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Neither a Candidate nor an Office Holder be! (1) Obasanjo as the PDP President and as the PDP Candidate would ruin his Legacies. By Former Director General, Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) Research Fellow, African Studies Center, Boston University; CEO Advancing Democracy in Africa (ADA).
OBASANJO COULD RUIN HIS LEGACIES IN 2003 UNLESS… I love, in fact, I envy President Obasanjo for his feats in his political life and in Nigerian political life. There is no Nigerian in the past and presently who can be associated with discernible feats since 1960. Let me name them.
One, in 1970 Col. Olusegun Obasanjo as the GOC 3 Division of the Nigerian Army ended the Civil War. It is part of the history of Nigeria that the Rebel leaders (military and political) surrendered to him in Port Harcourt.
Two, in 1976 Lt. General Obasanjo as the Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters stepped into the shoe of his slain leader, General Murtala Muhammed and piloted the country within the parameter laid down by his slain leader without attempting to make it his own.
Three, in 1979 General Obasanjo as the Military Head of State presided over a transition program, conducted a free and fair election and finally handed over voluntarily to an elected President and went to his home at Abeokuta.
Four, in 1999 despite Chief Obasanjo’s initial foreboding about partisan politics after his release from Abacha’s Gulag, he decided to make himself the "bridge" between the military misrule of many years and a democratic order.
SEARCH FOR THE FIFTH FEAT Would Obasanjo as the "bridge" between the military misrule of Nigeria and the democratic order be willing and able to face another decision in his life and in the political life of Nigeria in 2003? This would be not just the fifth feat but the mother of all feats. In view of the past misgivings and genuine fears about "self-succession", may I humbly appeal to the distinguished President Obasanjo that he can bring about a fifth feat if he takes some fundamental decisions. He must appreciate that he can "neither be the PDP Presidential Candidate for 2003 nor the President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria at the same time".
President Obasanjo will be performing a fifth feat in his political life and in the political life of Nigeria, if he would lead the country to resolve this problem. This is the subject of this three-part essay.
This first part shall deal with problems he faces with the 2003 project and the need for the President to rethink and allow for a level playing field. The second shall deal with the genuine fears of Nigerians. I might be asked to proffer solution. That may turn out to be the third essay.
THE EMERGENCE OF OBASANJO IN 1999 Those who initiated the emergence of President Obasanjo immediately he was released from Abacha’s Gulag in 1998 from the north were aware of the threat to democracy, if a "bridge’ was not immediately found that would be between the past military misrule of Nigeria and the future democratic order. This northern clique knew that a successor from the north after the death of General Abacha and in view of the issues in the annulment would have torn the country apart. Their decision to go for Chief Obasanjo was a strategic retreat from the "rampart" they swore to guard and guide when they enlisted into the Nigerian Army. I hope by now Nigerian know what this rampart is.
For the interest of readers who might still be wondering what is meant by the "rampart, it is what they swore to protect and defend as the interests of the north. It is built on the permanent northern rule of Nigeria. In what sense did this clique think that President Obasanjo would be part of the instrument to guard and guide the "rampart" of the north? This was and still remains part of the unexplained issues in General Abdulsalami Abubakar transition program. We may never know unless the General decides to speak.
There was the international dimension to the use of Chief Obasanjo as the bridge for Nigerians to use to transit from the military misrule of Nigeria to a long road to democratic order and economic recovery. Whatever that long road was to be, the West saw Nigeria under Chief Obasanjo as one they could use to tackle many issues in West Africa in particular and in Africa in general. He has been very effective on the African scene. The Herald Tribune confirmed this recently. The same Herald Tribune said that what President Obasanjo is trying to sell to other African countries is absent in Nigeria under him. What the Herald Tribune did not know is that that happens to be one characteristic of Nigerian leaders. They love to pursue goals abroad that are alien to their people at home. After all General Abacha was delivering democracy to Sierra Leone that he was denying his people at home. This was why President Obasanjo said that his decision to run or not to run would have serious international implications for Nigeria.
Those involved in the emergence of Chief Obasanjo as the "bridge" should be aware of the imminent danger to the political order in the "self-succession" plan being "micro-managed from the Presidency"? This is the situation that Nigeria is today. It is President Obasanjo who must step forward and provide answers to the following questions: In a situation where the ruling party and its President are both candidates, how credible would the electoral process be?
In a situation where the same President that is a candidate controls the instrument of coercion, army, police and security agents during the electoral process, how credible would the electoral process be?
In a situation where the President who is a candidate is also micro-managing the body in charge of the election, how credible would the electoral process be?
In a situation where the President who is a candidate controls the major section of the mass media through his Minister of information, how credible would the electoral process be?
CREDIBILITY OF 2003 IS ABOUT LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR ALL. The task before President Obasanjo if he is to perform the fifth feat in his political life and in the political life of Nigeria is to ensure a level playing field for himself as a candidate and for other participants. This is the only way to ensure a credible election in 2003. Can the President be a candidate and continue as the President at the same time? This ought to be obvious to President Obasanjo by now that this will be too much to demand of the President who is also a candidate of one of the parties in 2003. This is one reason why Nigeria should give thought to what is or should be done with the present President who wants to be a candidate.
Nigeria is a society where many groups believe that they have a right to produce the next President. This ought to make the need for a level playing field mandatory for the government of President Obasanjo. Yes the Constitution of 1999 that was forced on the country without the input of the Nigerian people could not make provisions for allaying the fears of Nigerians about "self-succession". If Nigerians were to be allowed to evolve a Constitution for themselves, I am sure that these fears would have been taken care of in light of the 1964 and 1983 episodes. The quest for a level playing field for all actors has implication for the following issues:
PRESIDENT OBASANJO IN CONTEXT The President should realize that Nigeria in preparation for the 2003, is facing many ethnic or zonal organizations as distinct from the constitutionally recognized political parties laying claim to the Presidency. One is yet to know which of these groups that President Obasanjo is depending on. Is he depending on the Yoruba Council of Elders and Yoruba Traditional Rulers or is he waiting for an invitation from the Afenifere?
The Afenifere, the Yoruba political organization would support President Obasanjo only after he shall have reached some deals with them. Some of the Governors have publicly endorsed him on the argument that the Yorubas are entitled to two terms. When did they suddenly realize that President Obasanjo came to power in 1999 to fill the Yoruba quota? President Obasanjo is in dilemma here.
Depending on the way he resolves this dilemma that may be the beginning of a realignment of political forces that would formally bring the Conservative elements in the north into alliance with the Ohaneze. The fear of the Afenifere taking the President over is real. This is the source of apprehension by the leaders of Arewa and Ohaneze. They do not want the Afenifere to claim Obasanjo in 2003. They are asking where were the Yoruba leaders when they in 1998/9 claimed the man and "adopted" him in 1999 because he claimed that he was not a Yoruba candidate.
President Obasanjo is yet to address the Tripod represented by the Arewa Consultative Forum, the Afenifere and the Ohaneze on the one hand and the six political parties that are supposed to be for all Nigerians on the other. Does Obasanjo have different views about who would be President of Nigeria in 2003?
PRESIDENT OBASANJO AND THE FOURTH DIMENSION It is obvious that President does not accord recognition to the Fourth Dimension (minorities in the south and in the north). He has since 1999 being concerned about the tripod. One could ask if the President knows how the Fourth Dimension would fit into the Tripod on the one hand and the six political parties on the other?
ETHNIC GROUP POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE AND INEC How could all these ethnic, regional and religious claims be funneled through the electoral process? Why should INEC be holding meetings with the Arewa Consultative Forum, Ohaneze and Afenifere? In what capacity are these meetings taking place? Isn’t INEC supposed to deal with political parties? The Constitution is clear on this that only political parties can sponsor candidates and canvass for votes.
THE IGBO QUESTION IN NIGERIAN POLITICS AND OBASANJO The Igbo Question in Nigerian Politics is real and should have been addressed since 1977. The Ohaneze Ndi Igbo that was formed at that time could not take the place of the former Ibo State Union. The leadership of the Ohaneze was prone to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and strongly opposed the emergence of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the later the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP). One only needs to read Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s autobiography to know how close the present Secretary General of Ohaneze was to him. We in the NPP dismissed the Ohaneze and its leaders the same way we dealt with the Vice President Ekwueme and the NPN in Igbo land.
Another mission of Ohaneze leaders then was to oppose any realignment of political forces that Chief Jim Nwobodo and Dr. Sam Mbakwe were pursuing because it involved the Igbo working with the Yoruba of the Unity Party of Nigeria in the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA).
These two Igbo Governors successfully linked the progressive Igbo with the progressive elements in Yoruba land, in the Fourth Dimension and in the north. But for the coup in December 1983, Ndi Igbo would have become the President of Nigeria much faster than through the NPN spearheaded in Igbo land by Ohaneze.
Under the two party system, an Igbo stood the chance of succeeding Chief MKO Abiola in 2001 if some elements in Igbo land had not made themselves available as the instruments of annulment of the June 12 under General Babangida and of sustaining the annulment during the period of General Abacha.
It was still in that frame of mind that the Secretary General of Ohaneze, Professor Ben Nwabueze made his case for an Igbo President. He had never alluded to his opposition of the June 12 that was supported by the progressive elements led by Chief Sam Mbakwue and Dr. ChukwuEmeka Ezeife and the late Pius Okigbo in Igbo land. When I saw him meeting with the Yorubas under the auspices of the Frontiers, I called a friends attention to his antecedents. How could a pathological hater of Yoruba work with the Yoruba leaders, like Chief FRA Williams? I saw the action of the Frontiers as an exercise in mutual self-deceit. I was right.
The Ohaneze Secretary-General, Professor Ben Nwabueze recently made the highly contentious statement in all the national newspapers on the N’Igbo Presidency Project within the context of wanting to stop President Obasanjo. He can talk about the irrevocable commitment of the Ndi Igbo to produce the President in 2003. He should have stopped there. But when he wants Igbo to pursue that Project on the anti-Yoruba agenda, one wonders how he would succeed without the Yoruba support.
When I read the case he made for the Igbo Presidency, I could not help but recall what he wrote about the Yorubas after the annulment. He wrote a book called Nigeria ’93: The Political Crisis and Solutions (Ibadan Spectrum 1994). He personally came to my house at Abuja to invite me to the public presentation of the book or book launching. I was still in crutches and I could not attend. I was very anxious to read what he had to say about what I knew he masterminded as the drafter of most anti-Abiola’s decrees after the annulment. I finally got a copy of the book. The book was full of many untruths and assertions and claims that I would not like to go into here. What made me recall this book was what he said about the Yoruba in the book. He said at page 134 as follows: Nice and friendly as they, the Yorubas have no sense of fraternity with other ethnic groups in Nigeria when it comes to federal appointments. They see nothing wrong in monopolizing all positions in a federal establishment, from messenger to chief executive. To them, that is how it should be, the natural order of things. Any other Nigerian in their midst in such establishment is resented as an unwanted intruder. In a Yoruba dominated federal establishment, Yoruba becomes the medium of communication in which government business is conducted.
Professor Nwabueze then made the highly contentious statement on why the Igbo opposed the Yoruba becoming the President in 1993 that had a possibility of becoming a two-term Yoruba presidency. The way he presented the argument then has implications for President Obasanjo’s bid for a second term and the Igbo Presidency Project. In the book referred to above at page 134, he wrote; It is for the reasons that a serious fear is created in the minds of other Nigerians that two successive terms of eight years of a Yoruba president, many federal establishments would have been thoroughly Yorubanised.
When one reads the case for an Igbo Presidency made by the same person who has never hidden his disgust for the Yoruba as President of Nigeria and who was a tool in the hands of the military to frustrate a Yoruba becoming President in the past, one wonders as to what message he is communicating to the Nigerian people. What I wanted to read from him was how the Ohaneze was going to implement the Igbo Presidency Project. Instead he devoted most of the essay to run down the person of President Obasanjo as if that is the agenda of the Ohaneze.
Professor Nwabueze is giving ammunition to Alhaji Wada Nas. In fact, I find some similarities in the anti-Yoruba argument in his book and in the anti-Obasanjo campaign by these two Nigerians. Just read the last paragraph of his essay: In the past two years or so, the supreme object and motive for all the manipulations, and abuses of power, all the confounding shifts, all the destabilizing realignment of forces, all the divide and rule tactics employed to foster trouble and unrest in some states or areas of the country and all the sponsored or inspired crisis in various institutions and organizations has been the consuming passion and ambition for a second term. He then concluded his warning about 2003 : If our experience of Obasanjo’s rule during this period teaches anything, it is that, in the circumstances of Nigeria, a second term is a positive evil, which must therefore be exorcised from the Constitution-for the Presidency and as well as for the State Governors. (See Ben Nwabueze, "Igbo Have Right to Presidency" in This Day July 26, 2002).
Professor Nwabueze is yet to say whether the Ohaneze would pursue their ambition through the PDP and failure, which they would go to another political party. Would this not be too late? Professor Nwabueze told the Igbo to vote against Obasanjo in 1999 after the Jos Convention of the PDP that did not support the favorite son of Ohaneze, Dr. Alex Ekwueme. Maybe he forgot that the alternative to candidate Obasanjo was candidate Olu Falae who was the inheritor of the MKO Abiola’s platform. Of course, the Igbo voters including their favorite son, Dr. Alex Ekwueme turned out for candidate Obasanjo.
What is an issue is the lack of an Igbo Agenda. I discovered this in the Constituent Assembly in 1977. I saw how they had to live through this during the period of the Second Republic. Those who pursued the anti-Yoruba agenda during the period of the annulment and during the Abacha period never sat down to map out what the Igbo want in Nigeria. This is still the problem today.
At the moment, there are over ten Igbo candidates from all political parties. We are yet to know how these Igbo candidates are going to sort themselves out within the PDP and between the PDP and other parties. The Ohaneze is yet to tell the country how they would build a consensus around one candidate and one party. The Ohaneze would have to convince Nigerians that the need for an Igbo President has actually arrived.
It should not be based on the anti-Yoruba platform. It should be a Nigerian platform. Nigeria wants a President who just happens to be an Igbo and not an Igbo who just wants the office because it is the turn of Igbo. There is nothing called turn by turn in politics where voters are concerned. The Igbo leaders must think of how to form a political action committee that would develop an agenda. This agenda would have to be negotiated with others with the purpose of searching for a common ground. Nobody will make any Igbo man a President of Nigeria on the argument of Professor Ben Nwabueze.
I wish the people of the South-South would read Professor Ben Nwabueze on why the Igbo should take precedence over the South-South. Let me remind the learned Professor that the game is not based spurious census figures of each ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Professor Ben Nwabueze would recall how we dealt with some of them who paraded the flags of the tripod in 1977. He would recall that some of us in the famed Club 19 vowed to destroy it the Constituent Assembly in 1977 and we succeeded. My view is that it did not serve the country well in the past and presently and it will not serve the country well in the future. This argument of Hausa had it for over 30 years and the Yoruba about 8 years and it is the turn of the Igbo being the third leg in the tripod is anti-democratic. I am a firm believer in a federal system that has the States as the units of representation and not the ethnic groups whose number we do not know. Professor Nwabueze and co forced the zones on General Abacha in 1994.
Professor Ben Nwabueze would still recall that the idea of the Eastern Bloc died in 1977. What one could call the colonial Regions of North, West and East are gone. Like a broken mirror, you cannot put the pieces back to form a whole.
Anyway, we in Bendel do not believe that any group in Nigeria should take precedence over us on the basis of census figures.
THE NORTH WANTS THEIR THING BACK President Obasanjo project 2003 should reckon with the feeling in the north that they would want their thing back, the Presidency. Unfortunately, when some northern leaders say that the Presidency would go back to the north, we do not know what they mean. They do not say how it would be done. There is a veiled threat that they would not accept an election in which their wishes are not what INEC announces in 2003. The military that they used in 1993 to frustrate the democratic rights of Nigerians is an option in 2003. I hope they reckon with the fact that that would be the end of Nigeria as we know it today. This is an added reason why President Obasanjo should allow for a free and fair election. He should do everything possible to allow for a level playing field for all political parties and groups in Nigeria. He must reckon with the fact that in a free and fair election, he could be defeated.
It would appear that the PDP is gradually becoming "a no go area" for a northerner who wants to be the President in 2003. Alhaji Abubakar Rimi should have known this by now. When Ambassador Jubril Aminu called for more Presidential candidates at Gombe, he did not say whether from the PDP or from other political parties? But since he was speaking in Gombe during his visit to the ANPP Governor one would feel that he meant from the ANPP. (See This Day of July 25, 2002). The question that Nigerians are asking is whether the northern leaders would pursue their ambition through the auspices of a political party. If so, which party? It is obvious that the north controls and dominates most of the political parties at the moment. What use they would make of them is not yet known. This should be a source of worry for the handlers of candidate Obasanjo.
CONFUSION IN THE OLD MIDWEST, A MIRROR OF S-S When Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia called a meeting of some disgruntled politicians from Edo and Delta States under the auspices of the old Midwestern Region to plot for a political relevance what political instrument did he have in mind? His people knew him to be a foundation member of the PDP and some of the attendees at the meeting also were members of the PDP. What was Dr. Ogbemudia telling his people when he said that the South-South are in accord with the Southeast on the production of the President in 2003? One does not know in what capacity he is talking to his fellow Bendelites. What instruments would such an alliance use?
Since the only process of getting to power is through the electoral process and since only the political party can sponsor a candidate for an election, one is wondering how the claims and counter-claims of various groups in the South-South would be pursued outside the political party process. This is a source of concern to me and I am sure to most Bendelites.
This should worry President Obasanjo who has two illustrious sons of Bendel as his functionaries, Chief Tony Enahoro as the Presidential Adviser and Chief Tony Anenih as the Campaign Chief against 2003. This is an added reason why he should ensure a level playing field in preparation for the 2003 election.
OBASANJO "SELF-SUCCESSION" ABACHA STYLE! It is obvious today that after the President announced his plan to seek a second term, some Nigerians called it Abacha’s "self-succession" as if it would be done with out an election. Why this analogy? Should this worry President Obasanjo? It should. This is at the root of the fears that the President would not allow for a level playing field as Abacha did in 1998 leading to the "five political parties" anointing him as the only Presidential candidate.
Those who likened what President Obasanjo wants to do with what Abacha wanted to achieve in 1998 are not saying that "self-succession" is unconstitutional or that it is undemocratic. The fear is that some Nigerians believe that the process from the pre-Election Day to the Election Day and after would be fixed to yield the predetermined end that was attributed to one of the key aides to the President that "there is no vacancy in Aso Rock in 2003". That predetermined end is the election of candidate Obasanjo whether the voters like it or not. Why go for an election if the door to the Presidential Villa had been locked? That should worry the President as he wants to be the candidate of the PDP in 2003. This should also worry the current political class. This is an added reason for a rethink of the problem. That rethinking process is the subject of this three-part essay. The next essay will focus on the fears of Nigerians about "self-succession" under President Obasanjo.
August 2002
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