Can Obasanjo be trusted?

By Oguwike Nwachuku
Some who saw President Muhammadu Buhari and his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo beam with smiles when they met at the 30th African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday, January 28 wonder what kind of character Obasanjo is.
They are at a loss as to how a man who wrote six days earlier a damning epistle against a sitting president boldly cracked jokes with him as if nothing had happened.
They met after Obasanjo issued his scathing “special press release” full of innuendo that included telling Buhari not to seek re-election in 2019.
Buhari, Obasanjo, and former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, shook hands and bantered heartily for about two minutes in Nelson Mandela Hall in Addis Ababa.
It unsettled some of Buhari’s aides like Hadi Sirika (Minister of State for Aviation), Geoffrey Onyeama (Foreign Affairs Minister), Abubakar Malami, Attorney General and Justice Minister), and other members of the Nigerian delegation aware of Obasanjo’s letter.
Obasanjo released his “special letter” to Buhari on January 22 where he told him to quit office in 2019 and not seek re-election.
In the letter titled “The Way out: a clarion call for coalition for Nigeria movement,” Obasanjo highlighted the gains Buhari has recorded as president, but enumerated his legion of failings which disqualifies him for another term in Aso Rock.
The letter reads in part: “The situation that made Nigerians to vote massively to get my brother [former President Goodluck] Jonathan off the horse is playing itself out again.
“First, I thought I knew the point where President Buhari is weak and I spoke and wrote about it even before Nigerians voted for him and I also did vote for him because at that time it was a matter of ‘any option but Jonathan’ (aobj).
“But my letter to President Jonathan titled: ‘Before It Is Too Late’ was meant for him to act before it was too late. He ignored it and it was too late for him and those who goaded him into ignoring the voice of caution.
“I know that praise-singers and hired attackers may be raised up against me for verbal or even physical attack but if I can withstand undeserved imprisonment and was ready to shed my blood by standing for Nigeria, I will consider no sacrifice too great to make for the good of Nigeria at any time.
“No human leader is expected to be personally strong or self-sufficient in all aspects of governance.
“I knew President Buhari before he became President and said that he is weak in the knowledge and understanding of the economy but I thought that he could make use of good Nigerians in that area that could help.
“Although I know that you cannot give what you don’t have and that economy does not obey military order. You have to give it what it takes in the short, medium and long-term. Then, it would move.
“I know his weakness in understanding and playing in the foreign affairs sector and again, there are many Nigerians that could be used in that area as well. They have knowledge and experience that could be deployed for the good of Nigeria.
“There were serious allegations of round-tripping against some inner caucus of the Presidency which would seem to have been condoned. I wonder if such actions do not amount to corruption and financial crime, then what is it?
“A culture of condonation and turning a blind eye will cover up rather than clean up. And going to justice must be with clean hands.
“I thought President Buhari would fight corruption and insurgency and he must be given some credit for his achievements so far in these two areas although it is not yet uhuru!
“The herdsmen/crop farmers’ issue is being wittingly or unwittingly allowed to turn sour and messy. It is no credit to the Federal Government that the herdsmen rampage continues with careless abandon and without finding an effective solution to it.
“And it is a sad symptom of insensitivity and callousness that some Governors, a day after 73 victims were being buried in a mass grave in Benue State without condolence, were jubilantly endorsing President Buhari for a second term! The timing was most unfortunate.
“The issue of herdsmen/crop farmers’ dichotomy should not be left on the political platform of blame game; the Federal Government must take the lead in bringing about solution that protects life and properties of herdsmen and crop farmers alike and for them to live amicably in the same community .…”
Obasanjo’s letter provoked a deluge of reactions from the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the academia, and other members of the public, including the informed and uniformed.
Depending on who was reacting, the responses to Obasanjo’s letter to Buhari were good, bad, or ugly.
Information and National Orientation Minister, Lai Mohammed, said the government took Obasanjo’s admonition of Buhari in good faith because the government has “no reason to believe that … Obasanjo has any motive beyond the well-being of the nation in issuing his special press statement.
“We have also taken his admonition in good faith, and we thank him most sincerely for taking time off his busy schedule to pen such a long statement ….
“On whether or not … Buhari should run for another term, it is true that many Nigerians have been calling on [him] to run again, while others are opposed to his return.
“However, we believe this issue is a distraction for the President at this time.
“This is because [he] spends every working hour tackling the enormous challenges facing the nation, most of which were bequeathed to his administration by successive past administrations.
“He is committed to fulfilling the mandate given to him by Nigerians in 2015. And that’s where we are right now ….
“We have taken the bull by the horns, and long-suffering Nigerians will begin to experience a new lease of life as our efforts yield fruits.
“We will not go into a state of funk for whatever reason.’’
Mohammed praised Obasanjo for acknowledging the administration’s efforts in the fight against insurgency and corruption, two of the three cardinal areas of focus of the administration.
However, he added that Obasanjo’s busy schedule denied him appreciation of efforts and resounding successes in the economic sphere.
Mohammed said Buhari was aware of the enormity of the challenges facing the nation and the administration was up to the task.
He stressed that Abuja was determined to end the herders/farmers’ clashes once and for all, “not minding the fact that the clashes predate us,” and urged Nigerians to have faith in the administration’s ability to resolve the crisis and to watch out for concrete measures against it.
Communications Minister, Adebayo Shittu, was not as agreeable as Mohammed in his response, accusing Obasanjo of sensationalism, and insisting he has no right to ask Buhari to drop his 2019 re-election bid.
His words: “Obasanjo as a Nigerian has the right to hold an opinion. If Obasanjo holds an opinion that [Buhari] has performed less than he should be, those of us who are in the position to know better have a right to also state the other side which perhaps Obasanjo is ignorant of.
“Some people enjoy engaging in sensationalism. With due respect to Obasanjo, if you take his history over the last 30 years, there is hardly any regime other than his own that he did not criticize except [that of] Sani Abacha, who didn’t wait for Obasanjo to criticize him before he was sent to the gulag.
“So many Nigerians know that Obasanjo enjoys this type of sensationalisation. In any case, no matter what impression you have of me, do you have a right to tell me not to contest an election? I mean we should talk like people who are educated, who know our left from the right.
“There are procedures for elections …. Buhari is a member of the APC and the APC has its rules and regulations as to how candidates will emerge.
“If members of the party feel that [he] has not performed well enough, it is for them to show that during the primary election. It is not for anybody to short-change Nigerians and prevent people from offering themselves for an election.
“In any case, since Obasanjo is no more a member of our party, with due respect to him, it doesn’t lie in his mouth to tell us who among our party members or leaders to contest or not to contest.
“I think Nigerians should concede this privilege to members of APC to decide the fate of Mr President when the primaries come.”
One man who has remained consistent in mischievously having his way in this country is Obasanjo. Many agree he is the luckiest Nigerian alive. He is wealthy, healthy, influential, among other things going for him.
I ally completely with those who said we should be more interested in the message from Obasanjo and dwell less on the messenger and his character.
He has played a key role in determining who rules Nigeria right from when he handed over to Shehu Shagari in 1979 in an election his kinsman and presidential candidate, Obafemi Awolowo, claimed was rigged for Shagari.
Ever since, we have been grappling with who Obasanjo favours for the Presidency. But for providence, Obasanjo would still have favoured himself with the carefully planned third term agenda if the Senate had not thrown the bill out.
The country has not recovered from the plan Obasanjo had to extend his tenure, if signs from those who came after him as president are anything to go by.
From Umaru Yar’Adua to Goodluck Jonathan, and even Buhari, Obasanjo’s imprint was bold in the circumstances that brought them to power.
And as Femi Fani-Kayode argues, “without Obasanjo’s wholesale and comprehensive endorsement, Buhari would have failed woefully at the polls three years ago.”
That Obasanjo is at the forefront of the struggle against Buhari means he also had a stronghold on him prior to his election in 2015. And that is where part of the issue about his letter lies.
Those who followed the trend in 2014 when Obasanjo was on Jonathan’s jugular still remember that part of what Jonathan and those around him could not do was return to the drawing board and rethink the things they were not doing right as pointed out by Obasanjo.
Instead of doing that, the administration raised an army of political hawks who told Jonathan not to worry, and demanded from him huge sums of money to do propaganda which helped to drive the death nail in his political ambition in 2015.
A similar thing is playing out today with some of the aides of Buhari opening their mouths so wide to criticise Obasanjo’s letter rather than telling the man they pretend to love more than themselves to return to the drawing board to see how things have gone wrong and remedy them.
Nigerians have gone through hell in the past two and a half years of Buhari administration and there is no indication that things will get better before the next election. That is the reason Buhari may be rejected at the polls.
Part of Obasanjo’s advice to Buhari, therefore, is that he makes amend before it is too late.
But how can Buhari make amends with the marauding Fulani herdsmen killing Nigerians in their homes and farms without remorse?
How can Nigerians trust that the number of jobless youths will ebb drastically in the next one year?
How will Buhari win the confidence of Nigerians complaining that he is clannish and ethnically biased in his appointments into key offices that demand equitable representation?
The complaints are numerous.
Being an incredibly grassroots politician with a huge capacity to do mischief, Obasanjo knows that Buhari and his team may not be able to right the wrongs before the next vote. Because time is not on their side, Obasanjo wants to seize the moment and do the damage. And his letter suggests he is determined to do damage.
It does not matter whether the faces we saw at the launch of the Coalition for Nigeria Movement recently are familiar ones or not. It does not also matter whether they are still politically relevant or not.
The fact that Obasanjo has registered with the group tells whoever has been monitoring Nigeria’s political dynamics since 2007 that a major development in the political landscape is about to unfold. Those whose ears are on the ground would have heard that the civil society organisations are part of this struggle.
Obasanjo also sounded a note of warning that should the members of the group see it as a tool for partisan politics he will quit.
That warning tells one that Obasanjo has indeed thrown his hat in the ring for a better Nigeria piloted by a better leadership in 2019 – different from those he has endorsed over the years without full knowledge of their potential and capacity.
His commitment that the “Coalition for Nigeria will be a Movement that will drive Nigeria up and forward,” may not be borne of Obasanjo’s historical selfish desires but by the desire of many other Nigerians hungry for a society they are proud to call their own in political stability, economic development and social re-engineering.
Again, Obasanjo said: “It must have a pride of place for all Nigerians, particularly for our youth and our women. It is a coalition of hope for all Nigerians for speedy, quality and equal development, security, unity, prosperity and progress.
“It is a coalition to banish poverty, insecurity and despair.
“Coalition for Nigeria must be a Movement to break new ground in building a united country, a socially-cohesive and moderately prosperous society with equity, equality of opportunity, justice and a dynamic and progressive economy that is self-reliant and takes active part in global division of labour and international decision-making.”
But the big question is: Can Obasanjo be trusted?