How Obasanjo blighted our democracy
Anambra State provides a good example of how imposition of candidates has replaced the sovereignty of the voters. Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the former Governor, has been imposed on the people of Anambra State by a clique in the PDP leadership. Even the beleaguered INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, openly criticized the PDP for lack of […]
Anambra State provides a good example of how imposition of candidates has replaced the sovereignty of the voters. Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the former Governor, has been imposed on the people of Anambra State by a clique in the PDP leadership. Even the beleaguered INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, openly criticized the PDP for lack of internal democracy. Prof. Soludo’s imposition has caused so much division and bitterness among committed PDP members.
Why should any aspirant who feels brazenly cheated by the PDP leaders remain loyal or committed to the party? Why are Professor Soludo and his sponsors afraid of free and open competition? Why should Soludo who just joined the PDP be given prominence over those who have the grassroots support and have been longer in the party? The National Chairman of the PDP usually boasts about the “new and reformed PDP”. The current lack of internal democracy in the party defeats every claim about reformation by the Ogbulafor-led national leadership.
The legacy of do-or-die politics introduced by former President Obasanjo has taken the shine off our democracy. And sadly, this pernicious political behaviour has produced deleterious and contagious effects on other opposition parties that they themselves have imbibed the culture of imposition. Gen. Obasanjo is not inherently democratic and he had no shame behaving like a rogue elephant in the cornfield of democracy.
During the controversy surrounding the rumoured ambition of the late Gen. Sani Abacha to continue in office as a civilian President, Gen. Obasanjo was one of the latter-day social critics that attacked the late military Head of State for making nonsense of the essence of democracy –the freedom of choice.
According to Obasanjo and other like-minded loyalists on the band wagon of his deception train, the adoption of the late General Abahca as the joint presidential candidate of the five government appointed and funded political parties was a brutal slap in the face of whatever democracy stands for. Many undiscerning Nigerians had hailed General Obasanjo, mistakenly thinking that the Ota farmer is sincerely committed to democracy.
While Gen. Abacha may be forgiven for the attempt to remain in power as a civilian President because he was not elected into office in the first place, Obasanjo’s failed attempt to continue in office through an illegal constitutional amendment to exceed his term limit was more criminal. The constitutional review, which was manipulated and funded by Obasanjo’s administration, was the worst slap on our democracy. It was an illegal attempt by an unpopular civilian administration to desperately remain in power, despite the fact that Obasanjo was being more tolerated than loved.
With such an unenviable democratic record, Gen. Abacha was a better hero than Obasanjo. If Abacha’s attempt to continue in office was improper, former President Obasanjo’s plan to manipulate the constitution to achieve the same ambition was criminal. He is a shameless pretender that preaches democratic virtues he never had. Though Abahca was not elected, he performed better than the so-called civilian democracy ran by former President Obasanjo. Nigerian democracy is still under siege ten years after the country returned to civil rule. Our democracy has been tainted by the culture of imposition introduced by Obasanjo and the man is even not ashamed be going round African countries to fix their failing democracies.
Wachukwu wrote in from No. 39, Late Dr. Michael Okpara Way, Aba.