Can retired generals save our democracy? By Mahmoon Baba-Ahmed Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has lately turned into a beautiful bride woed by many politicians with opposing attitudes and viewpoints. He is regarded by them as having the answers at his fingertips to numerous political problems that afflict his pretentious and imposing party. So his favors are almost always being sought by the high and mighty including the incumbent president and some serving governors despite his obvious involvement in a number of the ugly events that had adversely shaped the future of the country since its independence. It is even rumored that he is a veritable mole of the America’s Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. That allegedly gave him an upper hand to exercise tremendous influence on other military generals that had ever ruled the country through the instrumentality of foreign powers. Conversely, Obasanjo has a very strong tendency to be pessimistic, to assess situation in the worst light and to be unreasonably skeptical about generally acceptable beliefs. For these reasons he had never seen anything good in the governments that either succeeded his military regime or which came after his second coming as civilian president. He relishes controversy and there is nobody he could not treat harshly either openly or surreptitiously; but he is still being patronized even if nothing is to materialize out of the relationship. Chief Obasanjo had severally made comments intended to make fun of President Goodluck Jonathan in disapproving manner by doubting his competence and had even advised him to quit if he was sure of his inability to deliver. He had also covertly and overtly attempted to obstruct the emergence of Chief Rotimi Amaechi as Governor of Rivers State in preference to his crony. In fact Obasanjo has a penchant for disliking people at the first instance, especially those he could not manipulate to do his scandalous bidding. Recently a group of exasperated northern governors, dissatisfied with current development within the ruling PDP, rushed to his Abeokuta home to plead desperately for his intervention to save Nigeria’s democracy from crumbling in the wake of protracted crises that originated from inordinate ambition of President Goodluck to influence the ordination of unpopular party leaders that will in turn pave way for his second-term candidature. The governors believe that the intractable problem that weighs down the Nigerian Governors Forum is traceable to the lingering crisis within the party which if left unchecked will spell doom not only to the beleaguered party but to the nation’s fledgling democracy. Accordingly they wanted Obasanjo to drive a wedge between the disputants. It is, however, doubtful if Obasanjo can successfully mediate in a conflict he helped to create. Whether or not he is in a better stead to pacify the aggrieved governors is another subject for debate some other day. But one thing is clear; the governors are not resting on their oars. They are prosecuting their case in the hallowed courts of Obasanjo’s colleagues, the retired army generals, who also ruled the country at different times. Former President Ibrahim Babangida and his buddy, ex-Head of State, Abdussalami Abubakar may appear opposed to Obasanjo from the exterior but they are inwardly the other side of the same coin. They may receive the disgruntled governors with sympathetic ears but may not end up doing anything concrete to help their case. Instead they may eventually toe Obasanjo’s line, drawn for him by the dark forces that define the trend of Nigeria’s politics or those who decide the fate of its innocent citizens. President Jonathan too was hopefully banking on Obasanjo who once stabbed him in the back, to actually invoke his magical powers to return him to power. Jonathan’s visit to Obasanjo’s enchanted mansion in Abeokuta, ahead of the five governors, to follow up the clandestine meeting of the PDP chieftains with the party’s former Chairman of the Board of Trustees, may after all not resolve matters in his favor and could, instead, further compound them and make their party worst for it. From all indications the governors are crying over spilt milk, or fighting a lost battle. The prevailing hullabaloo in the PDP is all about President’s Jonathan’s candidature for 2015 elections, vehemently opposed by the governors. If President Jonathan will today declare that he is not contesting in 2015, feelings of anxiety or uneasiness within the party will easily get away and there will be no more worries, irritations and agitations about saving our democracy. But that is what Jonathan cannot recant. In any case Nigeria’s democracy is not synonymous with the internal strife with the ruling PDP which can be amicably decided without recourse to the retired generals who were clearly anti-democratic elements, having previously truncated democratic processes which could have launched the nation onto the path of greatness. In a situation like that the governors will continue to search for elusive solutions to their problems if they keep on banking on the retired generals which are responsible for the current political problems in the country. They helped Obasanjo install Jonathan in 2011 and indications are that he may not disown him now. What a pity!
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 16:51:57 +0000
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