Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has continued to exert significant influence on Nigeria’s politics and leadership. In this piece, Bayo Akinloye examines how he has been able to control the reins of power of the world’s most populous black nation from 1999 to date against the backdrop of his letter to President Muhammadu Buhari
N igeria’s former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has been described as a prolific letter writer. His Tuesday letter to President Muhammadu Buhari was one in a series he had written to sitting presidents in the country. His favourite ‘pen pal’ until now was ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.
There is more than meets the eye, according to political pundits, in the elder statesman’s latest epistle – with the Presidency said to be considering its content graciously.
Since 1999 Obasanjo has exerted an imposing influence on the nation’s political landscape and seat of power. Though many political watchers believe that the ex-head honcho’s political net-worth does not amount to any popular electoral following, his ability to change the country’s power equation is apparent.
They gave the example of Obasanjo’s seeing to the emergence of President Umaru Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan; and, even if remotely, in the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari, the man currently in the eye of the storm.
Obasanjo’s affiliation to power dates back to the 1970s and his ascendancy as the military head of state was by described as being by accident following the gruesome assassination of his then-boss, Gen. Murtala Muhammed. Obasanjo’s stay in power was however brief as it was reported that, without any hesitation or pressure from any opposition, he conducted an election which paved way for the world’s most populous black nation to return to democracy after a chequered history of military rule.
Unlike many African presidents of his time, he did not exhibit the desire to hold on tight to power, often referred to as the sit-tight syndrome. He would, however, later be accused of wanting to cling on to power some decades after.
Twenty-three years after, Obasanjo – literally from incarceration by the military regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha – was handed the mantle of leadership in 199 by ex-Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Thus, Obasanjo became the first president of the Fourth Republic. His first four years were hailed home and abroad as he tried to redeem the nation’s battered image. After completing his first term, he ran for a second term and won.
But toward the twilight of his second term in office, he got embroiled in a controversy regarded as the “Third Term Agenda.”
Not a few people accused him of trying to perpetuate himself in power. Obasanjo was accused of planning to amend the Nigerian constitution so he could serve a third term. But no sooner had the alleged plot got into the public domain than the public spiritedly kicked against the idea and the bill meant to elongate Obasanjo’s tenure as the president was not ratified by the National Assembly.
The alleged desperation of Obasanjo, then, to remain in power was illustrated by a former President of the Senate (2003 – 2005), Adolphus Wabara’s interview with The PUNCH in November 2014, where Wabara accused the former president of offering him N250m to support his third term bid.
“Many of those who share the money are still in the Senate today; those who physically distributed the N50m. By 1.30 am, the sum of N250m was brought to me in my house. N250m was brought (to me) and I refused that money. If you juxtapose what I’m saying now with my speech that morning of May 16, 2007, I said anybody who had collected any money on my behalf should please return the money to where it came from because I knew what I was talking about. Somebody could lie that I collected that money and just keep the money. So, mine was not even N50m. It was N250m with a promise that they would bring more to me if everything worked out fine.
“The third term thing, if you have not heard, started from May 29, 2003, when Obasanjo was inaugurated for a second term. That was why when I became the Senate President on June 3, 2003, he invited me to his office sometime in July and that was the longest time I had stayed with Obasanjo – for two whole hours. My younger brother, the then chairman of Hallmark Bank, was also there. The Chief of Staff to Obasanjo then, Gen. Abdullahi Mohammed, was interrupting the meeting every 15 to 20 minutes for two hours and Obasanjo kept telling him to wait.
“By the time we came out, there were so many ministers and many foreign dignitaries waiting to see the (ex-) President. They were wondering what these two brothers were doing with Obasanjo inside. It was then he told me that I was doing a very good job and if I knew that was what he was angling for I would have told him off. Anyway, I told him how could I be Senate president in 2007? He was trying to recruit me but I refused to be recruited,” Wabara had said.
The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, who was a minister in Obasanjo’s government also attested to the ex-president’s ambition, saying in his book, ‘The Accidental Public Servant,’ that President Muhammadu Buhari was one of the people who thwarted the general’s plan.
“Merely by reaching out, we had succeeded in recruiting Buhari to spearhead the guerrilla warfare that helped end the ‘constitutional amendment debates in the National Assembly. Buhari remained available to engage with Obasanjo while making repeated trips to Abuja to visit legislators in their houses or calling them, making a pitch for them not to support the third term attempt.
“Buhari had a considerable moral authority and was completely disinterested in the outcome of the third term debate, so having him available and physically in Abuja to oppose it helped a lot in defeating Obasanjo, Tony Anenih, Ahmadu Ali, Ojo Maduekwe, Senator Ibrahim Mantu, Dalhatu Tafida, and other third term protagonists. What was impressive about Buhari was that he did this quietly and effectively without the desire to claim any credit,” el-Rufai had said in the book.
Despite the claims, Obasanjo has always refuted the allegation that he was involved in any plots that were intended to keep in power beyond his second term. “I never toyed with the idea of a third term,” he had stated.
Rather than diminish in his political stature afterward, Obasanjo has continued to be more relevant in Nigeria’s socio-economic affairs despite his past sociopolitical ‘baggage,’ analysts noted. He was considered as being meddlesome especially during the Jonathan six-year administration as the two repeatedly had public spat involving the exchange of letters. This came to a head in February 2015 – before the general elections – when Obasanjo severed his political affiliation with Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, with his party’s card destroyed publicly.
That month, the PDP’s Presidential Campaign Organisation, through its then Director of Media and Publicity, Femi Fani-Kayode, stated that the ex-president should accept the reality that his days of ruling the country through “surrogates are over for good.”
Fani-Kayode had added, “It is most uncharitable and unfair for him (Obasanjo) to suggest that President Jonathan wishes to remain in power by hook or by crook because that is not the nature of Jonathan. It is even worse for him to compare him to President Laurent Gbagbo. The days of anyone attempting to rule by proxy or through surrogates are long over because we have all come of age.”
Locally and internationally, Obasanjo’s clout remains intact, according to political pundits. In the run-up to the March 28, 2015, presidential poll, the former president was said to be instrumental in the choice of APC’s presidential candidate.
In 2014, he was said to have warned the party not to field former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate as many of the APC chieftains including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu being at his Abeokuta home to confer with him. Similarly, when the current Senate had a shaky start, following the turmoil in the National Assembly, Senate President Bukola Saraki had to visit Obasanjo for direction.
Little wonder that observers are of the opinion that the former president’s staying power remains unmatched and that he will continue to wield considerable influence on the government of the day, openly or covertly.
According to Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella, Obasanjo will continue to have a say on how the country is run as long as he lives.
“As things are today, nobody in politics in Nigeria can ignore Olusegun Obasanjo probably because he does not keep quiet when things are going wrong politically or economically. He is one past president that speaks out and remains well-informed, tapping on the knowledge available from all sources – including his own failures. Until he stops commenting, no one can ignore him.”
Speaking in the same vein, a political scientist, Dr. Idowu Johnson, said, “Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo is not only an elder statesman in Nigeria. He is an international personality. At a time like this, no reasonable political office holder will ignore his fatherly advice. He may have his shortcomings but that does not mean we should not appreciate his worth in the history of Nigerian politics. Obasanjo will support any government that performs excellently irrespective of party affiliations.” But the former spokesman for the APC and current Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, felt might not be in tune with the Buhari administration’s current achievements.
“We have no doubt that in the face of massive challenges in this area, this Administration has availed itself creditably. We believe that Chief Obasanjo, because of his very busy schedule, may not have been fully availed of developments in the government’s efforts to revamp the economy, which was battered by the consequences of over-dependence on a commodity as well as unprecedented pillaging of the treasury,” Mohammed said on Wednesday.
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