There Is No Rift Between OBJ And GEJ By Sonala Olumhense

How gullible are Nigerians?
There is a giant ruse in circulation
in Nigeria: the notion that President
Goodluck Jonathan is in trouble
because he is under attack by Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, the man
responsible for his presidency.
The former president has given the
impression that he is terribly upset
with Mr. Jonathan because the
current president is guilty of bad
governance and corruption.
Is Mr. Jonathan guilty? Of course,
every Nigerian, even his own people
within the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), his own people in Bayelsa
State, and his own people in the
presidential palace admit it. That is
why even Nigeria’s weak and
grossly-compromised press is able
to report from very close to the
president.
In other words, apart from the
privileged information that Obasanjo
enjoys, he is not really saying
anything about the poverty of Mr.
Jonathan’s leadership.
Why, therefore, is he suddenly and
firmly on the “offensive” against his
protégé?
Come back with me to 2006:
Obasanjo’s “third term” gamble,
upon which he had frittered away
billions of Naira, had collapsed.
But in the years since he took office
in 1999, Obasanjo had insisted that
the PDP would rule for anywhere
from 60 or 100 years, depending on
which spirit seized him on the day.
Confronted with the reality that he
would not be the president beyond
May 2007, Obasanjo did the next
best but most selfish thing: he
single-handedly chose those who
would take over power. I phrase
that sentence delicately: he
handpicked men who would take
power, not men who would take
Nigeria forward.
The two men: Umaru Yar’Adua and
Jonathan.
Yar’Adua was a sick man. Obasanjo
denies knowing that, but he has no
credibility. As it turned out,
Yar’Adua could barely finish
enunciating his seven-point plan
before he died.
But let us, for one moment, give
Obasanjo the benefit of the doubt
and assume that he had simply
been seduced by Yar’Adua’s record
as governor of Katsina State.
But he then chose Jonathan as
Yar’Adua’s running mate. Jonathan
had been governor for less than one
year at the time that Obasanjo called
him and said, “I am going to make
you Vice-President.”
What was Jonathan’s record? He
had been a teacher and an
environmental inspector before his
adventure in politics. His record
was unremarkable, and he would
never have stood out in a casual
search for achievers.
But Obasanjo chose him for the
vice-presidency.
What is even more astonishing is
that as Obasanjo made that choice,
he had in his hands the report of his
2006 Joint Task Force (JTF) on
corruption, which, just months
earlier, had indicted Mr. Jonathan
and many other serving and former
governors for breaching the Code of
Conduct Bureau Act.
Members of the JTF were the
Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC); the
Independent Corrupt Practices and
Other Related Offences Commission
(ICPC); the Code of Conduct Bureau
(CCB); the Department of State
Services (DSS); and the Nigeria
Police.
The panel was chaired by Mr. Nuhu
Ribadu in his capacity as the
chairman of the EFCC. Among
others, it indicted Jonathan for false
declaration of assets, and he was
recommended for prosecution.
That is the report that was in
Obasanjo’s hands in 2006 as he
declared Mr. Jonathan to be the
best person he could find in all of
the South of Nigeria to become
Vice-President.
And Obasanjo, as the whole world
saw, then rigged the 2007 election
to ensure that the two men he had
imposed on his party were also
imposed on Nigeria.
In other words, not only did
Obasanjo know whom Jonathan
was, he knew whom Mr. Jonathan
could be.
Of greater importance, he knew
whom Yar’Adua and Jonathan could
not be: swashbuckling and
aggressive patriots who would come
into office and combat corruption;
implement fair, rigorous reforms,
and national deploy resources
towards resolving national
problems.
Indeed, in Jonathan’s case,
Obasanjo was counting on it,
because if he were to be any
different, it is certain that people like
Obasanjo would have wound up in
jail. After all, the same Ribadu who
headed the EFCC and the JTF has
said that the Obasanjo era was more
corrupt than that of Sani Abacha,
who Obasanjo hounded worldwide
in death for corruption.
This is why only the gullible should
believe the theory of a rift between
Obasanjo and Jonathan. It is a trap
for the unwary because Jonathan is
a trap that Obasanjo set for Nigeria.
That trap is fully in play.
What is the truth?
At stake is 2015. Jonathan wants to
win the presidency again because
as in the case of Obasanjo before
him, he has found that it is the best
place in the world to hide. The
reason why the so-called rift is just
a ruse is that both Obasanjo and
Jonathan realize that a genuine
division between them would leave
the door wide open for someone
else: someone who may be really
interested in doing things the right
way.
And both Obasanjo and Jonathan
know that in such an event, Nigeria
will become a hot place to live in.
Yes, Obasanjo is a smart man, at
least smart enough to know that
Jonathan’s incompetence,
incomprehension and indecisiveness
are a gift to him.
I know that there are people who
suggest that Obasanjo has
changed. They argue that what we
are seeing is an improved Obasanjo
who genuinely believes his criticism
of Jonathan.
In that case, Obasanjo should begin
by apologizing to Nigerians for the
day he imposed Jonathan on them.
If Obasanjo now truly cares, if he
truly wants to be a statesman, he
should issue a public apology for
the political processes and elections
he rigged and benefited from.
Unless he starts from that point,
Obasanjo is the same as he has
always been, and the so-called rift
he has with Jonathan is a
humongous, subterranean trick
designed to ensure that Jonathan
remains in office after the next
election and way beyond his expiry
date.
Obasanjo is not a democrat. He has
never been, and never will. During
the recent Ghana election, he was
exposed in that country by the
Economic Community of West
African States as a political fraud.
There is no democratic process that
Obasanjo can support unless he can
manipulate it, and he knows that for
him to continue to walk free to
dance his gangnam style anywhere
but in prison, he cannot afford a
true “rift.”
In the end, Obasanjo ensured the
enthronement of Jonathan not for
his strength, but for weakness. It is
not true that that weakness is no
longer enough.
That is why the objective of this
public “rift” is to convey the
impression that, when Obasanjo
returns to Jonathan’s side, as he
will, he would appear to have won
victory for Nigeria. That will permit
Jonathan and the PDP to “win” in
2015. Obasanjo’s masterplan of
keeping the PDP in office for 100
years has neither changed, nor can
he afford to change it.
It is a clever little plot. And we are
gullible enough to buy it.
But my mumu don do. Your mumu
don do?
• sonala.olumhense@gmail.com