DEEP-SEATED UNCERTAINTY IN NIGERIA, IF ANOTHER FOUR YEARS OF OBASANJO

by

Professor Omo Omoruyi

Research Fellow, African Studies Center,

Boston University.

CEO, Advancing Democracy in Africa (ADA).

The wave of organized endorsement of the President by various groups is ant-democratic if not fraudulent. But the one by the PDP Governors in spite of their complaints and cry of marginalization by the people of the areas they govern further raises what I call the deep-seated uncertainty in Nigeria. Do they see their endorsements of Chief Obasanjo for President or his election as inextricably tied to their fortune in politics? I do not see it that way.

I could vote for the PDP Governor of my State; I don’t have to and I will not vote for the PDP President (even if I am a PDP member) who stands against everything our people believe in. I could still split my vote for the two offices if they are on the same ticket and in the same polling booth. This is what we call split-voting. I hope INEC is not asking voters to vote for one slate of candidates. The parties in Nigeria are dead. We have candidates; we want to see what they plan to do for our people. This is what we should encourage in our people to do. We should teach our people to support candidates (not parties yet) who would maximize their interests.

President Obasanjo who from his past has contempt gfor politicians and for political parties virtually killed the PDP to which he is a stranger and split other parties. Can you imagine that the Chairman of APP is his Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs and two chieftains of AD are his Attorney General and Special Adviser of Political Affairs respectively. All these people pronounce on the PDP Governors including taking the southern states to court on ownership question of oil.

How will the Governor of Bayelsa State tell his people that President Obasanjo loves them. What is going on?

I am disagreeing with the two Governors of Edo and Delta who I personally know and like. I do not like what you guys are doing. I warned you guys before that a political plan was afoot by Mr. Fix It to undermine the Governors of the ‘south-south’, if they would not drop their agitation for ‘resource control’. You should have allowed our people to see you as different from the President of your party who had betrayed your people since 1999. You should have allowed our people to vote for you and for a candidate who would support our peoples position on ‘resource control’, which you rightly articulated.

Do you know that by your recent act, you have exacerbated the deep-seated uncertainty in our area? You cannot tell our people one thing that the President is undermining our people and at the same endorse him without knowing whether he had changed his mind on what you told our people.

The notion of the deep-seated uncertainty has to do with the relationship between the past, the present and the future. When it affects a country, it can be a severe crisis. This is the problem in Nigeria today. I shall try to apply the concept of deep-seated uncertainty to three areas of Nigerian political life.

The lingering political problems;

The declining faith in the political order; and

The notion of winner and losers.

I shall deal with these areas. All I can say in response to a question what is the achievement of President, is to repeat his response he gave when asked the same question in the US, Nigeria is still one!

The President’s achievements in the list of problems called the lingering political problems afflicting the country since the annulment and death of General Abacha are fluid in all the cases. In some cases the President’s approach lacks focus. In some specific cases, the President’s approach is over-personalized. In all the cases there is no attempt at institutionalization, hence the President’s records so far are bizarre. Yes, Nigeria is still one and so what? Is the President aware of the lingering political problems afflicting the country?

The reason why the President’s record is low in resolving the lingering political problems is that the President is consciously avoiding the bases of the crises. The President has only been confronting the manifestations of these issues as they arise and prays they would wither away. Is he surprised that they never do?

What President Obasanjo failed to appreciate is that these problems would not wither away because he prays so; they would continue to linger and would manifest in various forms. My fear, which the President and the political class do seem appreciate is that the lingering problems could become cumulative crises and could overwhelm the system. Yes, Mr. President, Nigeria may continue to be one, one as what, should be the question we should answering.

My contributions in the various essays I have been writing since 1999 had been on how to avoid the cumulative crisis and by then, the President might say, Nigeria is one, but one in decay. This would be his legacy.

President Obasanjo and the political class do not yet appreciate that the lingering problems of today are manifestations of some deep-seated uncertainty as to the future from the past. This relationship between the past, the present and the future is something, which Mr. President has not yet understood. If he does, it is not yet reflected in his approach to the treatment of the manifestations of the lingering problems. I have been working on the relationship between the past, the present and the future. I shall publish my preliminary findings soon in a monograph.

The concept of the past is critical in the demands and counter-demands, claims and counter-claims among the various groups in Nigeria. Should we not discuss the varieties of the past?

For some groups in Nigeria, the past is associated with ‘the mistake of 1914’ or the ‘fraud of 1914’. Those who called 1914 a mistake in 1953 are now calling the 1914, the blessing of 1914. The exclamation, the mistake of 1914, was attributed to the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Mallam Ahmadu Bello and it arose out of the motion moved by young Tony Enahoro, never mind the revisionists in Yoruba land debating as to ‘who moved the independence motion’. I shall deal with this matter in another essay.

For some, it could be the civil war, which reduced one of the original three majority ethnic nationalities into neither a majority nor a minority ethnic nationality in Nigeria since 1970.

Still for some, it could be the June 12 1993, where they are still asking what did Abiola did wrong to deserve what he got from the geo-ethno-military-clique to lead the annulment his mandate, his arrest and his detention unto death.

For my people in Edo land, we could go back to 1897 when Britain invaded Benin, which eventually led to the signing of a Treaty of Protectorate with Britain.

For other minorities in the north and in the south, they can list a catalogue of injustices from the colonial period to the post-colonial period in the hands of majority internal colonial rulers.

For the Niger-Delta in general and the oil producing areas in particular, they see the military era as one of pillage of their god-given-resources and turn them into a ‘Nigeria’s’ property in name but the source of wealth of individual military officers in fact.

All groups without exception in the country believe that President Obasanjo is not the answer and some even go so far as to categorically state that President Obasanjo in fact is the problem. Hence they are clamoring for what different kinds of solution.

For some, they see the solution to their problem in the production of the President.

For others, it is in the ‘resource control’.

For others, it is in the restructuring.

They all believe that all the above are political; they are not just constitutional matters.

Those who are raising one question or the other have some sense of injustice from the past, which they strongly believe is still with the group in the present and which the group strongly believes ought to have been dealt under Mr. President since 1999. Why did the President not listen?

Would the President’s policy measures lead Nigeria to a democratic order? I have my doubt, not because the President is inadequate to the task, but because the President does not seem to appreciate the effect of the deep-seated uncertainty on the character of the demands on him and on the political system.

The Nigerian political class should note that this deep-seated uncertainty gives rise to citizens’ lack of faith in the system, which is extended to the lack of faith in the capacity of the political order to deliver on the problems within the period of one term. This is a crucial issue.

I hope the politicians should know that the various Nigerian groups have come to believe that the President and the politicians are under some understanding to serve for one term. Is that not why some are trying to run the clock on the President through many unresolved or lingering problems? While some are apprehensive of the plot to run the clock on the President and the political order, others are also working out their strategy of pushing for their agenda should the President’s term be restricted to one term. In fact, some are jockeying for their share of the pie as long as the President and the political order exist. Over to the President, one may ask if he aware of this seesaw game? If he is what is he doing about it?

If the President does not know, may I tell him that there is an increasing feeling among Nigerians that the present dispensation is not a system that would last. All the politicians I ran into in the past few weeks are in agreement on the future of Nigeria that the system would not last.

What I have deduces from my interactions with politicians in the various sectors of Nigeria is that all the complaints about corruption, groups’ claims and counter-claims arise from the feeling on the part of some actors that there would not be another election. To the National Assemblymen, there seems an apprehension that there would not be another opportunity or another election, which would be free, fair and credible.

Mr. President, if you do not know, majority of the Nigerian political actors tend to feel that they contested the last election in 1999. Some who are holding appointive offices seem to be feeling that they are holding the last office or appointment.

I saw manifestations of bounded uncertainty from research findings at the Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) in 1989. The solution we proffered then was that we should evolve a programmed political education to make the political class have faith in the election as part of a series of elections. The erratic system of banning and unbanning from Babangida’s changing move and moods ruined the system that was beginning to bear fruits. It opened the political space to those (all the members of the National Executive Committees and the Presidential candidates of the two political parties) that did not benefit from the programmed political education of the CDS between 1989 and 1992. The annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election finally killed the little faith the political class was beginning to have in election and the prospect of a series of elections.

Someone once asked me if President Obasanjo knew that the people he is working with either as leaders of the parties or serving with him in his cabinet or occupying position of responsibility in the National Assembly actually have no faith in the prospect of another election. I leave this to the President to answer.

Mr. President, democracy is anchored on the feeling, faith if you like.

That there would be another election.

That the winner is not the winner for all time.

That the loser is not the loser for all time.

Consequently Democracy abhors the expression attributed to Chef Anenih that there is no vacancy in the Presidential Villa in 2003. One wonders if the President knows implication of such expression. If he does not know this has been interpreted to mean two things.

That there would not be a free and fair nomination process within his party.

That there would not be a free and fair election process in 2003.

That the President’s men at work to implement a program directed at the two ends. Otherwise, one may ask, why did the President not distance himself from this kind of expression? Does the President not know that this kind of expression is at the root of the declining faith in the President’s capacity to deliver democracy now or in future? Certainly, Anenih’s assertion is anti-democratic and only reminds one of his roles in the annulment saga and during the election of the President in 1999 and during the first national convention of the PDP in November 1999.

This was why I refused to talk about sustaining democracy because there is nothing called that yet to sustain yet. What we have a militarized civilian rule, which does not grow out of the ‘will of the Nigerian people’. What we should have been doing since 1999 is how to move from a militarized civilian order to a democratic order.

What the President should have been doing since he emerged as the President through the process agreed on before he was released from the Abacha’s Gulag would have been to be a ‘bridge’.

President Obasanjo refused to be a bridge. What he should have doing is for him to serve as the bridge, strong and broad enough to rekindle faith in Nigerians that this is not the last election or the last appointment. What President Obasanjo is fighting for is to get over the one term pact he signed with his original sponsors. The way he going about this is either through an extension of the four year term to a one term of five or six years or through an organized ground swelling endorsement from PDP Governors in the country for a second term.

The extension of the one term of four years to a five/six year seems to have failed even though it would not have been an answer to the deep-seated uncertainty. He tried this through the Presidential Constitutional Review Commission headed by Clement Ebri under which zonal Constitutional Conferences would have rubber stamped a plan was rejected by the Nigerian people for its fraudulent import. The President’s plan was to rope in all elected functionaries, Governors and the National Assemblymen. He saw this a way of securing approval by the National Assembly and the Governors and the State Assembly who would be saddled with amendment process. I called it ‘Obasanjo Fool Nigeria’, another Obasanjo ‘Operation Feed Nigeria’ (OFN) of the 1970s, which turned out to be the Operation Finish the Naira. This was what I told the kind Nigerian who thought he would like to submit my name to the Presidency to be invited to Nigeria to participate. I told him it that would be turned down by the Nigerian people. When it was mooted and I was contacted if I would be prepared to participate at the national level at Abuja, I quickly sent an e-mail to the Nigerian press and called it a fraud. See the Vanguard,

The organized endorsement from the PDP Governors is another variant of the anti-democratic plan of the President to secure an extension of his one term to a second term. This is very disturbing. What did President promise them, which he failed to do since 1999 in the areas above?

What these methods portray is that the President is afraid to go to the people to seek a nomination and an reelection. We were told by his handlers that he would agree to a second term if there is ground swelling demand for him to do so.

The President and those who are managing him have no faith in a free, fair and credible election. The signs are there that there would not be a free, fair and credible election come 2003. I had supported the use of the National ID as a away of guaranteeing the number of voters in the country. That seems to be dying with the recent announcement by the INEC not to have anything to do with the French company because of the induced timetable for the completion of the ID project.

President Obasanjo does not have faith in a free, fair and credible election. Hence the many acts he had assigned to ‘Mr. Fix it’, Chief Tony Anenih to organize the renomination and reelection exercises for him. Nigerians must be made to have faith and the belief that contrary to the assertions of people like Chief Anenih there is not only a vacancy in the Presidential Villa in 2003 but that there would be other elections beyond 2003. We need about three elections (2003, 2007 and 2011) before we can begin to talk of how to sustain a democratic order in Nigeria.

The broad suggestion I would make is to impress on Mr. President that he should realize that President Obasanjo and President Obasanjo alone, is not the democratic order. What I keep telling those who asks me of the prospect of democracy taking root in Nigeria that the Nigerian democracy would be measured after two or three elections. No one, not even the President has answer to this problem. Unfortunately, those who initiated the transition program from the US knew why they recommended General Obasanjo. They should for once move to the side of the Nigerian people by telling the President the truth that he and he alone is not the answer to the lingering political problems.

May I call readers’ attention to another manifestation of the deep-seated uncertainty. My content analysis of the reports from Nigeria since May 1999 shows that Nigerians in their various corners are unwittingly made to see themselves as either ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ under the current dispensation. What is making this categorization dangerous is that it is seen in ethnic group’s term. Consequently they are jockeying to be in the ‘winners’ column at all cost and if they are not succeeding they raise alarm about ‘marginalization’. This fight to get on the ‘winners; column is going to increase with the growing realization that the President’s one-term is undergoing revision with no possibility of a free, fair and credible election in 2003.

I have been trying to summarize the various complaints from many Nigerian political leaders, opinion leaders, and ethnic/regional groups and from the Nigerian media. It is sad that there is no ideological debate in Nigeria any more. There are no new ideas. There is no civil society that cut across the ethnic groups in Nigeria.

My summary of the various complaints leads me to the following conclusions.

A

The first ‘winners’ from my review are the ‘northern leaders, the core north and their satellite groups in the north and in the country. I make a distinction between the leaders and the people of the north. The people of the north, the masses gained nothing in the past from their political and military leaders who assumed power in their name and in since 1970 made enemies for the north. The situation has not changed under President Obasanjo.

Nigerians know that the north has a claim to the ownership of the two political parties, the PDP and the APP.

They claim a major chunk of the Presidency and the Legislature.

The claim the monopoly of the Judiciary.

They claim the monopoly of the armed forces.

They claim a major share of the oil industry.

They have a highly articulate leadership that spans the whole north.

They have a leadership that has power of command over others in the southeast and the south-south and to some extent in the southwest.

They have an agenda dating back to the colonial period, which is known to all segments of the north and capable of intimidating the rest of the country especially the southeast and the south-south.

B

The second winners can be found in the southwest, the Yoruba.

They have an integrative political party (AD),.

They have an agenda.

They have leadership in and out of government at all levels.

They have the leader of the Presidency and

They have a highly articulate civil society.

C

The first set of ‘losers’ from my review comes from the ‘southeast’, the Ndi Igbo.

They have no political party they could call their own.

They have no special share in the Presidency.

They have no position in the security agencies.

They have no agenda like in the southwest and in the core north and

They have no leadership that could speak for them.

D

The second set of losers come from the ‘south-south’ also called the ‘southern minorities’ or the ‘atomized states’ in the south and the ‘oil producing areas’. This area suffers identical disabilities as the southeast.

They have no party.

They have no place in security services.

They have no agenda.

They have no leadership. and

They are victims of the majority groups in the country.

The notion of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ arose from what I knew as the ‘real reasons’ for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. This is linked with the origin of Nigeria and what the creator of Nigeria (British not God with apology to the President) had in mind in 1914.

This is why I came to the conclusion in my study (The Tale of June 12: The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians 1993) that the ‘issues in the annulment’ are still with us. The President and Nigerians ought to know that these issues are manifesting themselves in various forms under this administration. One would have thought that President Obasanjo should commenced a process would lead the country to the decision that the issues should be discussed and resolved as the basis of moving forward.

SOLUTION: PRESIDENT OBASANJO, REVISIT YOUR SERMON OF JUNE 1998.

I once called on the President to revisit what I called his ‘SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK. I was referring to what Mr. President when he was just General Olusegun Obasanjo before he became the President proffered an answer to the issues in June 12. I am calling readers’ attention to General Olusegun Obasanjo’s sermon at the Baptist Church Abeokuta immediately he was released from prison, see Vanguard June 21, 1998 reported by Kolade Olarenwaju. Unfortunately no one in the media or among the members of the political class has ever called the President’s attention to this sermon and no one has ever asked him why and when he decided to change his mind. General Obasanjo was very clear that the source of Nigerian political problem had to with the armed forces, which he characterized in the following words:

What has the President done to turn the military around is a subject, which I had reasons to comment upon in other forum. I am also on record as proffering the two Ds’ (Demobilization and Depoliticization as the only empirically sound panacea for the problems of the highly ethnicized and regionalized and politicized and morally depraved armed forces. Unfortunately the President farmed the problem of the armed forces, which are environmental and attitudinal to the US. I am on record that this would fail.

The President in the same sermon of June 1998 proffered the mode of resolving the lingering political problems, to which the depraved armed forces form a part. Let me at the risk of repeating myself remind Nigerians of what the President, as General Obasanjo said after he was released from the Abacha’s gulag in 1998. He told Nigerians in that sermon then in his own words:

issues of June 12’.

Mr. President, this was prophetic. You were right then. Those of us who had the opportunity to read what you as General Obasanjo said in June 1998 are at a loss today and are asking the pertinent question if anything had changed since then, other than that he was made the President, a year later? What one would want to know is if the President saw his election of 1999 as a solution to the event of June 12 or as an opportunity to raise, discuss and resolve the issues in the annulment? If I were President’s adviser, I would have made it clear to him that his election only offers him and the country an opportunity to raise, discuss and resolve the issues in the annulment and that it did not constitute a solution to the annulment saga. This would have been in furtherance of the position he canvassed in the sermon of June 1998 after he was released from prison. Nigerians should remind him of this.

The esteemed General before he became the President is also on record as making another prophetic confession in that sermon in the following words:

(maybe some years of isolation in the Abacha's gulag),

the non-resolution of the issues of June 12 will remain

a bad and dangerous precedence for the

political development in the country’.

Does the President know this today? Does he not know that the Arewa’s grievances are part of the issues in the annulment, that an autonomous Southerner (someone loved by his people and reciprocate that love for his people) cannot be the President of Nigeria. My trilogy on the ethnic agenda in the various parts of the country and what the President should do to overcome them still remains there for the President’s handlers to use.

Mr. President does not seem to know the way of thinking of the leaders of the ethnic nationalities. I can assure Mr. President that any ethnic agenda tends to be exclusive. Does the President know that an exclusive ethnic agenda could be a threat to the democratic order that the President would want to build in Nigeria? The solution short of surrendering to the demands of the ethnic organization is for the President to call off their bluff and run the country in the national interest. Capitulation to the ethnic group will be a recipe for disaster.

It should have been obvious to the President by now that it is the non-resolution of the issues in the June 12 that makes the ‘bridge’ rickety today. Will Mr. President be willing to go back to the solution he proffered in 1998? May I again remind Mr. President of what he said then, also in June 1998 at that Church service? You knew the feeling of the geo-ethno-military-clique that engineered the annulment and sustained the annulment and tried to silence all voices of opposition. What is sad in the action of the clique that all peoples of Nigeria are bearing the brunt of the narrow minded action of the clique. We do not know which came first? Is it their generosity in setting you free or your prophecy at the Baptist Church? It would appear that your prophecy was counterrevolutionary. Maybe one could still remind the President, of what he said.

‘It is never too late for patriotic men and women

of goodwill to get together and dialogue

to find generally acceptable solution

to the unnecessary problems’.

It is not late today. But the President seems to be running away from his God’s inspired injunction. The question is why?

The foregoing statement was weighty enough. Would Mr. President be willing to go back to what he was divinely inspired to tell Nigerians in 1998? If not why not!

What the President should realize is that Mr. President’s solution and the words Mr. President used to convey that solution were no different from the words used by those who are calling for a Sovereign National Conference. Whatever Mr. President may want to call his ‘get together of men and women of goodwill’, the end of such a ‘get-together’, is what is important. According to President Obasanjo, there should be ‘a get-together’ of Nigerians consisting of ‘men and women of good will’. Why is the President finding it difficult to set the process in motion?

These persons are available in all communities, if the President would allow them to throw them up. Another condition set by the President is that they should ‘assemble’ for the purpose of (a) ‘dialogue’ and (b) ‘finding generally acceptable solution’ to the lingering political problems afflicting the country maybe since 1914.

Mr. President, this was what you as General Olusegun Obasanjo proffered in 1998. Mr. President, that is still valid today if only you would want to go back to that position. Chief FRA Williams and even the traditional rulers you consulted came to the same conclusion that a National Conference would be only feasible way. They are concerned about your legacy. Why are not concerned about your legacy?

the lingering political problems,;

the declining faith in the political order; and

the division of the country into winners and losers.

The way out is the President’s Sermon on Olumon Rock.

****SOUTH-SOUTH GOVERNORS SHOULD WAIT TILL OTHER CANDIDATES EMERGE WITHIN PDP OR FROM ELSEWHERE WHO LOVES OUR PEOPLE. PLEASE DO NOT MORTGAGE OUR PEOPLE: PLEASE DO NOT GAMBLE WITH THE FUTURE OUR PEOPLE.. YOU ARE FORGIVEN FOR THE PAST, FOR A SECOND TIME? NO, YOUR EXCELLENCIES.***