Obasanjo’s burden

In a world awash with encomiums for a fallen global hero, Nelson Mandela rated as the world’s most exemplary figure today, what a trite; the verbiage from our leading national figure must read like, particularly to the global community. In despair, I underlined my major conviction. I love Nigeria more than I love Obasanjo and […]

In a world awash with encomiums for a fallen global hero, Nelson Mandela rated as the world’s most exemplary figure today, what a trite; the verbiage from our leading national figure must read like, particularly to the global community. In despair, I underlined my major conviction. I love Nigeria more than I love Obasanjo and Jonathan. My children need the country, not just a country. Then I realised also that that same conviction must have motivated the General to not only write that letter, but to make it public in the manner that it was done. Then, the opening lamentation absolved the former President of blame for my sadness. He had noticed the drift, had cautioned, had used civilised avenues to sound the notes of caution and indeed threatened that when this letter was not acknowledged or replied to within a specified period, it would be made public. I also realised that it was written in oblivion of ailing Mandela who eventually died, in which case, the timing, within an ambience of nobler encomiums on leadership, was purely providential.
We must appreciate President Obasanjo’s burden. He and many of his colleagues made the supreme offer of their lives that the country Nigeria survived the fratricidal civil war that it was plunged into, albeit, at the behest of the opportunistic Military. For if, and a believable if, Major Kaduna Chukwuma Nzeogwu and his four itinerant colleagues had not struck in 1966, democracy would have survived the political crisis of transition of the 60s, with institutions now evidently hamstrung, strengthened instead, by that challenge. Many of the political juggernauts today, including President Goodluck Jonathan, were mere youth then, far removed from the intrinsic meaning and significance of that Nationhood.
We must also empathise with former President Obasanjo. He has a high sense of personal stake in the existence of the country Nigeria, but if truth be told, he it was, that created the monster. He owes the nation responsibility for taming it. His dilemma takes root from his ramming of terminally ill Yar’adua down Nigeria’s throat and to me, this was worse for Yaradua’s person and the nation, than anything EK Clark is doing to this Presidency, and the nation, as Obasanjo charges in his caustic letter to the President. Who determined in 2007, that only former Governors were qualified to vie for the office of President, at least at the PDP? Who disenfranchised the Tukur’s, Clarks, Chiromas, Ekuemes, Nwachukwus, to force Yar’adua on the nation, by literally dragging a screaming and kicking and indeed, collapsing candidate through a political campaign till the largely personal and egotistical purpose was achieved in 2007? Point is once aberration becomes the norm the structural damage on the polity can be more far reaching than our current predicament. Now the kite is airborne untethered and Obasanjo’s confusion and frustration is spewed in the letter!
I have written before, that “it is a continuing treachery that saw to the death of Abiola, emergence of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the controversial restoration of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the emasculation of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the scuttling of the 3rd Term bid, the morbid political humour of foisting a terminally ill Umaru Musa Yar’adua and the ascendancy of ill prepared Goodluck Jonathan and the current season of angst and anomie.” It results from self righteous men like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, deviating from all democratic processes to manipulate the system and successfully foist a leader on the polity through cunning hood winking of the electorate. They play God with the nation’s destiny. They place themselves above the Constitution and the Party and damn the people’s wishes. This can only be the consequence. “You can’t be wrong and get right. You don’t expect to sow cassava, and reap up coco yam” (Jimmy Cliff and Majek Fashek)
This is not to dispute the gross indiscretions of the Jonathan Administration. As far back as March this year, I had shifted from hopeful tolerance to despair, and I wrote:- “Evidently, Nigeria is bleeding, and is in need of forceful, purposeful, honest and courageous leadership to stop the country from slipping into an irredeemable coma. My assessment of Jonathan’s presidency is that it lacks these attributes at this time to deliver this country and a second (third) term should really not be contemplated. Indeed, what can be summed up about Jonathan’s presidency, as we look forward to 2015, is that, though blessed by luck and providence, his tenure has been Nigeria’s worst bad luck – worse even than our civil war experience. The unspoken reality is that President Jonathan hangs on the neck of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party like an albatross. His performance considered, it becomes important to encourage all prominent politicians who feel better fit, to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan, even from within his party. It is dangerous to stifle the quest for better leadership.”
Yet I disagree with the former President in his argument or anybody’s argument for that matter for President Goodluck Jonathan to wilfully, forgo his constitutional right to run and I would have seen remorse in Obasanjo if he had insisted on a clean and transparent party congress in the conventional democratic due process which he never gave the country through his tenure. Jonathan’s lacklustre suddenly shines a notch above Obasanjo’s deflated status as a statesman and democracy icon – a status he earned by wilfully surrendering power to a democracy! But it is not in his place to be a kingmaker, much less want a Northerner! He should, like everyone else, want the right leadership, worked through functioning institutions of democracy based of the salient choice of a free people, whether Northern, Western, Eastern, or Southern. The people must decide. Not Obasanjo, not a few men – the wreckers of the nation.
I have condemned the Jonathan Presidency for not measuring up, but to self bar from 2015 is not feasible. President Obasanjo’s averred witness to a given assurance by President Jonathan not to run lacks credibility and rational. It was naive to have believed it if such assurance was given.  President Jonathan’s ambition and PDP’s future, should be democratically negotiated with all interested contestants in the party, failing which Nigerians should as a matter of course, be free to settle for another party’s candidate against the sitting President.
There is no workable alternative to the well known process. Political parties engage in open competitive primaries for their flag bearers to emerge, giving due respect to the wishes of the electorate. Office seekers submit declarations to the people which offer specific programmes. There is no escaping the observance of loftier moral leadership tenets that discourage the misuse of the machinery of government to incumbent advantages and to the frustration of opposition. Until we give heed to this warning, hard as we try, our contraption will only pass for what it truly is – a contraption and not a democracy of any sort.