Life lesson: Obasanjo and Jonathan

I wrote then: It pays to think what reflections great men have when they perceive of the impact of their actions on us minions. David in scripture has this long soliloquy in which he considers the heavens, the works of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars. “What is man that you are mindful of […]

I wrote then: It pays to think what reflections great men have when they perceive of the impact of their actions on us minions. David in scripture has this long soliloquy in which he considers the heavens, the works of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars. “What is man that you are mindful of him….that you even visit him?” David had asked of God.
With all that President Obasanjo attained in eight years of ruling Nigeria as a converted politician, “what is the Presidency of Nigeria that President Obasanjo felt so much as to determine who succeeded him and not a choice made by the people”? The simple argument is that if President Obasanjo had allowed the People’s Democratic Party to choose his successor by simple Primaries, the late Umaru Yar’adua would not have been President. If Yar’adua had not been the President, now hamstrung (even by Obasanjo’s definition), President Goodluck Jonathan would not have been on the saddle, with Obasanjo frustrating himself in a bid to remain relevant to the necessary change. In 2007, an ailing and unwilling Umaru Musa Yar’adua was made to run and win the election. Not a few people have expressed the view that the country’s face was thus deliberately scarred for former President Obasanjo’s personal whims. In his book ‘Conscience and History: My Story’, Dr Peter Odili, likely besides Bauchi State’s Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu to have won the PDP ticket, wrote that President Obasanjo singlehanded scuttled his presidential bid and was able to even go further to switch him with Goodluck Jonathan as Yar’adua’s running mate.
Is there a better time than now, to ask President Olusegun Obasanjo what he saw in the protégés he promoted, particularly what he advanced as President Jonathan’s merit over all the potential so evident then? Should we beg to know what Obasanjo thinks of the outcome of his political engineering work?
In contemporary Nigerian political history, President Obasanjo’s thumb prints are smudged all across. From the crude derailment of his Vice President Atiku Abubakar, to Adamawa State’s installation of Governor Murtala Nyako as the Governor and the rancour and contention that Adamawa State has suffered these past 7 years. For the Supreme Court is yet to decide on the legality of Nyako’s election on the grounds that primaries as required by laws of the Party did not take place for him to emerge as running mate. Then across the border is Taraba State, where Obasanjo in Bauchi at the Rally Grounds for the release of flag bearers, rejected the party’s nominated Danladi Baido of Taraba State, opting for just ANYBODY but Baido. The result: Danbaba Suntai, now ailing and leaving Taraba State, indeed Nigeria, with an intractable constitutional crisis.
I do not know how Nigerians viewed President Obasanjo’s act of supervising the public shredding of his membership card of the People’s Democratic Party. Many may have applauded the symbolism. But methinks it just seemed a pedestrian act and has deservedly earned him pedestrian verbiage from the party he “used and dumped”. I think he is a man burdened by guilt. He caused President Goodluck Jonathan to be; whether good or bad, he bears responsibility for the turn of events. All evil associated with the post Obasanjo era is truly a result of President Obasanjo’s political engineering gone awry. In President Obasanjo’s third term bid, President Goodluck Jonathan learnt lessons he is about to apply to stay longer in office even if he does not go through an election. Thus by what moral justification could Obasanjo have cautioned against what happened to Laurent Gbabgo of Ivory Coast when in failing to get the third term, he saddled the nation with a terminally ill Umaru Yar’adua and padded him with novice Goodluck Jonathan in hope to run the Government as the Goodluck Presidency has so cried out loudly.
My posture that I took weeks ago remains valid. “Obasanjo had a challenge to teach democracy following the many years of Nigeria’s military experience, and his immense interaction with renowned world leaders. But alas! Did he? His tearing of his membership card further diminished him. Surely as a parent, I admonish my children to blot the images of that act from their memory. And in future when children proceed to burn their certificates and even the national flag, it will be the result of “nonsense their teacher taught”.
President Goodluck Jonathan is standing in the valley of decision. We must empathise with him. There is no certainty that he and the PDP will win the forthcoming election, an uncertainty that is causing aides and vested interests to go for broke.  And there is every indication that alternative desperate options are being mulled.
Rig the election to ensure continuity; what if that fails, for it can fail. Nigeria is different today.
Derail the process and ensure that Buhari the promising opponent does not by any chance become Head of State. Set up an interim Government. Will it hold? Would the outcome not be a grave and long lasting constitutional crisis?
Get the courts to disqualify Muhammadu Buhari. Would that not trigger a spring, the Arab type? Is there an honourable exit from the very likely chaotic aftermath?
Declare an extension of rule by citing the security situation. Not good enough. It has for a long time looked like the insecurity was a deliberately orchestrated tool.
There are many options however outlandish, each of them open ended for a situation far worse than can be imagined.
President Goodluck Jonathan is best advised to take steps that make him a hero of our democracy and not its villain. He should learn from the travails of Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida, and indeed Obasanjo. Break free from those vested interests that give evil counsel when the easiest and the most natural step to take is to submit to the will of God in all truth and decency, and got through the election, win and celebrate, or lose and congratulate the winner, and be exalted as a man of honour and a patriot. The only good path is the narrow path of the elections promised in March. After all, winning the election is a possibility, is it not?