OBASANJO, TIK AN’ TIN

“A ripe melon falls by itself.”

African Proverb

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chairman, Board of Trustees of the People Democratic Party (PDP) made a turn on his celebrated political route, and has left the nation guessing and following with intense interest. He says he is making a stop, and will take another route, but only he knows how long the road is, or if he plans to make a u-turn, re-fuel, abandon the vehicle, take on new passengers, or is just thinking over what to do, or where to go next. Many people say they believe Obasanjo when he says this leg of his eventful journey is over, but insist that he has run out of fuel, and his vehicle’s engine has “knocked”. He cannot call mechanics to repair his car, or bring him fuel, because he has no credit on his phone, and mechanics do not trust him to pay them. They say he cannot go further because the road ahead is too dangerous for him, and he is safer abandoning his journey. Others are just relieved that he is abandoning his eventful political sojourn, and will hope that he will retire his plans and vehicle for good. There are yet others who really couldn’t care less, and will say that there are many Obasanjo’s on Nigeria’s political terrain.

Obasanjo himself says he is coming to the end of a stage in his life, and is starting another, out of choice. For a man who is not known to accept defeats or setbacks, this is to be expected. The stage he is resting, the stage of active politicking has indeed been full of events and accomplishments. While it lasted (if it is over, that is) Obasanjo was the dominant figure in Nigerian politics. Even before then, he had the dubious distinction of being accused, convicted and sentenced to death for planning a coup d’etat, after he himself had benefited from a coup staged by others in 1976. He rode on the back of the ambitions of other military officers to become the number two man to Murtala Mohammed, then after more ambitions were shot dead on streets and stakes, he became a reluctant number one. He went down on record as the Nigerian military head of state who handed over power to a civilian administration, and his Yoruba kith and kin declared him public enemy number one for not handing it to one of his own, whether we won the elections or not. He invoked more wrath when he charted his own course in opposing Abacha, and refused to endorse Abiola as the messiah. When he fell foul of the intrigues which had become part of the military tradition, he was clamped into jail by Abacha, but survived his jailers, survived Abiola, survived NADECO, and became the prime beneficiary of a largely-northern initiative which identified a Yoruba Presidency in 1999 as the only route to stabilizing the polity and maintaining northern influence at the centre.

When he stood for election against another Yorubaman, he lost at his polling unit, his ward, Local Government and the entire southwest zone, but was voted in by a national party which had created a “consensus” around his pedigree, candidature and presidency. He came to power with tremendous goodwill and support from the remnants of the NPN, which had roots in the north, east and the south-south. Within two years, he had fallen out with most of the people he had picked to run his government. By 2002, he realized that he needed both political power and a war-chest to sustain control; and his run-in with his deputy taught him the lesson that you cannot survive politics on someone else’s platform. By 2003, he had learnt many more lessons, but by far the most important appears to be one that suggests that a leader is only as powerful as the people around him are weak.

          Surviving the damaging intrigues of the run-up to the 2003 elections, and the elections themselves which were roundly condemned as heavily compromised, he set about to consolidate all power around him. He had succeeded in convincing his Yoruba kith and kin to appreciate that when your mother is in the kitchen, you do not embark on a hunger strike. A combination of crass opportunism among Yoruba politicians and his desire to build a power base of his own created in his party’s spectacular in-roads into the southwest.

          By 2004, he was not on speaking terms with most of the people he started the PDP journey with back in 1998, and by 2006, he had made enemies with virtually all of them. He was the only source of power, and his party bore his heavy imprint. His many scuffles with the legislature showed him the wisdom of engineering and controlling its leadership, but the third term misadventure showed that even Obasanjo could fail to reach all targets. He attempted to fight corruption, but it was too deeply rooted in the very political structure on which he relied for survival, so he failed spectacularly. He made the type of enemies that will haunt you in your grave; and so he attempt to perpetuate his powerful grip and immunity from enemies by deciding those who succeeded him. He plucked a good man with a very weak health and an unhealthy  respect for him, and another whose entire political career appears to have been written by accident and planted them in the Presidential Villa. To secure his firm grip on his party, he got it to re-write its constitution to virtually give him control of its Board of Trustees for life, if he wanted it.

With his handpicked people in the Villa, and his Party in his pocket, Obasanjo must have thought he had it made. He was wrong. In the 2007 elections, the ACN under Tinubu had began to chase his Party out of the southwest, and bitter Yoruba politicians in his party, some of them the age of his children, were insulting him in public over their fate. The new President installed in 2011 had new mentors and godfathers who had taken up position to keep him isolated and safe from Obasanjo. The rout against his party was completed in 2011, and he was back there he started: a leader without a political base. The last Convention of his Party showed him how badly the ground had shifted from under him, and it would appear that for once, Obasanjo recognizes when to throw in the towel.

Obasanjos’ enemies should not jubilate yet. The man had fallen down many times, and had been or his feet before you could say “iroko”. But this is indeed a good time for this elderly Nigerian to leave the scene altogether. He says he wants to mentor future politicians, pay attention to his presidential library and help Nigeria attract foreign investment. All laudable goals, which will be best accomplished if he stays away altogether from the political terrain.