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The Obasanjo presidency emerged in 1999 following the sudden deaths of the then Head of State General Sani Abacha and the winner of the ill fated June 12 election, Chief MKO Abiola. Obasanjo was chosen by a coalition of retired military officers and politicians as a presidential candidate to assuage the South-west Yoruba who were then aggrieved over the demise of their president in waiting, Abiola. Secondly, Obasanjo was picked for his immense marketability to the Northern elite and to the military as one belonging to that constituency. To all these, Obasanjo’s reputation as an international statesman, burnished by his stint in prison during the Abacha years could be added for good measure. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had emerged as a vast network of disparate interests from the G-34 political movement that had been formed originally to oppose Abacha. In the aftermath of Abacha’s death, and with the resumption of partisan politics, the PDP was formed notably dominated by Yar’adua’s Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), retired military officers and the rump of the old National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The first two groups successfully overpowered the other alignments within the party and steered the PDP towards realizing an Obasanjo electoral victory. It is important for us to accurately contextualize the necessity of Obasanjo’s presidency. In 1999, Nigeria needed a strong leadership to guarantee the survival of its 4th republic democracy and to protect it from the collision of three forces that posed significant threats. The first and the clearest threat was a military establishment that had overdosed on the forbidden fruit of political power. Having ruled Nigeria for about thirty years, exorcising the military of its propensity for political adventurism would take a great deal of effort. There was also the cabal comprising of retired military officers, political operatives and elements of the northern elite. This was the so called northern oligarchy which had benefited the most from the military’s stranglehold on power over the last three decades. Many of its chieftains still conceptualized a sort of divine right to rule consistent with their feudal heritage. They too would have to be addressed. Thirdly there was a need to deal with the forces of rabid Yoruba irredentism represented moderately by some figures in the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and extremely by groups such as the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and others that considered secession by the Yoruba South west as a viable political option. The OPC and others of its kind were spouting a virulent Yoruba supremacist creed propagated by its founder Dr Frederick Fasheun and an even more extreme variant by his estranged erstwhile protégé, Ganiyu Adams. Obasanjo set about containing these threats by purging the armed forces of officers that held political appointments in the previous regimes as a first step towards reinstituting professionalism in the military. These purges for obvious reasons affected mostly northern officers who had benefited the most from the Abacha years. The northern elite, accustomed to having things their way, took it badly and embarked on a propaganda campaign accusing the Obasanjo administration of being anti-north and anti-Islam. The fact that his first military appointments seemed to favour the middle belt was interpreted as further evidence of a plot to defang the northern oligarchy. The culmination of the oligarchy’s propaganda was the instigation of the enactment of Sharia Islamic law in some northern states as a ploy to undermine Obasanjo’s administration. Although Sharia law had always existed in the north, its scope was limited to civil matters until late 1999 and early 2000 when some northern states led by Zamfara extended its jurisdiction to cover criminal matters. The specter of Saudi style amputations and decapitations ignited the combustible religious and political tinderbox in the north sparking off riots that claimed the lives of thousands notably in Kaduna in 2000. At the same time, Obasanjo had to adopt a hard line stance against Yoruba supremacists who were rampaging in the south west where the Yoruba political establishment still perpetuated the perception of the president as a northern stooge. Since 1999, there has thus existed a cold war between the Obasanjo administration and the northern oligarchs. The power struggle between both resulted in the departure of several of its founding members from the PDP including Chief Sunday Awoniyi whose bid to gain the chair of the party was thwarted by Obasanjo. Obasanjo’s first term in office was defined by his largely successful bid to gain control of the PDP. Such is the nature of the political terrain that without this control of the political machinery his very presidency and his reform agenda would have been imperiled. The Nigerian political terrain has long been characterized by a lack of ideology. The parties that were formed at the dawn of the fourth republic were simply agglomerations of diverse interests without any ideological communion. This trend is an important factor in understanding Nigerian politics. One party that seemed to have a potential to become an ideologically centered movement was the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Within its ranks were political heirs to Obafemi Awolowo and it could also a claim a key role in the opposition against Abacha and also to be the most viable channel for the transmission of the neo-socialist ideals of awoism unto the national stage- a feat which had eluded Awo himself. However the AD was sabotaged by the unhealthy influence of the cult of gerontocrats known as the Ijebu mafia who saw it more as a vehicle for the Afenifere’s sectional agenda than as a pan Nigerian political party. The AD thus remained narrowly defined as a Yoruba party as they succeeded in alienating progressives from other parts of the country. It was through the political skullduggery of the Afenifere gerontocrats that Bola Ige was schemed out in favour of Olu Falae as the party’s presidential candidate. That moment marked the beginning of the AD’s demise. The party since then has been torn apart by strife with two factions jostling for supremacy, its governors performed poorly in the south west and lost every state except Lagos (whose Governor Bola Tinubu pledged 5 million votes to the reelection of Obasanjo) in the PDP’s ruthlessly orchestrated blitzkrieg in the south west. Its leading lights are now distinguished only by their resort to political necromancy- the fraudulent invocation of Awo’s name to curry relevance in the polity. The collapse of the AD is emblematic of the impotence of the so called progressive politicians. It is critical to understanding why the third term is being contemplated at all and why contrary to opinions in certain quarters it is an entirely reasonable option for the next republic. Progressives in Nigeria have never elected a government for reasons bordering more on their own political ineptitude than on the oft cited deficiencies of the system. In the second republic the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and Awolowo lost. Despite the uproar over the twelve two-thirds controversy, Awo lost ultimately because he had failed to cultivate a pan Nigerian appeal. His politics alienated the north who saw him as a Yoruba irredentist and his policies while in government had alienated the Igbos who remembered bitterly his unjust attempts to economically emasculate them after the civil war. In 1993, the progressives were arrayed against Chief MKO Abiola who had never been part of the Yoruba political establishment and was perceived as a friend of the conservative northern elite. History has shown how such tags are like death sentences in the matrix of south western politics in events dating back to the Awo-Akintola Feud. The dispute embodied a larger schism between two political tendencies- those seeking ethnic and ideological purity as Yoruba awoists and those seeking to bring the south west into the mainstream of Nigerian politics. Not withstanding opposition from his kin, the Egba tycoon convincingly won what has been adjudged as the freest and fairest election in Nigerian history. Abiola won because he had what Awo sorely lacked- a pan Nigerian appeal stemming largely from his deserved reputation for philanthropy. So potent was his appeal that he beat his opponent, Bashir Tofa in his home state of Kano. The SDP won fielding an all-Muslim ticket in Abiola and Kingibe; something regarded as unsound in Nigerian politics. The progressive opposition to Abiola during the ill-fated June 12 election helps to contextualize the later stance of the Yoruba political establishment after the election had been annulled. While many figures could claim that their sudden pro-Abiola stance was a matter of principle, a more primordial motive rooted in old fashioned ethnic sentiment might have been a more decisive factor in converting the Yoruba political establishment to Abiola’s cause. Even at this point, the south western politicians subverted themselves by alienating progressives from other parts of the country and depicting June 12 as a Yoruba campaign for political power when it should have been something much more- a pan Nigerian campaign to realize the hugely popular mandate represented by Abiola’s victory. Abiola, although now venerated as a martyr for democracy in some quarters had a storied history of involvement in military rule, notably supporting his friend, Babangida’s putsch in 1985. Abiola benefited greatly from Babangida’s reign and his connections with the northern elite. In 1999, Obasanjo was opposed by the south western political establishment who ensued that he could not win in his state. However the retired general proved once again that a pan Nigerian campaign would always trounce a sectional candidacy. The perception of the AD as a Yoruba party and its own ill-advised choice of Olu Falae instead of a probably more nationally acceptable candidate in Bola Ige did it in. Our political history suggests that the so called progressives suffer from a congenital inability to construct a pan Nigerian front that can mount a challenge for power. It has been all too often subverted by its self destructive tendency for narrow self definition along the lines of the Lagos-Ibadan axis and even more narrowly as a vehicle for Yoruba irredentism. This same inability to broaden their horizons derailed PRONACO’s bid to convene its own National Conference in 2005. Secondly the progressives have failed to create a genuinely ideologically centered opposition to the ruling PDP. Their failure to provide alternatives is a major factor of the politics now shaping the next republic. The present third term debate has created the impression that the political terrain is polarized along the lines of those that are for and against the third term option. This simplistic delineation is ultimately more damaging to the progressives. It is a truism that an ideology is not so much what you oppose as what you propose. Being anti-third term is not an ideology; it is only an opinion. Beyond this, there is a need to propose an alternative to the subsisting political reality. The progressives and the chorus of anti-third term agitators appear both genuinely blind to this need and ill-equipped to meet it. Most of the analyses and critiques of the third term option are crafted with hydrochloric pathos by persons who seem to be struggling with a personal hatred for the president. Some of the appraisals in the media have bordered on pedestrian banality with evaluation of the government being reduced to the absence or presence of “quotable quotes.” With such prosaic commentary, the press deserves some of the blame for failing to raise the bar as far as the performance of the political class is concerned. And in its haste to be seen as being activist, the media is failing to note the fundamental defect of a political position that attacks a government without presenting anything, even itself, as an alternative. Dr Patrick Wilmot was alluding to this, when he recently called on the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to form a political party and engage other forces in the political mainstream. Nobody is questioning the ideological formlessness of the thirty or so parties that claim that they want to dislodge the PDP. And while the ruling party is itself equally lacking in ideological substance and coherent only because it has patronage to dispense, at least it has been the vehicle for the gains of the last eight years. This cannot be discounted. Nobody is pointing out that without the formation of a broad-based progressive alliance preaching an alternative political creed the PDP is essentially justified in adopting any means it desires including using its legislative majority to guarantee the continuity of its reign. Parties such as the ACD, the MRDD and their ilk cannot thrive simply on an anti-Obasanjo position but by positively putting forward an alternate route to national salvation. The fact that these parties were formed largely by those who have lost out in the politics of the ruling party readily confirms these movements to be assemblies of bad losers seeking a forum to tend their sour grapes. The absence of a serious challenge to the PDP is the central issue which our media is failing to address. The stealth candidacies of Reverend Kris Okotie and Rochas Okorocha remain limited to epileptic public pronouncements with as yet no serious campaigns worthy of the lofty aim of dislodging the colossus at the summit of our politics. Nothing for instance stops Audu Ogbeh (A man whose intelligence is not always reflected in the political company he keeps) and Adams Oshiomhole from running as a joint ticket in 2007. But among the progressives there seems to be a curious unwillingness to contest for power. The reasons are not far fetched. It could be that these opposition figures prefer the safer confines of civil society activism in which case they must realize that political power is gained through political engagement and not through social activism. More pointedly, it could also be that in an era in which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is growing in stature, opposition figures with murky pasts are reluctant to have their financial indiscretions exhumed as fair game by political opponents in which case there is no point replacing one set of alleged crooks with another. The current focus on obasanjo’s pronouncement to determine the political future of this country is both simplistic and diversionary. It follows in the pattern in which certain groups use the anti-third term agitation to mask a basic poverty of ideas. More critically a distillation of the commentary in the media suggests that the main issue is whether or not Obasanjo will run in 2007. This is a wrong headed condensation of the breadth of political activity in Nigeria into the internal developments in the PDP. A number of people opposed to the third term option have called on the president to name his successor and refrain from running. To this extent, the anti-third term forces and their confederates in the media are simply saying anyone but Obasanjo in 2007. In essence, they are not talking about even a democratic transition channeled through the electorate but something closer to apostolic succession implying that which ever way whatever Obasanjo wills will be done. One might as well argue that if Obasanjo handpicking his own successor is an option then there so should be his remaining in office. In a sense they amount to the same thing. An intra-party succession will inevitably set the stage for the PDP’s political hegemony in the years to come. The progressives will have inadvertently instituted the one party state framework that they often claim to be against. It is profoundly ironic that the unipolarity of our political space is less a consequence of any strategic brilliance on the part of the PDP than of the obtuse interpretation of political reality by the so-called progressives. As long as Obasanjo’s decision is made the issue in the polity, the media and various other groups are ascribing to him the very power which they say he should not have and are conceding the initiative to Aso Rock. The only event that will probably create a bipolar political reality will be the exit of Atiku Abubakar from the presidency and from the PDP along with his marginalized PDM faction to seek his fortune elsewhere. It has become apparent that Atiku’s thinly veiled presidential ambitions cannot be realized within the PDP following his estrangement from the president. One possible scenario would see Atiku pitching his tent with any of the other parties of the country and having various movements coalesce and anoint him their flag-bearer. This will be occasioned by a rapprochement with the northern establishment with which the vice president has had stormy relations in the past. Atiku’s determination to gain the prize that eluded his mentor, the late Yar’adua will likely drive him to contest in 2007. His vice presidency has been largely incognito and Atiku himself has been inscrutable in terms of genuine ideas. He seems to embody the spirit of the Nigerian politics as usual par excellence. However Atiku is scarcely a poster boy for radical progressive change. Personally, I believe that an Atiku candidacy points us backward rather than forward. In his two terms in office thus far, Obasanjo has performed creditably enough in my opinion to cast doubt doubts on the copyright to the appellation of progressive. He has also gained numerous enemies among forces hurt by his reforms and his anti-corruption drive. He has been hamstrung by their covert and overt opposition as well as by compromises some of which he has needed to oil the machinery of democracy. Some of his problems have also been self inflicted arising from a tendency to engage in morally questionable political transactions as was the case in Anambra in the Ngige-Uba saga and a susceptibility to accusations of double standards. The president has pursued an ambitious if difficult reform program and may feel justified in asking for a third term in order to continue. This is regardless of the motives of those currently campaigning for an extension of term limits. It is typical the world over for any political enterprise to involve both true believers and mercenary political operatives. Nigeria is no different. The Obasanjo presidency has set Nigeria on the right path to national recovery. However considering his age, it is clear that he cannot continue to bear the burdens of high office for much longer. Outside of the third term issue and as several commentators have noted even if inadvertently, there is still the important matter of who succeeds Obasanjo. Within the PDP, the identity of obasanjo’s heir apparent is as closely guarded as that of a papal successor, perhaps known only to the president himself. The larger context of the third term debate is the battle to shape Nigeria’s future. It is a drama starring an ample complement of reactionary forces and a septuagenarian president cast as our best hope for the future. In the final analysis, reform continuity and consolidation are what Nigeria needs preferably via the president’s succession by a trusted protégé in 2007or via a third term for him if necessary. As for the so called progressives, considering their readiness to concede the initiative to Aso Rock and hurl brickbats from the safety of the sidelines, perhaps the final epitaph of this movement will be that they came, they saw, they made a lot of noise but they had nothing to offer.
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Posted by Robot| 06.03.2006 12:26