2019: Buhari proposes, can Obasanjo dispose?

Next year’s presidential election is a two-horse race between President Muhammadu Buhari and former vice president Atiku Abubakar. But, in truth, it is also a contest between Buhari and former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Of course, Obasanjo’s name won’t be on the ballot, but, make no mistake, he will be lurking in the shadows as Buhari’s nemesis. The proxy contest between the two retired generals and former military rulers would be interesting. The stakes are truly high; one of them will have his ego boosted or busted!

For Obasanjo, it is his reputation as Nigeria’s quintessential Svengali or political godfather that is at stake. As he himself once boasted, he’s been instrumental in determining Nigeria’s presidents since 1979 when he influenced the election of Shehu Shagari. Both Umaru Yar’ Adua and Goodluck Jonathan owed their emergence as presidents to him. And, of course, Buhari won in 2015 in large part because Obasanjo precipitated a deep split in his party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), making it unelectable, and then publicly backed Buhari.

Jonathan once called Obasanjo“the boss of bosses” and warned any presidential candidate: “ignore him at your peril”. Surely, if Buhari wins next year, despite Obasanjo’s opposition to his re-election, that would shatter Baba’s aura of indispensability. Furthermore, Obasanjo is, so far, the only Nigerian leader who was a military head of state and served two terms in office as a civilian president. His pre-eminence comes largely from that achievement. But if Buhari, also a former military head of state, wins re-election and does two presidential terms too, well, he would deny Obasanjo that pre-eminence. If you think these things don’t matter to Obasanjo, you don’t know him! You don’t know how egomaniacal and narcissistic he is; how he wants to be the biggest fish in the pond, any pond! So, next year’s elections are not ordinary for Obasanjo; the stakes are really high for him!

But the stakes are high for Buhari too. As a military head of state in the early 1980s, Buhari was overthrown by his colleagues. He has never forgotten or forgiven the“betrayal”. Indeed, his refusal to release Sambo Dasuki from detention, despite several court orders, probably owes much to Dasuki’s role in the 1985 coup. Buhari’s persistence in running for president (he ran four times) was also partly to redeem his honour and prove that those who removed him from power in 1985 were misguided. Victory was a sweet revenge for him! Indeed, in 2016, President Buhari gloated about his election:“I can claim superior knowledge over the opposition because, in the end, I have succeeded”. That “opposition”included those, including General Ibrahim Babangida, who thought he was no good and overthrew him in 1985.

Now, imagine the same Buhari removed from power the second time; this time not by his treacherous military colleagues but by the people of Nigeria in a general election. That would scar him with an indelible political stigma. To rephrase Oscar Wilde’s famous quote, “To lose power once may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose it twice looks like carelessness.” So, you can see why the stakes are high for Buhari! For him, it’s the need to bury the ghost of past failure and avoid history repeating itself. But can Obasanjo stand in his way?

Proverb 19: 21 says “Man proposes but God disposes”. Thomas a Kempis popularised the phrase in his celebrated work, “The Imitation of Christ”. Of course, the quotation refers to God being the decider of a man’s fate, the one who can alter a man’s plan. But I use the phase here in a political context without intending to be blasphemous. Surely, if, as former President Jonathan said, presidential aspirants ignore Obasanjo “at their peril”, or if, as another politician, Perry Opara, once said, “Obasanjo will be instrumental in who becomes president in 2019”, then that makes Obasanjo the god of Nigerian politics. Whatever anyone proposes, he can dispose. Right? So, it’s not amiss to ask whether he can stop Buhari from being re-elected next year.

But, let’s be clear, the battle will be fierce. Buhari is not a political midget like Jonathan, who has just written a pathetic book, blaming everybody but himself for his defeat. Buhari is a battle-hardened general like Obasanjo. He is also not from a minority tribe, one of the reasons Jonathan gave for his defeat. He is from the core North, with fanatical supporters. But Obasanjo is also hugely connected, with dyed-in-the-wool loyalists all over the country. Nearly 90% of the PDP governors and legislators, who defected to Buhari’s party, All Progressives Congress (APC), before the 2015 general elections and contributed to his victory, are loyal to Obasanjo. The same governors and legislators have now returned to the PDP. Don’t be surprised if they are talking to Baba and Baba is talking to them on how to plot Buhari’s defeat next year. Indeed, Obasanjo is talking to everyone, including his arch political enemies, the leaders of Afenifere, about thwarting Buhari’s re-election ambition.

The truth is that Buhari’s defeat next year means a lot to Obasanjo, and he will do anything to achieve it. He fired the first salvo with a stinging open letter earlier this year in which he warned Buhari not to seek re-election. He said the president’s government was infested with “the lice of poor performance”, which manifested in “poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of duty, condonation of misdeeds”. He referred to Buhari’s health and age and pointed out, matter-of-factly, that “Without impaired health and strain of age, running the affairs of Nigeria is a 25/7 affair, not 24/7”. He then concluded: “President Buhari needs a dignified and honourable dismount from the horse”! In other words, Buhari must abandon his second term ambition.

Obasanjo, who publicly tore up his PDP membership card in 2015, also made clear that the PDP was not the way forward. Instead, he advocated the formation of a Coalition for Nigeria, CN, which would “take Nigeria to the height God has created it to be”. The new coalition, he said, “will be new, green, transparent, clean and selfless”, and averred that “I, therefore, will gladly join such a movement when one is established as Coalition for Nigeria, CN”. There was subsequently a flurry of political activities in the country, with several politicians making political pilgrimages to Obasanjo’s home in Ota. In the end, a coalition was formed, which transmuted into the African Democratic Congress, ADC, one of the registered political parties. So, what then happened? I mean, what happened to the Coalition for Nigeria? What happened to Obasanjo’s support for the ADC? Why is he now supporting the PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar?

Well, the answer is simple: it’s all about his desperation for Buhari’s defeat, and who’s best able to deliver it. Obasanjo knows that his so-called Coalition for Nigeria, whatever party it morphed into, cannot defeat Buhari in next year’s election. But because he is determined to dislodge the president from Aso Rock next year, he will support anyone, yes anyone, that stands the best chance of pulling that off. Obasanjo’s politics is opportunistic, defined by a simple philosophy: the end justifies the means! He supported Buhari in 2015, even though he knew he would be hopeless as president, because, according to him, it was “any option but Jonathan”. Now, it’s “any option but Buhari”. For Obasanjo, his enemy’s enemy is his friend, even if he thinks the new “friend” is evil!

For over 15 years, Obasanjo was telling Nigerians and the world that Atiku was unsuited for public office. When Atiku was his vice president, he investigated him on allegations of corruption and gazetted an indictment against him. In his book My Watch, Obasanjo called Atiku all sorts of terrible names, referring, for instance, to “his propensity to corruption” and “his readiness to sacrifice morality, integrity, propriety, truth and national interest for self and selfish interest”. As early as August this year, Obasanjo said, “God will not forgive me if I support Atiku for president”. He regularly taunted Atiku about daring to go to the US, saying in an interview with the EFCC TV programme, Zero Tolerance, “Let him (Atiku) go to America and see if he can return to Nigeria”.

But, dear readers, the same Obasanjo, who accused Atiku of such terrible things in his book and in various interviews, is now, without withdrawing those accusations, sayingthat Atiku is the best person to be Nigeria’s best president. Atiku now represents the “new, green, transparent, clean and selfless” politics he advocated. Surely, Obasanjo is insulting the intelligence of Nigeriansby being frivolous with his actions and by abusing his position!

Of course, Obasanjo can forgive Atiku and vice versa, but not at the expense of Nigeria. Even Bishop Kukah, who initiated their reconciliation, said he only expected spiritual and personal reconciliations, not the “high wire politics” that ensued. As he put it, “my reconciliation bid was not political, not about endorsement”.

But for Obasanjo, Bishop Kukah’s intervention was a fig leaf to do a volte face on Atiku, who stands the best chance of defeating Buhari. But dislodging Buhari may not be that easy. Two big egos will certainly collide next year. I can’t wait to see whose will be boosted or busted: Buhari’s or Obasanjo’s!

Olu Fasan