Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s unusual resignation from the PDP sets the stage for another round of controversy in the party and the country, Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, writes.
There may be sense in allegation by critics that former President Olusegun Obasanjo derives some pleasure in stimulating controversies in the land. This engagement, it has been argued, perhaps remains his major strategy at attracting attention since he left office in 2007. Remarkably, each time he embarks on this pastime, the move is usually accompanied by developments that impact on the nation in one way or another.
On February 16, for instance, the former president pulled a controversial stunt when he publicly tore his membership card of the ruling directed Usman Oladunjoye, Ward Chairman of People Democratic Party (PDP), in Ota, Ogun State to tear.
Obasanjo’s show against the party on whose platform he was twice elected president was laced with another drama hours later when his Ogun State chapter of the party announced his expulsion from the party.
Obasanjo, in taking the bizarre action, claimed that he was uncomfortable abiding in the same party with President Goodluck Jonathan, who he said was determined to use corruption to destroy the country. He also said he would not remain in a party that is led by Buruji Kashamu, South West Contact and Mobilisation Committee Chairman of the party, who he had on occasions described as a “drug baron”.
“I’d rather sacrifice my political party for the interest of Nigeria than sacrifice my country for a political party led by a drug baron.
“I’d rather tear the PDP membership card than sit down and let Jonathan use PDP and corruption to tear my beloved country apart.
“I have national and international standard to maintain. For this reason, I’d rather stand alone than be in the same political party with Kashamu,” he said.
Action foretold
Not many were surprised at the former president taking a walk on the party. What rather baffled even his admirers was the unusual act of ordering that his membership card be torn in the public. In fact, long before Obasanjo embarked on the bizarre route, there had been speculations that he was merely hanging on the party while working against it.
Two weeks ago, for example, Jonathan’s media aide, Reuben Abati, had accused him of acting in league with unnamed forces against the interest of the president and PDP. Obasanjo had earlier alleged that the postponement of the general elections earlier scheduled for February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was part of the grand designs by Jonathan to win by all means.
He pointedly accused the president of forcing the postponement of the elections on INEC.
But in fierce response, Abati dismissed Obasanjo’s allegation as very odious and repugnant, accusing him of wantonly and maliciously impugning the integrity of the president for the primary purpose of self-promotion.
According to Abati, Obasanjo has set his mind on regime change by fair or foul means, adding: “Otherwise, it would be completely senseless, irrational and out of place for Chief Obasanjo, who still claims to belong to the same party as the president, to accuse President Jonathan of plotting to win the rescheduled presidential elections by ‘hook or crook’ and planning to plunge the nation into crisis if he loses the election.”
The intervention by Jonathan’s spokesman stood out as, perhaps, the first direct confrontation on Obasanjo since his occasional broadsides against the president. On occasions in the past when the former president had taken on Jonathan and his administration, reactions from Aso Rock had been mild and largely pacific.
In his recent book, Under My Watch, a controversial autobiography, the retired army General reportedly made caustic remarks on Jonathan, portraying him as lacking in will and capacity to steer the affairs of the nation. The book is currently under litigation.
Some days ago in far away Kenya, he had, in defending his combative stance against Jonathan, insisted that the president was not the leader presently needed to take Nigeria to the next level.
Even last year, Obasanjo had, in a well-publicised 18-page letter to the president, drawn his attention to certain developments in the party and polity that he considered against the corporate interest of the nation. While the letter, in some instances, appeared as advisory, it also contained portions that were interpreted by enlightened observers as subtle criticism and undeserved attack on the person of the president and his office.
The letter stated in part: “As head of government, the buck of the performance and non-performance stops at your table and let nobody tell you anything to the contrary. Most of our friends and development partners are worried and they see what we pretend to cover up. They are worried about the issue of security internally and on our coastal waters, including heavy oil theft, alias bunkering and piracy. They are worried about corruption and what we are doing or not doing about it. Corruption has reached the level of impunity. It is also necessary to be mindful that corruption and injustice are fertile breeding ground for terrorism and political instability. And if you are not ready to name, shame, prosecute and stoutly fight against corruption, whatever you do will be hollow. It will be a laughing matter.”
Obasanjo also faulted the president on the management of the economy.
“On the economy generally, it suffices to say that we could do better than we are doing. The signs are there and the expectations are high. The most dangerous ticking bomb is youth unemployment, particularly in the face of unbridled corruption and obscene rulers’ opulence,” he said.
The letter elicited reactions from different quarters. While some saw it as a bold intervention, many read mischief in the action. Those who thought in the latter line had argued that Obasanjo had many privileged windows through which he could have made his observations known to the authorities without attracting headlines. To them, the former president was merely grandstanding with intentions at hitting back at Jonathan over what was considered as his loss in PDP high wire politics.
Long road to impasse
What particularly was seen as the grouse of Obasanjo were the intrigues that eased him off the major decision-making circle of the party. For example, barely two weeks after the March 24, 2012 Abuja National Convention of the party, Obasanjo had, in a move that took even his ardent supporters and loyalists by surprise, resigned from his chairmanship of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) – a post many thought he had virtually appropriated for life.
Announcing his disengagement in a statement he personally signed, Obasanjo said by relieving himself of the responsibility for chairmanship of PDP BoT, he would have a bit more time to devote to the international demand on him.
He added that the stepping aside would give him time to give some attention to mentoring across the board nationally and internationally in those areas he had acquired some experience, expertise and in which he had something to share.
Apart from the suddenness of Obasanjo’s action, what also surprised his acolytes were the reasons he offered for throwing in the towel. In fact, while the news of the resignation broke, PDP officials laboured to downplay its impact on the party. However, a leading member of the party in Lagos had then told this reporter with a touch of emphasis that the former president might not have stated the actual reason for his resignation.
He suspected brewing friction between Jonathan and Obasanjo, widely seen as his benefactor and mentor on the job.
“Jonathan may have stepped on Baba, perhaps without the intention of doing so. And, if you know Baba, he is highly unforgiving. May be he had taken the action to withdraw his support for Jonathan and for the president to know that he was on his own,” the source volunteered.
In line with the fear, it was learnt that the former president had, by then, not been comfortable with developments in the party. He was, for instance, said to be in the dark on the emergence of Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman and Olagunsoye Oyinlola (secretary) of the party. Tukur has since been relieved of the job, while Oyinlola has dumped PDP for the rival All Progressives Congress (APC).
The former president, it was also gathered, was uncomfortable with the influence of the governors on the party’s platform in its activities. His thinking, our reporter was told, was that Jonathan had failed to stamp his authority on the party and, in the process, allowing the governors to hold the leadership to ransom on occasions. Obasanjo’s major fear in the process was that with his tenure on the job drawing to the end, Jonathan may not have the force to mobilise or coerce the governors in renewing it. As a face-saving measure, therefore, he had to quit the BoT job to appear as the one that had shown his back on the office, instead of being disgraced by the governors. He was replaced by Tony Anenih, his erstwhile ally who he had earlier upstaged from the post.
Behemoth in crisis
It was shortly after Obasanjo’s exit from the post that the simmering crisis in the party began to take turns for the unpredictable. But even before PDP got to the sorry turn, critics had, based on disturbing trends within it, dismissed it as accident waiting to happen. In fact, even as officials of the party pranced about in celebration of its 14th anniversary on August 31, 2012, it was apparent that all was not well with the organisation that prides itself as the largest political party in Africa.
Sign of major crack in the party was what amounted to a distress call from Tukur before his exit in which he had lamented that the party was losing its members to opposition political parties.
Tukur, who was visibly concerned with the disturbing trend, attributed the exodus to crises bedevilling the party across the country.
“Our party is losing membership. When we started in 1998 till date, we have seen many people gone. We can’t allow it to continue like that,” Tukur noted. But not much was done to halt the haemorrhage.
If anything, rather, subsequent events saw five key governors of the party – Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa, later impeached), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) – ditching it for APC. Governors Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Mu’azu Aliyu (Niger) backed out of the exodus at the last minute. Even then, they are suspected of being sympathetic to their colleagues. Given the perceived closeness of some of the governors that resigned from the party to Obasanjo, he was fingered in their action.
Enter Jonathan’s re-election
With the agenda for Jonathan’s second term gathering steam, Obasanjo went into full throttle in his attack, reminding the president that he had pledged to serve only one term. Remarkably, the former president had, during his term, promised serving one term but reneged on it mid-way into his inauguration. At the expiration of his second term, he even put up efforts at going for tenure elongation, but was halted in the exercise. At the onset of the current dispensation when opinions were divided over Jonathan continuing or handing over to candidate from the North after serving out the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s first term, Obasanjo had encouraged him to forge ahead, arguing that rotational presidency was not in the country’s constitution.
“The president can come from any part of the country, and nothing in the Constitution says he must come from a certain part of the country,” Obasanjo declared on Thursday, April 29, 2010 at Voice of America, where he asked Nigerians to support Jonathan in moving the country forward.
But five years down the line, Jonathan and the former president are no longer in the same boat. Analysts humorously describe the sudden turn of events as indications of love gone awry. Some, however, accuse the former president of embarking on theatricals to appear as a good boy to the Northern oligarchy.
Igbonekwu Ogazimorah, erstwhile newspaper editor and former Enugu State Commissioner for Information, argues in this light. He says: “Since leaving power in 1979, he (Obasanjo) has ever wished to remain in power. Every president of Nigeria was adjudged by him to be too bad for the country. He is the only man in love with Nigeria. This, he uses to hoodwink the Northern establishment, which though has ravaged Nigeria with so much misrule and pauperised the common folk in the region, to see him as a necessary staying power who would always be brought back to stabilise their cash cow.”
Nigerians react
Obasanjo’s action has drawn reactions from fellow members of PDP and non-members. A member of the party’s BoT, Ebenezer Babatope, for example, argued that with his exit, a huge yoke has been lifted off the neck of PDP.
“Obasanjo leaving the PDP has come as a happy and welcome development. With Obasanjo’s exit, a huge yoke has been lifted off the neck of PDP,” he said.
In similar vein, former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Olabode George; former Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel; and former Minister of Works, Adeseye Ogunlewe, had criticised him for dumping the PDP. Their position was contained in a statement issued and signed by members of the South West Presidential Contact Committee of the party.
According to the group, “former President Obasanjo has descended into the bitter fray of a common partisan actor without the distinction and dignity of a rallying unifying leader.”
Former university teacher and emeritus professor of Virology, Tam David-West, however, does not see anything wrong in Obasanjo’s action, adding that the former president has the right to join or ditch any political party or organisation.
“Obasanjo did not tear his membership card. He told his ward chairman to tear it. Obasanjo has a right to join a party of his choice. He was the chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees. He is a statesman that should be respected. He has done nothing wrong. He has the right to express himself politically and as a former commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he should be treated with the respect he deserves,” David-West was quoted to have said.
