31 Dec 2006 |
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A Bolekaja Presidency (6) I had suspended the Bolekaja series choosing to comment instead on other aspects of the feud between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar, but the crisis in the Presidency has now reached a new feverish pitch: The President had pinned the Vice President to the floor, with an upper cut to the poor man's jaw, a kick to his groin, with the Vice President flailing his hands; he finally managed to get to his feet, with victories in the court declaring his suspension by the PDP null and void, with the declaration of his Presidential ambition and 60th birthday ceremony, and he got up to his feet fully, soon enough with the big ceremony where he declared openly for the Action Congress as that party's flagbearer. But the Presidency is fighting back. Atiku is down again on the canvas; he is bleeding. Obasanjo is hitting him hard at every possible spot. There is a checkmate. Oh what a fight! The fight is now beyond the referee. Both combatants have taken the fight to the streets; every rule is being set aside, every available weapon is being used. Obasanjo hits Atiku; he slaps him; he just hit his head with a hammer...Oh!...Orji Kalu tries to come to Atiku's rescue; he jumps into the ring to hit the President; he is given a military style kick which sends him sprawling, Bisi Akande of the Action Congress is also trying to call for the President's impeachment; oh wait a minute, he gets a dirty slap; Bola Tinubu of Lagos also tries to stand up for the Vice President, some Presidential assistants have brought out cudgels aimed at Tinubu's head...I can see a tooth flying out of somebody's mouth. Ouch...Sangba fo, Obasanjo yo eyin lenu Atiku o. Did you see that? The President has just removed his agbada. Atiku has pulled off his trousers, what is he trying to do? This is real roforofo...ladies and gentlemen...the dirtiest fight ever staged on the streets of Nigeria... and you are watching it live, free of charge... The key latest development in the foregoing combat is the decision of the Peoples Democratic Party to expel the Vice President from the party, following his declaration for the Action Congress and his announcement (December 20) of his candidature in the 2007 elections as the Presidential candidate of that rival party. The Vice President's action was obviously an act of provocation, but he simply walked into an ambush that the President had prepared for him. At his declaration, Atiku waved a broom and boasted: "I will wipe out all the rot in Aso Rock". He also railed against what he called "a cabal of opportunists, greedy and hypocritical clique, which hides under the guise of high moral principles to debase our democratic institutions and practices." Atiku's audience hailed him; it was made up mostly of hardened critics of the President. Ten other political parties present at the AC convention also adopted the Vice President as candidate. These were mostly small, marginal parties: PSP, ACPN, NAP, BNPP, UDP, MMN, MDJ, ACD, CDP and the Renaissance Party (RP), but they helped to give the Vice President a strong outing in the political arena. Before the Action Congress convention, Vice President Atiku had also appeared (December 18) before the Special Senate Committee currently probing the controversial PTDF account where he made damaging allegations against the President accusing his boss literally of theft of public funds, diversion of public resources and sheer brigandage. For 77 minutes he regaled the Victor Ndoma-Egba committee with tales about how his boss used the PTDF funds to run his own personal affairs, including the third term agenda, the settlement of his lawyer's bills and the registration of a company. He then defended himself against previous allegations of impropriety, making his boos look like a villain. The Presidency of course dismissed Atiku's submissions as a "tissue of lies" while it secretly tightened the trap that it was preparing for the Vice President who had become the enemy within. The same week, a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that Vice President Atiku could not be tried by the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal over the allegations of abuse of office against him in the management of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF). Atiku who had hitherto looked like a finished political asset suddenly became strong in the eyes of the public. Except that Hurricane Matthew was on its way... While the Vice President was busy rubbishing the President, the President had in fact used the PDP convention which was held a week earlier to put an end to what he considers the Atiku nuisance in the PDP. The emergence of little known Umar Yar'Adua as Presidential candidate of the PDP, entirely stage-managed by the President was a kick below the belt for the Atiku group. It will be recalled that Atiku had boasted in a ThisDay, interview, barely two weeks earlier, that Yar'Adua is an insignificant political figure, but at the PDP convention, Obasanjo transformed his friend's brother into the corridors of history by forcing all the PDP Governors to support him and hand him the PDP ticket. If anyone thought that Obasanjo was anti-North, he used the PDP convention to make it clear that he is actually in support of the idea of power returning to the North in 2007. But he has also given the North, not a candidate chosen by the North, but by Obasanjo. And if anyone was in any doubt about the outcome of the 2007 Presidential elections, the President immediately began to describe Yar'Adua as "his worthy successor." He also started using him to spite Atiku. Ahead of the 2007 elections, the President is already imposing a choice on Nigerians. It is terrible that Nigerians are being presented with a Presidential candidate who is no more than a tool in the hands of a power-monger! It is worse that President Obasanjo is packaging the result of the 2007 Presidential election as a fait accompli. This is most undemocratic and a clear case of gross misconduct. Obasanjo even took the Presidential jet from Atiku and gave it to Umar Yar'Adua. On a day when the PDP Presidential candidate was cruising from Abuja to Minna in the Presidential jet, the Vice president had to travel to Lagos in a commercial plane. This is unacceptable. Where is the National Assembly? The cost of Yar'Adua's use of that jet should be calculated and he should be made to pay for his rental of the people's plane. We want free and fair elections in 2007, but when certain favoured candidates are allowed to use public facilities to run their campaigns, just because they have Godfathers in high places, that objective is defeated. When later the Vice President decided to go on leave and travel to the United States, he was again denied the use of the Presidential jet. The President personally ordered the pilot of the Presidential jet not to allow anyone called Atiku or his agents, family, dog, cat, or distant relation or anyone that looks remotely like him to step onto the plane. The pilot of course took his orders seriously. Atiku had to travel with British Airways. He had hardly landed in the United States when the PDP announced his expulsion from the party. The party further advised the President to relieve the Vice president of his position. The President took this advice to heart and declared Atiku's seat vacant. His official vehicles and security aides have since been withdrawn; the salaries of his aides have been stopped; members of his family have become unwanted guests in Aso Rock. If the Vice President delays his return to Nigeria, his wife and children may be sent packing from the Vice President's quarters. The President is relying on Section 146(3) of the 1999 Constitution, the clause thereof in (c ) which states that the Vice President may be removed "for any other reason". This has generated so much argument among lawyers about whether or not the President has violated the Constitution, with the great Gani Fawehinmi pushing a febrile, one-sided argument about the legality of the President's action. Vice President Atiku has gone to court to challenge his so-called dismissal on the grounds that it is a coup against the Constitution. The legal tussle, arising therefrom should be useful, it should provide the courts an opportunity to subject Sections 142 and 146 of the Constitution, and other relevant provisions to the test of rigorous interpretation. Can a member of a joint ticket abandon the platform that brought him to power? Is it true that by declaring for a rival party, the Vice President has deserted his position? Can a body other than the National Assrmbly or a House of Assembly impeach the Vice President or a state Governor? The Atiku case is to be considered in relation to that of Governor Orji Kalu of Abia state who has also been dismissed by the PDP and his position wrongly declared vacant on the grounds that he has deserted the political party that brought him to power. But this matter is not all about law. It is politics too. Nobody should be surprised that both the President and the PDP are turning the Constitution on its head, and rewriting the rules of interpretation of statutes. Both parties have never cared about the rule of law. Two successive Chief Justices of the Federation (Uwais and Belgore) have had cause to protest publicly that the present government merely picks and chooses which section of the law to respect or obey. President Obasanjo knows the importance of the law but when it suits him, he abandons all the things he learnt over the years as a development agenda activist, and chooses to fight rough. In the Atiku case, he may not mind if the courts declare his action illegal, but he has made his point. And the point he is making is a moral one. He is saying that he cannot work with a man who is an enemy of his and who has told Nigerians and taken actions to demonstrate that he is an enemy of his government. He is saying that Atiku can no longer be trusted. He is insisting that he cannot grant an enemy access to state secrets. Two possibilities are foreseeable: when Atiku returns, he could be arrested by the EFCC and paraded in handcuffs, humiliated thoroughly and then left off the hook after a few days. But Obasanjo would have made a point, a sadistic point. Or Vice President Atiku could take a pragmatic view of the matter and remain abroad, since in any case, his complete humiliation by his boss could damage him. One thing is certain: we have on our hands, a Presidency that stopped functioning a long time ago. President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku have done nothing in the last one year, other than fighting and abusing each other in public. Is this what we deserve as Nigerians? Is this what we voted for? Even the National Assembly that is supposed to defend our interest is thoroughly compromised. It is so thoroughly compromised it is not in any position to call the Executive to order. The judiciary is being looked upon as the arena where the legal aspects of the crisis can be resolved. But even the judiciary is in disarray. My Lords are as bewildered as the rest of us. Consider Anambra for example. Peter Obi should not have been removed in the first place, but a Chief Justice, an officer of the law facilitated his removal only for a more learned judex to rule that the rule of law is to be preferred always to the rule of charlatans. The rest of us, we, the ordinary majority, watch all of this and we are confronted with the simple fact that the shenanigan of politicians is ultimately about us, about the failure of leadership in our land. But we may well be consoled by a simple religious observation: those who rule us, those big men whose wives are called First Ladies, and Their Excellencies, they are very unhappy and insecure persons in spite of their status and wealth. It is a pity that there are too many unhappy people ruling Nigeria! Back to Atiku, what must he do? He is up against a powerful and crazy machinery. With his security aides withdrawn, he will be returning to an Aso Rock where his security can no longer be guaranteed. He must know that the battle that he faces is not in the court of law. He must remember that although the courts kept insisting that the PDP could not suspend him and that he could not be tried, yet the party booted him out and he has been on trial in a sense. The battle he faces is not about some 13 SANs wearing silk and quoting the law, it is about the reality of battle on the streets. It is a territory that Obasanjo knows very well. He is a soldier, and he is showing the soldier in him: he is not wasting bullets in this fight. And he will keep shooting until Atiku is down. I asked the question once: how far can Atiku go? This was the same question that was posed to the late Bashorun M K O Abiola. And so I ask Atiku: how far is he willing to go? And as for you, the reader of this piece, friends and foes taken together, have a happy new year. And may the good Lord forgive all your sins, and that includes those readers who spent the better part of this year abusing me on the internet (!), may the Lord bless you real good, and grant you the energy to confront the new year with grace and fortitude...
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