SIMON KOLAWOLE: What Does Obasanjo Really Want?

Simon Kolawole Live!: By Simon Kolawole, Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com

With former President Olusegun Obasanjo, you buy one and get one free. Problem is: you never know what you are getting. You could be getting a peacemaker and a troublemaker in one bundle. I am always conflicted trying to decode Obasanjo’s personality. One moment, I find myself describing him as the best president Nigeria has ever had. The next moment, I am cursing him as the worst thing that has ever happened to us. The best of humans live with their own contradictions and underbellies, but Obasanjo easily stands out, perhaps because of the prominent role he has played in our nationhood - and, more so, the way he keeps intruding into our lives.

Here is a sampler. Having been raising the hand of President Goodluck Jonathan during the 2011 presidential campaign, Obasanjo retired to his hotel room one night and sent for Malam Nasir el-Rufai, an ally of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. According to el-Rufai in his tell-all book, Accidental Public Servant, Obasanjo lamented that Jonathan was not going to make a good president. He asked el-Rufai to tell Buhari that he was ready to support him against Jonathan. Obasanjo reportedly suggested that Buhari should pick Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as his running mate, then go into an alliance with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and offer Asiwaju Bola Tinubu the Senate Presidency. Obasanjo, el-Rufai said, promised to get some “wealthy people” to fund Buhari’s campaign.

What happened next? Unknown to onlookers, Obasanjo’s grouse with Jonathan was that his daughter, Iyabo, had been denied the PDP senatorial ticket for Ogun Central, and his sudden support for Buhari was an attempt to exact his pound of flesh - or blackmail the PDP into giving his daughter the ticket. It was obviously not an attempt to save Nigeria from Jonathan’s “weaknesses” as he claimed. El-Rufai noted that immediately a curious court judgement gave the PDP ticket to Iyabo, Obasanjo swiftly changed his tone and began to canvass that they should help Jonathan work on his “weaknesses”. That is the real Obasanjo. Those who know him will testify that he is eternally self-centred. He believes the world revolves around him.

It is believed that the crisis currently rocking the PDP has the signature of Obasanjo. Nobody knows where he is going yet. Even the people working with him cannot swear that they know his game plan. By the way, I love the PDP crisis. Having ruled Nigeria since 1999, the party has grown too big for its own good. There are many states in Nigeria where PDP is the only party. Other parties only exist on pieces of paper or in INEC’s computer. Sadly, the PDP goes into every general election virtually assured that it would win. Getting the PDP ticket is as good as winning the election. That is not good for our democracy. I believe politicians must fight and sweat for every vote. That way, they know the worth of victory. That can actually make our democracy work for everyone.

But this PDP crisis, unfortunately, is not about how to make this democracy work for everyone. Let us look at two of the characters at the centre of the drama: Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Babangida. Not so long ago, Obasanjo described Babangida as a “fool at 70” for criticising his (Obasanjo’s) management of the Nigeria’s oil wealth for eight years. Obasanjo said: “If Babangida had decided, on becoming a septuagenarian, that he will be a fool, I think one should probably [not] answer a fool because you may also become like him.” In kind, Babangida replied: “Calling me ‘a fool at 70’, especially by a man reportedly and allegedly accused by his own son of incest, is at best a compliment. Nigerians surely know who is truly a fool or the greatest fool of this century.” Both of them are now suddenly in bed together, fooling around, but I refuse to be fooled.

What about Obasanjo and his former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar? They were engaged in a very public and bitter feud but they are now dancing to the same tune again.  I don’t need to repeat the words they have exchanged publicly in the last seven years, but I’m sure Nigerians still vividly remember Obasanjo’s popular line, “I dey laugh o”, when informed that Atiku had been chosen as  the Northern consensus candidate for the PDP presidential primary in January 2011. Laughter unlimited! Remember Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi? In 2007, Obasanjo viciously dropped him as the PDP governorship candidate in Rivers State, saying publicly that his candidature had “K-leg”. It took judicial activism for Amaechi to be made governor. Obasanjo and Amaechi are now in the same PDP faction, but I refuse to be fooled.

Obasanjo, luckily, is coming across to Nigerians as a peacemaker and an icon of democracy. He is the statesman trying to resolve the PDP crisis! Obasanjo as a peacemaker and icon of democracy is nothing but comedy. During his time as president, between 1999 and 2007, he removed three PDP chairmen and saw to the ouster of three Senate presidents. He illegally removed two governors under the pretext of declaring state of emergency. He watched with pleasure as his boys set Anambra and Oyo states on fire and capped it all by withdrawing the security aides of Governor Chris Ngige. If Obasanjo is your hero of democracy, I am sorry for you.

Now that he is reportedly rallying a faction of the PDP against Jonathan, you have to ask yourself: what is motivating Obasanjo? What does he really want? Is he genuinely trying to atone for his Yar’Adua “error” by helping to return power to the North in 2015? Will he backtrack if Andy Uba is given the PDP governorship ticket in Anambra and the revocation of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway concession is reversed? Will he pull back at the last minute again and ask his followers to “manage Jonathan’s weaknesses” when he finally gets what he wants? With Obasanjo, you don’t know what you are going to get. Just be careful. You have been warned.