Obasanjos second handover Page 1 of 2

Obasanjos second handover?

By

Sam Nda-Isaiah

At the beginning of the last PDP convention that threw up President Olusegun Obasanjo as the party’s flag-bearer, Governor , the maverick and irrepressible governor of led a rebellion to stop the President from emerging as their party’s flag-bearer. His action was not informed by animus towards the president.

In fact before the convention, he and a few others like , , , , Adamu Mu’azu and were derisively referred to as Obasanjo boys. Governor Ibori’s action was motivated by enlightened self-interest. It was his considered opinion that if Obasanjo was selected their party’s flag-bearer, he and most other PDP candidates would lose their own elections because the president had become dangerously unpopular across diverse segments of the country. Apart from his proverbial gift of insulting peoples’ sensibilities, the president has also failed, very precipitously many concede, in governance. The president has proved to be very inept and incompetent as President of the Federal Republic. His records in all material department of governance speak against him. He has proved to be worse than the worst in the history of governance in . Yes, Nigeria has been unfortunate with leadership, but Obasanjo has given a new definition to bad leadership in Nigeria. Ibori therefore knew exactly what he was doing. He had support and encouragement from Governor Deprieye Alameiseigha of , Abdulkadir Kure of , of , of and many others who gave tacit support. The putschists urged Vice President Atiku Abubakar to dump the president and either enter the contest himself or align with Dr. Alex Ekwueme to oust the president. The president himself went to work and countered the rebellion with all the forces and paraphernalia of government at his disposal. Several PDP delegates got wealthier beyond their wildest imagination over-night as a result. At the end, people like Ibori, Kalu and Kure recanted and fell in line. They voted Obasanjo. But that was the party’s greater undoing.

The presidential election is just days away. The reasons Ibori & co rose against the president will be cognate as Nigerians decide on his (the president’s) fate on 19th April. If the feelings of the majority of the people are anything to go by, then things have become much worse. Obasanjo’s government is in reverse gear. Many are amazed that the president is still campaigning. Even the Iraqis who have been treated to an assortment of bombs - over 5,000 have been dropped in the last few days - are not in the kind of dire straits that the country has found itself. There is no electricity power even though the Obasanjo government has spent over $2 billion on the sector in the last four years; fuel queues remain unabated because Obasanjo and his team have chosen not to repair the refineries. They prefer importing fuel even though Nigeria is the 6th largest exporter of crude oil; most cities have no portable water, not to talk of the rural areas where the majority of the people live; no roads even though by the minister’s confession (Charles Ali Madaki, Minister of Works and Housing), the nation has been committed by N350 billion on roads of which N130 billion has already been paid to contractors. The security situation is at an all time low.

Obasanjo’s campaigners are always quick to say that Obasanjo did not make impact in our lives because he was busy trying to undo the damage caused by fifteen years of military dictatorship. But the soldiers themselves were not this corrupt. Anybody, no matter who he is, who wants a continuation of this record beyond May 29th is either a certified enemy of the Nigerian state or of an unsound mind. No normal human being whatever his motivation should want all these to continue in his life for another four years. Obasanjo has run the Nigerian ship of state aground.

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It is now time to talk of a post Obasanjo era. There are several presidential candidates in the fray today but by common consent, the battle next Saturday will be between Obasanjo, the incumbent, and General Muhammadu Buhari, the ANPP’s presidential candidate. General Buhari’s legendary integrity and track record will stand in good stead for him on Saturday. His public service records are in the public domain. Even his enemies are not contesting that. As minister of petroleum, he constructed three of the four refineries and throughout his tenure, there was never a single day of fuel crisis. As ahead of state, one of the first things he did was to pay civil servants a nine months salary arrears that was incurred by the second republic politicians. He also tackled the security problems with dispatch. He, unlike Obasanjo as head of state refused to take foreign loans despite pressures from within and without. It will be recalled that the first jumbo loan ever to be incurred by Nigeria was by General Obasanjo when he was military head of state. In 1976, Nigeria’s total outstanding debt was N374.6 million. Immediately after the death of General Murtala Mohammed and with his assumption as head of state, Nigeria’s external debt problems started. Obasanjo took a jumbo loan of $1 billion from the international capital market. Nigeria’s loan portfolio thus increased from a manageable N374.6 million in 1976 to a whopping $2.824 billion in 1979. We have not recovered since.

The received wisdom is that the Yorubas will vote Obasanjo. But that is no more likely to happen. Thanks to PDP’s "victory" in the National Assembly elections last weekend. Some AD governors are complaining bitterly that the president short-changed them and that the PDP rigged their victory. They want to take their pound of flesh on April 19th. Besides, the open endorsement of General Buhari by such powerful progressives as Chief Olu Falae, Alhaji Lateef Jakande and the politically influential arm of the Abiola family has lighted up the political landscape. From all indications, Obasanjo will not have a smooth sail. The enlightened Yorubas see the president’s new propensity towards the AD as largely opportunistic. They say Obasanjo is not pro-Yoruba. He is only pro-Obasanjo. I agree.

The people and the electors also seem dead set against rigging. Just before the elections, people with four hundred stuffed ballot boxes were apprehended in . Some were also arrested in Gusau, Kaduna, Adamawa and other states. This weekend, election riggers and other fraudsters will get more desperate. My advice to them is that they down tools on Saturday. It will be a risk for any of them to ply their trade this weekend. From the mood of the majority of the electors and by the special grace of God, it will be in order to start thinking of President Muhammadu Buhari. I am still uncertain if President Obasanjo will accept defeat that easily. He has obviously not prepared himself for that since he has been telling us of the several appointments he has outside the country up till September. If he doesn’t, Nigerians will be ready for him. But if by some miracle he accepts defeat and hands over peacefully, then he will have been the only Nigerian so far who has handed over political power from military dictatorship to civilian democracy and also from civilian to civilian democracy, shattering the myth and the jinx of Sisyphus in the process.

If that ever happens, many Nigerians including this column will be ready to forgive him all his sins of the last four years!

April 2003

http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/oarticles/obasanjos_second_handover.htm 7/21/2008