As Obasanjo Leaves PDP in a Major Fallout of Poll Extension
Last week, former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s membership of PDP became a major casualty of the postponement of this year’s general election. What are the implications for the ruling party? Vincent Obia reports
The exit of the former president from PDP is bound to have a profound effect on the party, especially, in an election year, when Jonathan is seeking a second term. This effect has been noticeable in the seemingly discordant reactions from within the party to Obasanjo’s decision to withdraw his membership
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is sometimes seen by critics as a politician given to displays of temperament. But his exit on Monday from the Peoples Democratic Party and the public renunciation of his membership of the ruling party by the shredding of his membership card bear serious significance. The PDP candidate for the next presidential election, incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, owes much of his political career to Obasanjo.
Obasanjo and Jonathan’s Political Journey
It was Obasanjo who set up the processes that propelled Jonathan to the governorship position in Bayelsa State, and then, the presidency. Jonathan had served as deputy governor in 2005, in the administration of then Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, when the governor was impeached under circumstances obviously instigated by Obasanjo.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission under its then chairman, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, was a veritable instrument in the hands of the former president with which political enemies, especially governors, were removed from office through corruption allegations. Like some of his colleagues at the time, Alamieyeseigha was impeached by a thoroughly intimidated and arm-twisted Bayelsa State House of Assembly at a session widely believed to be organised in Lagos by EFCC.
Alamieyeseigha’s impeachment on December 9, 2005 paved the way for Jonathan to become governor. He served as governor until the 2007 general election, which he wanted to contest. It was a governorship battle that had pitted Jonathan against Mr. Timi Alaibe. Again, Obasanjo intervened to ensure that Alaibe was out of the way, in an obvious effort to hand Jonathan an easy win. Alaibe was compensated with the post of managing director of Niger Delta Development Commission.
But by a strange twist of faith, Jonathan did not contest the Bayelsa State governorship election in 2007. He was nominated by Obasanjo to contest as vice presidential
candidate with Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Presidency
During the political impasse that followed Yar’Adua’s long medical trip abroad in 2009 and his failure to transmit power to Jonathan, who was then vice president, it was Obasanjo’s intervention that tended to shape the debate and prepare the ground for Jonathan’s emergence as acting president. He had advised the ailing president to take the “path of honour” and resign to take care of his health.
“If you take up an assignment, a job – elected, appointed, whatever it is – and then your health starts to fail and you will not be able to deliver to satisfy yourself and to satisfy the people you are supposed to serve, then there is a path of honour and the path of morality. There is path of honour and the path of morality and if you don’t do that, then you don’t know anything,” Obasanjo had said on January 22, 2010 at the 7th Annual Trust Dialogue organised by Media Trust Limited, which he chaired at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
That comment by the former president was followed by a chain of events that culminated in the passage of the “Doctrine of Necessity” resolution on February 9, 2010 by the National Assembly to make Jonathan Acting President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Jonathan has never denied Obasanjo’s enormous role in his rise to power. In a letter to the president on December 2, 2013, which marked one of the first open signs of hostility between Jonathan and his now estranged godfather, Obasanjo had stated, “Mr. President, you have on a number of occasions acknowledged the role God enabled me to play in your ascension to power. You put me third after God and your parents among those that have impacted most on your life. I have always retorted that God only put you where you are and those that could be regarded as having played a role were only instruments of God to achieve God’s purpose in your life. For me, I believe that politically, it was in the best interest of Nigeria that you, a Nigerian from minority group in the South, could rise to the highest pinnacle of political leadership.”
Discordant Tone
The exit of the former president from PDP is, therefore, bound to have a profound effect on the party, especially, in an election year, when Jonathan is seeking a second term. This effect has been noticeable in the seemingly discordant reactions from within the party to Obasanjo’s decision to withdraw his membership.
While the secretary of the PDP Board of Trustees, Walid Jibrin, felt Obasanjo did not act responsibly by the manner of his exit from the party, and the chairman of the BoT, Chief Tony Anenih, believed the former president would not be missed in PDP, the party’s national secretariat sounded a more conciliatory tone, and Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido said outright PDP should reconcile with Obasanjo