So ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo has, finally, migrated from the PDP? In popular telecoms advertisement jingles, it would have been said, “Obasanjo has ported”. The not too sudden exit last Monday was an anti-climax. Though it was a departure long foretold, I had thought it was going to be latter than sooner. We, members of the community of “close watchers” of the cloak and dagger politics of the ruling party, saw it coming.
What I didn’t see coming however, was the precise moment; the former president would throw in the towel. Certainly not three days ago. And certainly in not so overtly inelegant manner. But then, this was Obasanjo, a self admittedly ‘shameless’ man. Expecting him to be politically “correct” all the time is like expecting Maradona to speak straight. Or better, not to dribble. The day the local version walk his talk, the donkey would lock horns.
Shamelessness and selective amnesia are mutually exclusive with Obasanjo. His morality is quaint. The nearest equivalent of his morality is approximated in biblical Mathew 7:3-5. It states thus “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”.
I admit. I was puzzled that Obasanjo, being wily retired General that he, truly, stayed that long in the “behemoth”. It must have been for some “strategic” reason known only to him.
The PDP was conceived as a “mass movement”. All of it most often repeated description was in the superlative. It was the “largest’’ political party on the continent. Its founders thought of it as a counterpoise to the political military. It founders, all of them birds of dissimilar plumage, aggregated with one singular mission: send the soldiers back to the barrack and keep them there.
PDP spewed from the bowels of G18, an assembly of 18 patriotic Nigerians who entered, what at that time, was the ‘Lion’s den’-confronting military strongman of the time –General Sani Abacha.
The late military leader had a fearsome aura. Taciturn and often ‘tactless’, he hauled into jail those dumb enough to think he was like ‘Maradona’. He decisively dealt with those who tested his “will”. Among the incarcerated was Obasanjo, who was imprisoned for being part of a coup, which some insisted, was phantom .
It was this fearful den Alex Ekwueme, nationalist-turned-regionalist led 17 others including late Abubakar Rimi, Adamu Ciroma and Atiku Abubakar to enter and advise the “Lion’ Abacha against transmuting into a civilian leader. G18 became G34, which ultimately metamorphosed into the sprawling PDP.
A strong party from the start, it shopped for a presidential candidate that would be equally strong. The master puppeteers at the time who controlled PPDP engineered the release from prison and rehabilitation of general Obasanjo who quickly moved and dusted Ekwueme in the party’s presidential primaries and eventually became civilian president in May 1999.These tin footed gods were the first casualties of the
Under Obasanjo mentoring the PDP, ordinarily a strong party on account of its nationwide spread, became stronger by controlling 28 out of 36 states in the federation. Not known for conceding an inch to dissenting opinion, Obasanjo once famously described a political opponent as “enemy’ who must be decimated. With that disposition he began the onerous task of militarizing the party. First he frustrated the likes of late Sunday Awoniyi who aspired to be party chair. Instead he engineered the emergence of the less fancied Barnabas Gemade. Soon afterwards, Audu Ogbeh who was similarly unceremoniously booted out and replaced by the “garrison commander” Ahmadu Ali too, replaced him.
Under Ali and with Obasanjo unqualified support several illegalities were orchestrated. Party men were disallowed differing opinion. As matter of fact, they were systematically deregistered. Estranged Vice President Atiku Abubakar was among to be so deregistered. A suicidal philosophy of “do-or-die” politics was nurtured and championed by Obasanjo.
Against all odds, Obasanjo singly hoisted a sickly late Yar’adua and a decidedly clueless Jonathan on Nigeria to serve a selfish agenda. The election that midwifed Yar’adua was simply scandalous. Minus Obasanjo perfidy, we probably won’t be in the present political mess.
In quitting the PDP, it was vintage Obasanjo: master of tongue-in-cheek statement. He said he was leaving the party because of “illegalities”. This was one of the several reasons, the old man advanced, for quitting the party. He is now a “statesman”.
In tweets later, this soldier-turned-farmer-turned-politician threw more light why he finally dumped the PDP. All his reasons were the quintessential Obasanjo: self –serving, populist and a damning indictment of himself. Consider if you may this tweet purportedly from Obasanjo: “I’d rather sacrifice my political party for the interest of Nigeria than sacrifice my country for a political party led by a drug baron”
Several darts have been hurled in the direction of Obasanjo since he “ported” or migrated. His “crimes” in government are being laid bare. But he is clearly unperturbed. One can see he is determined to right the wrong he fatally made in attempting to play god nearly eight years ago.
