OBJ Vs PMB: Friends Turned Foes
Petroleum Special Trust Fund (PTF), an intervention agency that handled civil works and provision of social amenities.
After Abacha died General, Abdulsalami Abubakar, took over. Under intense pressure, both locally and internationally, General Abubakar announced a timetable for the return of political power to the civilians.
THE return to civil rule of the Abubakar transition brought back Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the civilian president. Obasanjo navigated the nation’s nascent democracy driven by the goodwill from his voluntary handover to the civilians in 1979.
Eight years after, Obasanjo presided over the first civilian-to-civilian transition of power in the country. But Obasanjo’s successor, late Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua, could not last the full term of his mandate as his deputy succeeded him after his decease.
The elevation of former Vice President Goodluck Jonathan was novel as it challenged the zoning arrangement of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). From serving out the remaining years of the original mandate that brought him and his former principal to power, Jonathan went on to contest and win the Presidential election in 2011 for a four year term.
And due to a combination of factors, including breach of zoning arrangement and promise to serve just one term, Jonathan and his party lost the 2015 Presidential election to another former military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari. Prior to the 2015 poll, Jonathan and Obasanjo had disagreed over the propriety of the former continuing in office and seeking another term. Buoyed by that divergence, Obasanjo was courted by the inchoate opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) to serve as its navigator to get Jonathan and PDP out of office.
However, back in office, Buhari, who was a mere minister under Obasanjo forty years before, decided to be his own man and forgot those who assisted his ascendance. It did not take long before Obasanjo and the President parted ways, which culminated in a public statement on January 21, 2018, in which he admonished the President to play the statesman and shun another term in office.
IT is against the foregoing that the recent altercation between the former military leaders could be understood. Although Obasanjo fired what could be called a soft salvo in his patriotic opinion about the propriety of a 75-year-old man with health challenges seeking another presidential term, not many Nigerians expected President Buhari to attack the former President’s integrity and performance in office.
Addressing members of his supporters’ group that paid him a courtesy visit, Buhari had said: “You know the rail was killed and one of the former heads of state between that time was bragging that he spent more than $15 billion, not naira, on power. Where is the power? Where is the power? And now, we have to pay the debt.”
Given that it has been three years that he mounted the saddle, many Nigerians, upon hearing those scathing remarks in allusion to the Obasanjo administration wondered why the President chose now to deliver that opinion.
It is possible that the President, who must have been riled by the various demarketing posturing and utterances of his former principal, decided to fight back. At least, coming from the same military background as his traducer, Buhari seems to recall that the best form of defence is attack and decided to engage Obasanjo.
How far could that war book strategy assist the President in his envisaged electoral battle, knowing that Obasanjo is definitely not going to be on the ballot in 2019? Only Buhari and his handlers could hazard a guess, but there is the possibility that deep secrets could begin to migrate to the public square.
Would the verbal combatants spill the beans about what really happened with the missing N2.8billion from the accounts of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), when they served as head of state and minister respectively?
Furthermore, did espiritdecorps play any role in the hooding of details of the opera- tion of PTF interventions? Would Nigerians be treated to another proxy war between the military boys, who were divided by coups and counter coups along the proAbacha and Obasanjo camps?
There are no immediate indications that things would get to that level, but Obasanjo has found a strong footing to continue on the path he has chosen, including interrogating leadership pedigree.
For instance, in his response to the veiled allegation of corruption in his signature power programme, the former President alluded to the incumbent’s poor cognition and leadership failings.
He said: “It is doubtful that a President with proper understanding of the issue would utter such…to inform the uninformed, the so-called $16billion power expenditure was an allegation against Chief Obasanjo’s administration and not his claim.”
If Buhari accused Obasanjo of being a braggart, Obasanjo used his response to underscore the President’s literacy record. Insisting that issues surrounding the power project have been exhaustively thrashed even in his book, Mywatch, Obasanjo said if the President “cannot read, the three-volume book, he should detail his aides to do so and summarise the chapters in a language that he will easily understand.”
It is not easy to speculate how the ongoing altercation between the two leaders, may end, but it could as well serve as a commencing metaphor about the deconstruction of the alliance that led to the first defeat an incumbent by opposition. Propaganda and probity may meet together, while Nigerians take to fact checking. For instance records show that only $3.7b was actually disbursed from the original $10b budgeted for power within the period under reference, while the balance of $6.3b was kept in an escrow account at the Central Bank of Nigeria. As such Obasnjo spent $3.7b and not $16billion.
Did Buhari make a mistake in going public on the matter? Does that give an indication of how his campaigns for second term would look? The days ahead would reveal.