Letter to a young Nigerian

“Advise and counsel him. If he does not listen, let adversity teach him.” Ethiopian Proverb.

 

This is a letter from an elder to young Nigerians. Please read it, if you can read. If you know other young Nigerians who cannot read, please read it to them. This letter will make you more angry than you are already, but it will not necessarily make your situation worse. Actually, if you can read this, and you have access to a newspaper and the time to read this, you are more fortunate than many other young Nigerians. When you are tempted to dismiss what I say as belated apology, it may do some good to remember that you may still have a good future, with jobs or assured incomes and some peace. The number of young Nigerians in your class is dwindling, so remember that you are part of the privileged class.

There are many young Nigerians who will not have access to this letter. Many are illiterate, and will live and die in that state. Many know how to read, but have no place for reading in a life of drudgery, drugs, despair and despondency. Many will hear of this letter, and will dismiss it as lamentations of privilege pricked by conscience. Many others will use the cyberspace to insult and abuse me, my generation, my region, religion and ethnic group. They will then insult and abuse each other, and blame all their woes on generations which have bequeathed them legacies of hate and hopelessness, designed and built by other ethnic groups.

In this season of goodwill, your challenging life must have been made more uncomfortable by letters and reports flying all around, all of them saying how wretched the state of our nation is. You would have read that the CBN Governor is challenging the President to say what happened to trillions from sale of crude. If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of university students who have been locked out for six months as a result of the ASUU strike, you may have done the maths, and established how much even a small fraction of that amount would have prevented your prolonged stay at home. You would have read of the speech of the Speaker of the House of Representatives lamenting a weak will in the presidency to fight corruption. You would have read of the widening investigations into the pensions scam; the tussle between legislators and the Ministry of Finance over the state of the economy, the foot-dragging over the purchase of bullet-proof vehicles by a Minister and the lamentations of President Jonathan over the absence of impact of the Niger Delta Development Corporation (NDDC) in spite of the trillions spent through it. You would have read that medical doctors are embarking on their own strike just as university lecturers are ending theirs. Polytechnic lecturers have been on strike for about two months, and INEC is requesting about N90b to conduct the 2015 elections at a time serious doubts are being raised over its capacity and integrity. 

At a time when it must seem as if the fight against an insurgency in the north-east will go on forever, registering deaths on daily basis, you must be reading or experiencing the meltdown of the once mighty PDP and the major repercussions it is generating. You will be forgiven if you think your leaders and elders have abandoned you. There are few jobs being chased by thousands of graduates. Young people without higher education or skills have no hope, no future and no stake in the system. You must know of peers who have since taken comfort in drugs and crimes, and many others who are bitter at being led to believe that honesty and hardwork pay.

Your life of uncertainty and frustration just got worse in the last few weeks when leaders and elders started a war, using letters that should frighten even their peers. Stepping forward from a long line of former leaders who ought to have been as concerned as he was, former President Obasanjo sent a long open letter to President Jonathan detailing many wrongs and warnings with frightening consequences. In the light of your upbringing in African traditions and values regarding appropriate behaviour by adults, the quarrel which that letter triggered must have left you thoroughly confused. First, President Jonathan’s people answered with invectives against Obasanjo, and said those are only opening skirmishes. Then the President himself virtually calls Obasanjo a liar over his allegation that he was training a killer squad and developing a shopping list of opponents. Then Obasanjo’s daughter writes her own father her own letter publicly exposing deep family secrets and addressing her father in a manner and language no one should address parents in. Now everyone is joining the fray, and it is by no means certain that even Senator Iyabo Obasanjo will not have some relation write her a public letter to put her in bad light.

If you are not shocked by all these developments, it will be a great tragedy that the nation will pay dearly for. It can only mean that my generations have brought you up in a cultural context where authority, age, decorum, decency, honesty and accountability have no values. The corruption which we have allowed into every facet of our existence has prepared you to expect nothing good or incorruptible in Nigeria. We bought and stole our ways into wealth and political mandates and other social values, and we used it to show you that this is the only way to live in Nigeria. All our fights are about money in the final analyses; all values can be bought, compromised or hijacked by money or power. 

If you do not experience anger at the conduct of our nation’s leaders these days and the manner they have brought our nation to its knees, it is likely to be because we have brought you up to believe that only members of your ethnic or religious groups are worth defending or fighting for. We brought you up to think of a nation of zones, ethnic groups, and regions; of corrupt and violent politics which give false or doubtful victories; governments which exist only to use public resources to bestow patronage and create wealth among very few. You inherited a nation which generates huge revenues and incredible levels of poverty among its population; which puts very little store on the values of human life and compassion for the weak and poor, while  venerating God in all its endeavours. We bequeathed you a nation without its proud history; education which perverts character and the soul; and value systems which justify every evil by its outcome. We brought you up to believe that leaders do not need to account to us; they live by
their own standards; and the governed have no say in how they are served by leaders.

You ought to feel more than slightly shocked or betrayed that leaders you expect to find solutions to poor education, unemployment, insecurity, impunity, corruption and endemic crimes are behaving as if the only problems they have are other leaders. If you are neither surprised nor disappointed, then the nation has hurt you more deeply than you realize. No one has a right to take our nation to the brink of disaster just because they can. As things stand, even with a much more committed, competent and honest leadership, it will take the best part of the next decade to reverse the decay in our social and economic infrastructure and stop the damage which impunity and corruption have wrought on our lives. It will take much longer  without the anger and energy of young Nigerians to turn this nation around.

Difficult as it is, young Nigerians need to distance themselves from part of their past. True, you are direct products of all our false starts and victims of a nation that has failed to live up to its promises and potentials. A few of you are also beneficiaries of a system built on the corruption of everything of real value in our history and culture. But it can change, and must change. It will need your personal commitment to move beyond anger and lamentations and become actively engaged in the fight to reverse the slide into disaster in which our nation and your future are engaged. Denounce in your heart, and in your deeds, the abysmal levels which Obasanjo’s letter exposed in terms of our national existence. Denounce his role and active connivance in erecting the foundations of a building he is trying to bring down today; and denounce his suspect motives and his pedigree. Denounce the spirit, the language and the medium of the letter from a daughter Iyabo to her father. This, by any standards of judgement, is not to be copied, admired or justified. Do not do that at home. Denounce President Jonathan’s reaction to the entire letter saga, and demand that he answers some of the more damaging allegations Obasanjo has made against him. Insist, henceforth, that leaders should not hide behind insults at opponents as responses. Denounce the silence of other leaders and elders who are behaving as if they have no obligations or roles to play in this dangerous game. Denounce the antics of politicians who are dragging our nation to disaster, confident in the belief that you younger Nigerians will be too busy abusing each other to notice. Rather than abuse each other, organize and do something practical and productive. Before it is too late.

What is too late?

“The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The second most distressing thing is to be proved right.” Aldous Huxley

President Obasanjo’s poison letter to President Jonathan laid everything bare, except the full intent behind its title, “Before it is too late.” On the face of it, the title suggests that Obasanjo’s blistering survey of all the ills of Jonathan’s personality and administration holds out the hope that the President can fix himself and his administration in a manner that will save the nation from a looming disaster. It is the type of warning a long-suffering parent gives to a perennially wayward offspring, and is intended to frighten them enough to ensure a full and speedy turn-around. You can just picture Obasanjo in all his imperial majesty waving a finger at Jonathan, and walking away from it all. I have done my own, he says. Now the rest is up to you. The nation, which will receive this advisory, is my witness. No one should hold me responsible for dumping Jonathan on Nigerians anymore. The Jonathan Obasanjo plucked and claimed to have engineered to become President has veered so far away from the path Obasanjo wants him to follow, that he is literally leading the nation to disaster.

The enigmatic warning in the title sits very uncomfortably on the text of a letter that basically suggests that it is indeed too late for Jonathan, if not for the nation. The catalogue of failures to deal with corruption and insecurity; the litany of shortfalls in personal integrity and leadership qualities; and the specific, alarming allegations that he is borrowing a leaf from Sani Abacha in raising a killer squad demand a legitimate question: can a man who has so spectacularly failed genuinely reverse himself and save his administration and the nation? If Obasanjo had read his opus carefully, (or, as some people speculate, the letter he and a few of those past leaders he mentions in his letter wrote together,) and he wants to be taken more seriously, he would have noticed that a more appropriate heading would be one which suggests that President Jonathan should resign now. Something like, “It is time to go, Mr President.”

But since Obasanjo hints at the possibility of a prodigal, let us ask ourselves how President Jonathan can reverse and save his presidency and the nation. He can fire most of his Ministers and close aides who have even a whiff of corruption scandal around them, and bring in a brand new set of people. Not very likely. A Jonathan presidency without some very powerful Ministers and aides is virtually inconceivable. These are the very people who give his administration its muscle and defining characteristic, and he has stood by them through thin and thin. To fire them now is to admit that they have soiled fingers all the way to their armpits, and he has been part of their misdeeds. He will stand alone and isolated, a president who sacrificed his most loyal people and friends over a letter from Obasanjo. 

Or, he could fire a few Ministers and revisit the volumes of reports from Lemu, Belgore, Ribadu, Fika, Turaki and a few others to help him focus more on fighting corruption, insecurity and reforms of the public service. This is not the type of demanding endeavour a president with his back against the wall and an eye towards 2015 will do. Besides, even implementing half of the recommendations of those committees will amount to a revolution that will sweep away all the systems and processes that have propped up his Presidency. And President Jonathan is not a revolutionary, particularly the type that will turn the gun at himself. 

How about renouncing any ambitions for another term and working hard to salvage his sinking ship? He has that choice, but it will be a very difficult one to make. If he says he will not run in 2015, his administration will be crippled beyond its current state. Loyalists will abandon him because he will have little to offer hence, and, more significantly, he will not be in a position to protect them after 2015. He will have to deal with resistance from a legion of clannish jolly-riders who have milked his presidency, and many will make life more difficult for him and a nation they will blame for stampeding him out of 2015. There is also the worry that his party is irretrievably damaged, not by the powers of party functionaries, but by his own weaknesses. Renouncing 2015 may stop some of the bleeding, and may even get one or two people back on board. But the party will be avoided like the plague in many parts of the nation for sacrificing Jonathan on the alter of geo-ethnic considerations. So the party is damned if he runs, and doomed if he doesn’t.

Obasanjo’s assault on the Jonathan presidency was comprehensive and total. He leaves the President very little room for manouver. He cannot ignore it. He cannot do anything dramatic to get out the sentence of incompetence and lacking moral and ethnical basis for governance, without doing more damage to himself. He could resign, or limp on until 2015.  That will be when, according to Obasanjo The Brave, Jonathan could make or break the nation. He says it will be disastrous if President Jonathan chooses to run. Others say it was not just Obasanjo who says so; but other leaders who prefer to hide behind the Obasanjo patent for writing letters to leaders. But Obasanjo has now made 2015 an even bigger issue than it has been. Now, if President Jonathan takes the current levels of discontent over corruption, insecurity, the management of his party, his personal qualities as a leader and an alleged sniper unit to the 2015 elections and insists on running, Obasanjo’s “too late” will play out.

What will the “too late” scenario involve? It could imply that extra-constitutional interventions may be deployed to stop the country from completely going over the cliff. Will a military intervention be feasible and useful? Even assuming you can have a military intervention, what good will it do other than replacing a problem with a problem? Then, again, a worst case scenario which Obasanjo implies we could face unless Jonathan radically reviews every facet of his character and administration is a failure of the Nigerian state from the combined weights of insecurity, corruption, greed, incompetence and insensitivity of its leadership. Failure here will mean even more extensive violence taking specific regional, ethnic or religious lines and collapse of all the basic institutions for governance and provision of security and maintenance of law and order. This doomsday scenario has been contemplated in many circles, and many have dismissed it as a fairytale. Many think Nigeria will not fail as a nation, but will not endure further stresses around ambitions of people like Jonathan and Obasanjo either. The idea of a strong, united and prosperous Nigeria will take a long time to be realized, given the damage which people like Obasanjo and his successors have caused it. That dream will be easier to realize when you do not have leaders like Jonathan learning from people like Obasanjo that the nation is only as safe and secure as their personal ambitions.

If President Jonathan fails to heed the long list of issues on Obasanjo’s advise list, it will be safe to assume that the nation has crossed the line Obasanjo has drawn for it. Then we can panic. Obasanjo did not say Jonathan cannot salvage the nation; but he did not say he can, either. In fact, when you end a letter with suggestions that you expect attacks that go beyond the bounds of decency, you imply that far from improving the quality of governance, Jonathan will fight back in an un-presidential manner. Obasanjo did not expect his letter to trigger a massive soul search in the Jonathan camp. It was a declaration of war of sorts. Jonathan’s response is likely to make matters worse all round.

Now what ?

“A hunter with one arrow does not shoot without aiming.” Nigerian Proverb.

 When the dust settles around the heat generated by President Obasanjo’s letter to President Jonathan, its full implications may become clearer. For a while, the nation will indulge in a favourite pastime: hitting out at everything except the real target. But sooner or later, the full significance of the assault on President Jonathan’s personal integrity, competence and even on the moral and ethical basis for his continuation as President by President Obasanjo will have to be faced. President Jonathan has bought a few days to prepare a response, although he may have mumbled some preliminaries at Obasanjo in a Nairobi Hotel during breakfast last week. Nigerians will get over the initial shock and skirmishes which have followed Obasanjo’s earlier letters, and face the cold reality that President Jonathan’s mentor, principal benefactor and former godfather now says he is not only unfit to govern, but that he is involved in raising killer squads

against opponents.

 Obasanjo’s record as a serial writer of scathing letters to former Heads of State will be exhumed by many to say he is playing true to character. That may take a little shine off his comprehensive assault on Jonathan, but it will not give the latter much relief. His role as the sole architect of the Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency will be dug up and thrown at his face, and many Nigerians will remind him that the nation is merely reaping what he sowed. Indeed, the singular facilitation of a Jonathan presidency in 2011 which Obasanjo makes such song and dance about will be used to remind him of those days when he thought he had god-like powers. That will not teach Obasanjo humility, and it certainly will not help Jonathan. Even  Obasanjo’s cupboard brimming with skeletons may be referred to, as a reminder  that he stands on the same moral pedestal as Jonathan. This will not shame Obasanjo, and it will not take out a single skeleton out of Jonathan’s cupboard. Obasanjo The Brave will bask in the sun as Jonathan feels the venom of an adversary well versed in hitting when you are down.

 Many Nigerian hearts will be further saddened that the nation has hit rock bottom, when Obasanjo mounts the pulpit to surmonize, in a public document, most of what everyone has always known. If anything comes out of Obasanjo's provocation, not a few people will lose sleep over the fact that it took a letter from him to wake up a nation to the reality that it has been in a freefall for the last few years, and these will include much of his own second term. Some people would have preferred that General Yakubu Gowon and Alhaji Shehu Shagari had said what Obasanjo said. Or even Generals Babangida and Abdussalami and Danjuma. Or the Sultan and Cardinal Onaiyekan. Or all of them in one letter. Or fifty elders and leaders, the type of people who would have heard Speaker Tambuwal denounce the virtual endorsement by the President of corrupt acts; and read CBN Governor’s letter to the President on non-remittance of revenues from crude sales; and heard opposition governors allege massive diversions of public funds; and followed the damaging fights in the PDP; and noted the spectacular failure to contain a dangerous insurgency; and  shared the nation’s alarm over the tensions which Jonathan’s 2015 plans are raising.

 But it was President Obasanjo's finely-honed instinct for opportunism that is grabbing the nation’s attention. Whatever the nation thinks of Obasanjo(and there will be no prizes for guessing that Obasanjo is on a self re-invention mission) it now has to deal with his opus on Jonathan. More to the point, President Jonathan has to deal with the most comprehensive case made against any claim he can make to being an asset to the nation. In one fell swoop, Obasanjo’s letter appears to put many people in trouble. He mentions other leaders by name as being privy to the most intimate details of the sorry state of Jonathan’s leadership. Now their silence will be louder and more damaging. He denounces members of Jonathan’s circle, (a few of which he said used to be in his own circle) as the architects and builders of a presidency that is impenetrable and corrupt. There must a few aides around President Jonathan who had also fraternized with Obasanjo asking if they are the evil he is referring to. Allegations that President Jonathan is raising a killer squad will put many senior security officials in a very uncomfortable spot. They will be hoping that they will not be challenged to say whether our President is training snipers for use against opponents, or whether a former Head of State and Commander-In-Chief is a liar; or that they really do not know.

 President Obasanjo knows, however, that his letter was meant to fatally wound President Jonathan’s person and presidency. Stripped of all its pretensions of being an advisory, President Obasanjo said our President is unfit to continue to lead our nation. Not in 2015, but now. You do not catalogue damaging allegations of corruption, incompetence, inordinate and dangerous ambition, lack of will and a personal weakness which pervades the entire administration against a president, without implying that he is running the nation aground. Everything that can make that letter as damaging as it can be was done. He did not leak it; he splashed it. He invoked witnesses, so that the world will know he wasn’t alone in lamenting Jonathan’s stewardship. He dredged up everything, including casting doubts over the integrity of the national dialogue/conference, and telling Jonathan not to run in 2015.

 President Jonathan can ignore Obasanjo, but that will be a very poor option. Even if he can ignore the allegations rehashed by Obasanjo, or acknowledge them as issues which could have been better presented by a former President, he cannot ignore the allegations that he is raising a killer squad against opponents. He will have to convince Nigerians that Obasanjo is lying, because this is one issue that will not go away. To do this, he has to take on President Obasanjo very aggressively, and pray that the wily old General does not have his facts; and will not activate his elaborate global connections if he perceives the slightest hint of strong arms from the presidency.

 Then he has to decide whether he wants to deal with corruption in his corridors and the suffocating lack of openness and accountability over public finances, or just soldier on with the team which gives him his backbone, and gives his administration such a stench. Just removing a few of the ministers and aides the nation insists have soiled fingers will amount to a revolution by the standards President Jonathan set himself. But President Jonathan is not a revolutionary; and the nation will not be content with a token gesture to Obasanjo’s prodding. He could overhaul his party machinery, removing prominent irritants, but those who are defecting are doing so more as a result of his weakness than the powers of party functionaries. He could renounce his 2015 ambitions and cancel the national dialogue, but this will leave him in an even more vulnerable position. If he is not good enough to run again in 2015 on the basis of his record, why wait until then before he steps aside. A crippled presidency is a liability and a threat to the nation.

 Obasanjo has left President Jonathan virtually no room for manouver, except to do what he has always done, and pray that handlers and clan members will abuse and scare the rest of the nation into submission. He will certainly attempt some sort of a fightback, because he cannot ignore Obasanjo’s stranglehold, and he cannot retreat without exposing all his flanks. Fightback will involve digging in and insisting that he is on course. It may also involve taking on fresh adversaries and traditional foes who will attempt to follow through on Obasanjo’s major assault. This will create a most damaging environment with an administration fighting for its life on all fronts, with every weapon at its disposal. If other leaders with any credibility have held back on joining the fray, they need to step toward now. The stakes are too high to leave this fight to Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan.

Jonathan: fight or flight

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his political life.” Jeremy Thorpe, 1962 

Psychologists describe a physiological reaction in response to perceived or actual harmful event, attack or threat as fight or flight. Evidently, the body instinctively prepares a specie to fight or flee when it perceives danger, a vital requirement for survival. Whether it fights or flees, the theory says that the specie is primed virtually automatically. This theory does not address the choice of submitting to the threat, presumably because the instinct is to fight for survival, or flee form the threat. Applied to the current comprehensive onslaught on President Jonathan by President Obasanjo, it will be safe to assume that the Jonathan camp is already responding to the instinct to do either of two things: fight back, or flee, which in this case, will amount to submission to the designs of Obasanjo. These, presumably, are to cripple Jonathan’s presidency and ambitions, and re-invent Obasanjo The Brave.

There is little point in going over the 18-page thesis which Obasanjo wrote on President Jonathan. Everything that can be said to press the point home that President Jonathan has no business being President today was said in that letter. To foreclose any attempt to sit on it, he made sure that it was splashed, not leaked, all over the world. He then roped in other leaders by name, in the event that one or two of them may be tempted to play peacemaker. It was not the type of letter you write on a whim, and some of the allegations made in it have no precedent anywhere. 

There must be few people involved in thinking through how President Jonathan should respond to Obasanjo. Okupe's invectives were to buy time, and the cosy breakfast in Nairobi was poor PR. The context of the damaging assault could not be worse than they were, and this will not make clear thinking any easier. Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s letter, itself also leaked, contained damning allegations of diversion of proceeds from sale of crude by the administration.  Governors from the opposition have been having running battles with the Coordinating Minister for the Economy over claims of missing funds and selective allocations based on partisan considerations. The PDP has just lost five of its governors to the opposition, and the damage in terms of mass defection which this may trigger has not even been tallied. The insurgency which will not be defeated keeps resurfacing with devastating effect. Allegations of corruption in the administration have become so commonplace that it has come be seen as the only growth sector of the economy. Speaker of the House of Representatives had pointedly said President Jonathan cannot, and does not want to fight corruption only a few days ago. Even without Obasanjo’s letter, things could not have been worse for President Jonathan. Obasanjo has written a new rule: a man is best hit when he is down. 

 So Obasanjo chooses to turn and twist the knife. Even if you will be charitable enough to say Obasanjo's letter was not dripping with malice, you have to ask yourself what he sought to achieve by it. It certainly could not be an advisory, although he pretends that it should be one. Hear his conclusion: ‘My last piece of advice is that you should learn the lesson of history and please do not take Nigeria and Nigerians for granted. Move away from the culture of denials, cover-ups and proxies and deal honestly, sincerely and transparently with Nigerians... Nigerians are no fools.’ Indeed, Nigerians are no fools. No one can levy the type of accusations and allegations against the President, including allegations that he is raising a death squad, and expect that Nigerians will be content when President Jonathan walks away from them and turns a new leaf to ‘regain the trust and confidence’. Obasanjo himself must have a very low appreciation of the intelligence of Nigerians, if he thinks telling Jonathan not to run in 2015, accusing him of deceit and condoning graft, subverting his party and raising killer squads against opponents will create a new man in our President. Obasanjo knows what he is doing, and we know what he is doing. His letter, to use a phrase, is a declaration of war, the type that takes no prisoners.

So how would Jonathan react? He could assume a sober and serious mien, and tell the nation that many of the issues which Obasanjo raised, ought to have been raised in a more statesmanly manner, but they represent issues which he is attempting to tackle seriously. He could dismiss the killer squad story politely as dangerous falsehood especially coming from someone like Obasanjo, and conclude by committing himself further to the fight against corruption, insecurity, and the goals of unity of his party. But that is hardly likely. Nigerians will not be content with a flight reaction, and Jonathan will find out sooner rather than later that the terrain is much narrower for a leader on a flight mode. How would he respond to demands that he renounces any ambition to run in 2015; to cancel his proposed dialogue/conference; and to distance himself from cronies and hangers-on who give his administration its character? Would Nigerians be content with a
dismissal of allegation that he is raising a killer squad with a wave of hand? No, running away by ignoring Obasanjo or putting a brave face over his damaging provocation will be a very bad option.

That leaves the fight option. Already Obasanjo says he anticipates a possible violent backlash. He boasts: ‘I have passed the stage of being flattered, intimidated, threatened, frightened, induced or bought... Death is the end of all human beings and it may come when God wills it to come. The harassment of my relations and friends and innuendo that they are coming from the Government security apparatus.... and which are possibly authorized or the work of overzealous aides... will be counter-productive. It is abuse of security apparatus.’ So Obasanjo expects a fight back, as well he should. A breakfast with President Jonathan in a hotel in Nairobi will not take the sting out of his comprehensive damage to Jonathan.

President Jonathan has only two choices really. Resign, now that Obasanjo says he has no moral, political or ethical basis for continuing in the office, or fight back. We can rule out the option of resigning almost entirely because a Jonathan out of power will expose himself and those around him to a horrendous inquisition over 101 questions relating to public funds, management of the nation’s economy and a lifetime of harassment. It will be even more unimaginable to accept to resign on the strength of a letter made public by a former mentor and godfather whose own cupboard is difficult to close for its skeletons.

So a fight back strategy can be expected which involves digging in and calling Obasanjo’s bluff. It could begin by asking security agents to interrogate Obasanjo over his claims that the President is raising a killer squad. He has to do this because an allegation of this nature cannot be reconciled away. Obasanjo  will be challenged by investigation: either he is lying or he is telling the nation an alarming truth. With the paraphanelia of state  security at Jonathan's disposal to say Obasanjo lied, this may leave Obasanjo at a slight disadvantage with only God as his witness. If he reveals more, he could be accused of telling more lies, subversion and threatening national security. If he does not, the accusation of lying will be more credibly made. While this attempt to discredit Obasanjo is being made, Jonathan could explore the options of firing ministers whose fingers are soiled; cronies and corridor-walkers who give his administration its odour; chairman and party officials who are wrecking his party; and clan members who have taken up all the seats around him and are making Ijaws very unpopular. Or, he can retain all these people who give him his muscle, warts and all, and use them to attempt to push his way beyond 2015. If he purges himself of all the powerful Ministers and aides Obasanjo says he knew as evil, what would Jonathan look like? How would that help him towards 2015? Can he survive the period between now and the elections without these same people Obasanjo says make corruption the hallmarks of this administration?

There was only one thing Obasanjo did not explicitly ask President Jonathan to do: resign. But this is the only option his letter leaves the President Jonathan. So President Jonathan could resign, on the ground that Obasanjo’s letter has made it impossible for him to continue. He will not. He has the choice of  renouncing ambitions for another four years after 2015, but that option is likely to be resisted by his powerful circle. He can undertake some damage control and fire one or two Ministers, but this will be too little to late. He can attempt to dismiss the allegations of the existence of killer squads, but Nigerians will not believe him.

Obasanjo’s letter is most likely going to trigger a stubborn resistance from President Jonathan’s camp. Even an  inch conceded to Obasanjo will be fatal. Obasanjo has closed off all the routes for retreat. Surrender will be worse. Now Nigerians will feel the heat of a president with his back to the wall. He is likely to fight back, but can only do what he has always done. A fighting Jonathan will drag the nation down with him. Obasanjo spoke, whatever you may say of his motives or pedigree. If there are other leaders like him who think Jonathan is a liability, they should also speak up. There is only one thing worse than asking a leader to leave if he is leading his nation to destruction. It is  lacking the courage or commitment to do so, if you should.