• As ObAsAnjO LeAves PDP in A MAjOr FALLOut OF POLL extensiOn •
even if it meant apologising to him.
In its official reaction to Obasanjo’s decision to withdraw his membership, PDP national publicity secretary Olisa Metuh stated that the party was “deeply saddened that Chief Obasanjo, a revered leader of our party, our first Presidential flagbearer whom the PDP offered the platform to rule our nation for eight years, could decide to abandon this party at this critical point in time.
“This is especially as Chief Obasanjo, who was also the chairman of the highest advisory organ of the PDP, the Board of Trustees, discountenanced all pleas by elders and leaders of our great party with regard to his reservations on certain issues within our fold.”
The party’s reaction was devoid of the usual bellicose rhetoric, an indication that the PDP national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, and his executive, may not be on the same page with certain key elements in the party, particularly within the BoT and the presidency, on the issues that led to the former president’s exit.
It was Lamido who seemed to put the lack of agreement in the ruling party in clearer perspective. He told State House correspondents on Tuesday after a meeting with Jonathan that Obasanjo deserved to be apologised to.
Lamido said, “Baba is more than a party man. He is an icon, a national symbol and a leader and an inventor, a creator of all the institutions today in Nigeria. From the presidency to the governors who are his own sons, are all his creations. And so, when a father is angry with his own children, we will only say we are sorry to him. But then we cannot be renounced for whatever it is.
“If you do any political DNA of our blood, you will find his blood in us. No matter what we are, we may not be able to live up to his expectations. We might have made some mistakes, but abandoning us is not the solution because the country is first before anything else.”
Insult
Obasanjo had renounced his membership of PDP when some leaders of the party led by the ward chairman, Surajudeen Oladunjoye, visited him at his Abeokuta home. He said he directed the ward chairman to destroy his membership card during the visit because he got hints that the party’s state leadership wanted to expel him.
Though, Obasanjo said he wanted to leave party politics and remain only a statesman, he was visibly angered by the plot to send him away from the party on whose platform he had become the first Fourth Republic president.
“We’ve been trying to run away from a man but he pleads we wait for him at the other side of the river,” the former president said before his guests, in an indirect reference to the serious deterioration in relations between him and Jonathan.
Obasanjo declared, “Once I leave PDP I will not join any party.”
He added, “I will only be a Nigerian; I am ready to work with anybody regardless of political affiliation. Why would some people say they want to send me away, they don’t need to bother themselves, here’s your membership card, take it,” before surrendering his PDP membership card and directing its destruction.
Unsurprising
Obasanjo’s formal exit from PDP on Monday was hardly surprising. It was the final stage of a disengagement that started soon after Jonathan was sworn in as substantive president after winning the 2011 presidential election. Pundits put the faceoff between the two leaders down to Jonathan’s disinclination to an allegedly agreed one-term presidency. Obasanjo had poured out his heart to Jonathan on the perceived inappropriateness of his second term bid in the letter to the president on December 2, 2013, titled, “Before it is too late.”
Before the letter, the former president had in April 2012 resigned as chairman of the BoT, saying, “By relieving myself of the responsibility for chairmanship of BOT of the PDP, I will have a bit more time to devote to the international demand on me.”
He said he needed time “to give some attention to mentoring across the board nationally and internationally in those areas that I have acquired some experience, expertise and in which I have something to share.”
International Commitment
Obasanjo’s eight years leadership, undoubtedly, helped to restore Nigeria’s respect on the continent and within the international community. And he has since leaving office in 2007 been engaged in enormous international commitments, playing the role of Africa’s ambassador-at-large.
In 2008 he was appointed by the United Nations as a special envoy for Africa and has since overseen democratic elections on behalf of the African Union and ECOWAS in countries across the continent.
He established the African Leadership Forum, which organises workshops advocating African solutions to African problems through better leadership, state capacity building, and encouragement of private enterprise. The Presidential Library complex in his home town of Abeokuta has been an enduring testament to his leadership role on the continent.
Obasanjo has been central in the efforts to reposition the African Union. Together with former South African President Thabo Mbeki, he led the creation of the African Peer Review Mechanism designed to engender and promote the ideals of democracy and good governance, and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
In 2008 he was appointed special envoy on the Great Lakes region by UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon, and he has been an integral actor in mediation efforts in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Obasanjo has also served as the African Union’s Special Envoy for Togo’s 2010 presidential elections, as well as South Africa’s presidential polls in 2009.
As the Special Envoy for ECOWAS, his role in diffusing the crisis that threatened civil war in Cote D’Ivoire 2011 was vital. When democracy was threatened in Senegal during the presidential polls in March 2012, he led the joint African Union and ECOWAS mission to resolve the standoff, paving the way for a smooth transition and pulling one of Africa’s oldest democracies back from the brink.
On the economic scene, Obasanjo is a member of the Africa Investment Council (AIC), a platform of distinguished leaders working to provide advocacy, thoughtleadership, collaboration and best-practices on sustainable investment into Africa. He is an advisor to New World Capital, an investment advisory firm that provides interested parties with market access, investment advisory and co-investment opportunities across Africa.
Obasanjo is also founder of the Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation, a UK-based charity with the mission of advancing Human Security for All. The foundation has wide ranging initiatives of feeding Africa, youth empowerment, education for girls and a health initiative focused on non-communicable and water borne diseases.
Power Game
The former president is truly engaged internationally, but his resignation as BoT chairman followed alleged attempts by Jonathan to weaken the organ under Obasanjo’s chairmanship. He later declared he was no longer going to take active part in the affairs of PDP, even though he remained a member of the party.
Obasanjo’s indisposition to Jonathan’s second term had precipitated a power play that resulted in a curious purge in the PDP national leadership, which affected mainly the former president’s supporters.
On January 11, 2013, a Federal High Court in Abuja sacked former Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola as PDP national secretary while ruling in a suit filed by an anti-Obasanjo faction of the party’s Ogun State chapter, led by a businessman, Buruji Kashamu. In the suit filed by the chairman of the state chapter, Adebayo Dayo, and secretary, Alhaji Semiu Sodipo, the plaintiffs challenged the retention of Oyinlola as PDP National Secretary, despite the voiding of the zonal congresses that produced him by a Lagos Federal High Court. The court, presided over by Justice Abdul Kafarati, agreed with the plaintiffs and sacked Oyinlola.
The said South-west congress of PDP was held on March 21, 2012, but it was nullified about one month later by the high court in an order of April 27, 2012 that was reaffirmed by another judgement on May 2, 2012. But the PDP national leadership chose to ignore the court ruling. It retained Oyinlola, a nominee of Obasanjo, as national secretary, following his confirmation at the party’s national convention held on March 24, 2012.
After Oyinlola, the PDP National Working Committee proceeded to sack Bode Mustapha and former Ekiti State Governor Segun Oni as the party’s national auditor and National Vice Chairman, South-west, respectively. It also removed the entire South-west zonal executive that emerged from the March, 2012 congress and constituted a 17-member caretaker committee to run the affairs of the party in the zone, pending the conduct of a fresh congress to elect new officers. All the decisions were based on the court nullification of the party’s South-west zonal congress.
Most members of the sacked South-west executive were Obasanjo’s acolytes.
Besides, the timing of the ruling party’s move created a clear impression that the intention was not just obedience of court orders.
First, the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, had on June 25, 2012 granted a stay of execution of the same order on which PDP based its move against the party officials, pending an appeal filed by Oni. In fact, the NWC under the immediate past PDP national chairman, Bamanga Tukur, and Oyinlola had used the appeal court order to avoid a contempt charge slammed on them by the high court.
The 2013 purge was, obviously, an attempt to whittle down Obasanjo’s influence in the party.
Political Cost
Though, some close associates of the president have claimed that Obasanjo’s exit would cost the party nothing, there are indications that PDP may actually lose points in the pre-election political calculus.
Obasanjo recently endorsed the candidacy of Jonathan’s main opponent at this year’s presidential election, the All Progressives Congress candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari. He defended his recommendation of Buhari, despite criticisms of the former military Head of State’s dictatorial past.
“The circumstances he will be working under if he wins the election are different from the one he worked under before, where he was both the executive and the legislature — he knows that,” Obasanjo told the Financial Times of London in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, during the launch of his autobiography, My Watch. “He’s smart enough. He’s educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?”
The autobiography is banned in Nigeria by a court order. The former president feels Buhari has a better capacity to tackle corruption and insecurity, two issues on which Jonathan has been generally criticised.
Analysts believe Obasanjo’s exit from PDP and his endorsement of Buhari may heighten a seemingly bourgeoning negative international public opinion about the president and his party.
Domestically, too, there is bound to be some political cost.
Chief Ishola Filani was the chairman of the PDP caretaker committee for the South-west, which was set up in February, 2013 following the dissolution of the zonal executive by the party’s National Working Committee. He told THISDAY shortly after the committee’s inauguration, “Whoever is a Yoruba man and does not accept Obasanjo as a father is just being unrealistic. He is one man that all of us respect. He is one man in recent political history of Nigeria that has achieved more than any Yoruba man, indeed, any Nigerian. We know the value of Chief Obasanjo, we appreciate all his effort to ensure the growth of Nigeria.”
Obasanjo’s decision to leave PDP is full of symbolism and implications that are not completely lost on many within the ruling party as it faces its stiffest electoral contest this month.