A democrat called Obasanjo
The pontificator cracked the dead serious joke when the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) paid him a visit apparently to fulfil all righteousness. Trust Obasanjo to seize the moment. Say what you will about the wily soldier and politician, one thing you can’t take away from him is his ability to read the […]
The pontificator cracked the dead serious joke when the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) paid him a visit apparently to fulfil all righteousness. Trust Obasanjo to seize the moment. Say what you will about the wily soldier and politician, one thing you can’t take away from him is his ability to read the signs of the times and buy into the inevitable as if that purchase was his intention all along.
In case the visit of opposition leaders to his residence in Abeokuta was misconstrued, Obasanjo said he was still in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) but would not turn back any party that wanted to discuss with him because he saw himself as father to all Nigerian politicians.
In his words, “I regard this as an honour to come and present your party and tell me the objectives but let me state here – I am a card-carrying member of the PDP but the politics I play traverses Nigeria, Africa and the world in that order. I am a democrat and one of the essential ingredients of democracy is opposition. A democracy that has no opposition built into it is not democracy.
“As an opposition you are enhancing democracy. You are at home; you are welcome to being at home. As time goes on, I will just appeal that the politics you play is politics without rancour, without bitterness, with decency, that has Nigeria at heart”.
Obasanjo was not done yet: “I am an incurable optimist about Nigeria, I am totally committed to Nigeria and nothing will divert me from that commitment. In whichever party, for whatever office that anyone contested or aspired to occupy in Nigeria since 1999, such a person, young or old, man or woman, can claim to be my political child and I can claim by virtue of political office I have held to be his or her political father.”
Obasanjo!
A nodding acquaintance with POL 101 would demonstrate to any rookie student of political science that one of the surest traits of politicians is that they don’t have permanent friends or permanent enemies. The only constant thing is their interest. If a politician feels marginalised, he jumps ship to another party. In other climes there are generally two major parties tending towards conservative (rightist) or democratic (libertarian) persuasions. In Nigeria, anything goes. It’s all about power. Today’s conservative is tomorrow’s progressive. But that is not to take anything away from the nobility of the intentions of those who are determined to ensure that Nigerians are provided a credible alternative to the ruling PDP.
There is something to be said for a forum which brings together ex-President Obasanjo, ex-military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari and ex-Governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu under one roof without any conflagration. Remember, Obasanjo rigged out Buhari twice (2003 and 2007). Remember, too, that Obasanjo refused to release funds meant for local governments in Lagos State in reaction to the creation of Local community development areas to address development problems in Lagos. Tinubu had sought judicial intervention which eventually saved the day. You would think that nothing on earth would ever make Obasanjo and Tinubu collaborate on anything. Apparently, this newfound amity could be put down to patriotism or good old, plain, undiluted opportunism.
Whatever it is, we have to thank God for little mercies. The way we were going with one dominant party and electoral heists, it was about time something else popped up around the corner. All the common man wants is good governance. Leave the alphabets aside; let’s see the deliverables.
Some critics have dismissed APC for not discriminating in membership. I ask myself, aren’t these critics enrolled in the university of life? If you are a realist following political developments, you have to admit that in the Nigerian enterprise, idealism has its time and place. There surely will come a time to separate the grain from the chaff. But when gathering, g-a-t-h-e-r! In any case, we deceive ourselves if we pretend that we are running ideologically based parties. None of the political parties in Nigeria makes that pretension.
If we say PDP is a capitalist party in the mould of conservative parties all over the world, the hollowness if the comparison is stark. Even by local standards, you can’t compare PDP with NPN of the Second Republic. NPN was cohesive and efficient, even in its single-minded pursuit of the welfare of the few at the expense of the majority. (By the way, that is my opinion.) The problem today is that PDP is neither efficient nor ideologically identifiable. It is just a political contraption for mind-bending sleaze.
As I have argued before, there is corruption in every country on the surface of the earth. But there are sanctions to rein in the corrupt whenever they are busted. Impunity is the name of the game here. You can steal as much as you want as long as you belong to the right party.
In the midst of all this dysfunction, however, we have been witnesses to some great developmental strides in some states of the federation. In terms of allocation from the national till, all hands are not equal but some states have done better than others, all things considered. Ideology has not had much to do with performance even if we concede that the welfarist hue of the former AC, now part of APC, has helped sharpen the developmental perspectives of the party’s governors.
I couldn’t help laughing when I heard President Obasanjo commending the APC crew for giving Nigeria an alternative option to the ruling PDP. “Nigeria needs a very strong opposition party”, he said. I did a mental summersault. OBJ! Can you imagine what would have happened if this development had happened during his presidency? Would OBJ not have convulsed in epileptic rage and unleashed all the gods of terror on the opposition?
But we all keep learning. Obviously Obasanjo is finding out many things about democracy now that he is out of power. But he should stop the bit about being father of Nigeria and its politicians. It’s like he’s hungry for political children he never had. Away with Babacracy.