opposition” DAILYTRUST, was brought along to the headquarters of the Obasanjo campaign. The main issue being discussed around the building that day was the issue of Northern candidates such as Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and Chief Barnabas Gemade being allowed or being eligible to contest against Obasanjo, given the agreement within the PDP that power should be retained in the South. What struck me that day and which has remained with me, was the statement by Chief Anenih to somebody (I can’t quite recollect who) concerned about the scenario. Anenih had said something to the effect that, “leave them to contest; when the time comes for power to go to them, then our people too will contest against them.” I have recalled this event because it becomes a useful thread in the speech that Obasanjo presented at last Saturday’s pseudo convention of the PDP. Obasanjo is staking a claim to the high grounds of power. This has always been his style. He demonises everybody in order to be acclaimed as the fighter against corruption; he emasculates all other tiers of governance to impose his agenda, and then gets the spin-doctors to tell us how well he means for the country and is in such a hurry to pull us out of the morass, while everybody else wants to slow him down. But we have lived through the past six years of his serial rape of our constitutional order to accept these spins any more. Governance under Obasanjo does not respect the basic norms of a constitutional democratic society, he rules impulsively and arbitrarily and in a complex country like Nigeria, such a mix can only give birth to disaster. There can be no gainsaying the fact that Northern Nigeria has become the base of the new movement to checkmate the agenda to manipulate the constitution to ensure that Obasanjo gets a third term in power. He has therefore calculated that it is the North that must be broken or isolated as the case maybe. It is therefore important, in building the platform to checkmate Obasanjo, to be as inclusive and national as possible. That way, Obasanjo would be unable to present himself as the “reformer” who is being attacked for the “good work” he has done, but which the Northern political elite has been unhappy about. Obasanjo must be exposed for what he has increasingly become over the years, a veritable danger to the deepening of the content of the democratic process in Nigeria. The political battle ahead will be very tough and bitter, but I think that on balance, the forces mobilizing against the Obasanjo dictatorship will become far more powerful and the extraneous background of international developments, will also cut short the desperate intention of the Obasanjo clique to hang on to power. They will be defeated, and Obasanjo will have to vacate Aso Villa, with his tail between his legs, come May 2007. But what should not be underrated is the residual capacity he retains to raise up the political temperature as well as play the South against the North; this is infact the most dangerous consequence that can arise from the defeat of Obasanjo’s third term agenda. So next week, we shall begin the first part of the series titled AN AGENGA FOR A POST-OBASANJO NIGERIA. The Obasanjo clique must be decisively routed, for Nigeria to be able to rescue its democratic process. That is the heart of the agenda we shall unveil from next week.
