Obasanjo's election manifesto
By
ON Thursday, February 7, 2002, President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed the opening session of a three-day Presidential Retreat on Electoral Process and Political Violence in Abuja. Two days later he addressed the closing session of the gathering. Then on Thursday, April 25, also in Abuja, he announced his intention to seek re-election. Taken together, these three statements constitute Obasanjo's platform for re-election as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2003. It is a very clear platform" so clear that what is left out can be reasonably, fairly and logically deduced from what is included. I doubt if the president can improve upon this platform; nor can his party, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Before looking at this platform, we may remind ourselves that conventional wisdom teaches that one should always differentiate between what a person thinks and says of himself from what he or she really is and does. I accept this as wise dictum, but will only add, as corollary and methodology, that there is no way of objectively assessing the latter (what one really is ) without reference to the former (what one says of himself or herself). Furthermore, also by way of methodology, one is entitled to question what a person says and promises to do by referring to his or her antecedents, dispositions and circumstances. This should be our approach to Obasanjo's re-election manifesto.
In his opening address at the presidential retreat, President Obasanjo descended heavily on those behind the ethno-religious wars and political violence that have ravaged the country for so long: a situation which his regime inherited but which had become worse since his assumption of office on May 29, 1999. The president warned that this trend poses a grave danger not only to democracy but also to the existence of the Nigerian state. He argued: "Every occurrence of violence erodes the legitimacy of the state and the leaders, leaving democracy to stand alone and exposed to those who want to subvert it further or destroy it altogether, because the people who would not have cause to rise and defend it". Pursuing the issue, the president alleged that powerful, but anti-democratic forces and individuals were behind the regime of violence. In other words, the violence which now characterises the nation's politics is far from being spontaneous; it is organised, directed and funded by powerful anti-democratic people who want to get power by all means. Nigerians, he said "notice how private armies are being raised and unbelievable amount of money being set aside by those who plan to muscle their way into elective offices". I share the president's apprehension, but think he should look beyond one direction for sources of political violence. Both seekers and defenders of power employ violence, and anti-democratic instincts are not confined to one side.
After re-stating his fundamental opposition to ethno-religious wars and political violence which, according to him, are now being used by anti-democratic forces as road to power, Obasanjo faced the future and made a personal pledge and invited his opponents to do the same: "I pledge that I, Olusegun Obasanjo, will abide by any stipulations, rules, regulations which in addition to the laws of the nation, this retreat will propose in order to ensure the survival of our democratic system with its integrity intact. I further pledge that for the duration of my political career, in whatever capacity I find myself, I will respect the rules of fair competition, abide by the laws of the land, and prevent the subversion of the ideals and values of the democratic system. If I or my party wins an election, it will be fair victory, and I appeal to my opponents to be fair as well". The president then turned to God, as he usually does: "I know that God will hold me responsible and I will not go without His sanction, and so will all of us, if by my words and actions, I willfully cause harm to the person, property or life or any competitor or opponent". In brief, the first leg of President Obasanjo's re-election manifesto is the rejection of ethno-religious and political violence including, I believe, state-sponsored violence or harassment, as road to power or retention of power. We may have cause to refer to this presidential pledge as the battle for 2003 develops.
The second leg deals with free and fair elections which the president pledged to uphold and defend. He argued: "when people only vote without choosing because elections are rigged, and when politicians employ coercion instead of persuasion, such that fear and intimidation nullify free choice, then, we have no reason to expect that the populace will respect elected leaders and their officers. And, of course, a leader who is not respected is a leader who is not trusted. And any such person has no moral right whatsoever to regard himself as a leader, let alone expect others to see him as one". We must thank the president for introducing this category of electoral politics, so brilliantly and beautifully articulated: "vote without choosing". Employing this category, one would like to ask the president in how many general elections since independence in 1960 had the Nigerian people voted without choosing or, what is the same thing, in how many general elections had the people voted and chosen. Was the 1999 election which brought him to office one of the exceptions? An answer is necessary to assist us to appreciate, in practical terms, how an electorate can vote without choosing.
In his closing remarks at the presidential retreat, President Obasanjo attacked both the ethnic militias and the ethno-regional formations described in the media as socio-cultural organisations. These include, in particular, Afenifere, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), and Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo. He believes that these formations are premodial outfits which "promote ethnicity and violence in politics", if I may borrow the summary of the president's speech provided by The Guardian in its editorial of February 26, 2002. Continuing this summary, the paper said that the president argued that on the whole, these formations "have outlived their usefulness in so far as their activities can be seen to be political. He added that now that we have a representational democracy, members of these organisations will be better served if they joined the political parties rather than pursuing narrow agendas that are fully capable of interfering with the political process. As presently constituted, he considers their role to be a drag on national unity". This should be taken as an important leg of the president's re-election manifesto. The president has since approached the National Assembly with a bill banning ethnic militias. But nothing has been done in respect of "socio-cultural" organisations. On the contrary, as suggested by The Guardian, the president's actual relationship with these organisations had not been hostile. How seriously then does the president expect us to take his opposition to "socio-cultural" organisations?
The president's April 25 declaration repeated all the elements detailed above, but went further. The new elements can be summarised: He severely criticised the three political parties, or rather their leaderships. The parties, he said, "appear as congregations of people who are just concerned with personal aggrandisement and little regard for public service". He lamented that when he took office on May 29, 1999 he had "grossly underestimated the extent of the damage, the depth of the decay into which our nation had sunk". Given this situation, the president said, "it has been a formidable task to reconstruct what it took nearly two decades to destroy, and the challenge has been all pervasive, economic, political, social, moral and cultural". His administration, he claimed, has, in three years, recorded impressive achievements in the nation's economy, infrastructure and standard of living. More specifically "there are today more cars plying our roads, our motor parks are beehives of activity, more aircraft land and take off from our airports, and ports are busier. There are more jobs. The employed earn more, and living conditions continue to improve". He would continue with this forward march if re-elected president. He then made another claim, a more courageous one: "there is certainly much less despair in the air. Hope in a brighter future has been rekindled. There has been a quantum leap in the amount of faith Nigerians have in their country". While the president's criticism of the party leadership is correct, I wonder how many people, outside his cabinet, his personal staff - government's big-time contractors and political office holders would uphold his summary assessment of his achievement and the offered indicators of this achievement.
The president concluded the manifesto by pledging, once again, to play by the rules: He would fight a "clean electoral battle"; he would respect the rights of others and hence would not stop anybody who may wish to oppose him; he has no favourites among current elected office holders, and hence would neither support nor oppose anyone who may wish to seek re-election. After the elections, the president said, 'those men and women who have been freely and fairly elected by their various constituencies" will be his "favourites". We may, again, have cause to refer to this pledge.
July 2002