This is no jeer at an unravelled behemoth, scythed by own sheer hubris: fixation with power and nothing else.
It is rather the lamentation for a tragi-comic Nigerian polity: a party democracy sans organic political parties.
But it is also a penetrating x-ray into the personal odyssey of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo — a truly iconic citizen, at least by the Lugardian ethos that threw him up; but which spectacularly let Nigeria down. Hence, the many fits and starts; and near-eternal instability.
No news: Obasanjo is in a titanic face-off with President Goodluck Jonathan; and therefore, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). By Obasanjo’s own presidential power code, Jonathan is PDP’s sitting emperor — long reign the king! You brawl with the emperor — what effrontery! — and remain in one piece?
But what is news, at least to the not-so-discerning, is that the current war’s many battles are strictly according to Obasanjo’s own “war” manual: his PDP sack and counter-sacking; and the Defence Headquarters’ rather reckless disavowal. Both leap off the Obasanjo personal manual — as would be presently demonstrated.
Confounding? Maybe. But first, the latest from the Obasanjo-Jonathan “war front”.
Paparazzi clicked as cameras buzzed and whirred, and flashlights exploded; and Obasanjo’s PDP Ward 11, Abeokuta, co-members whooped in victory: Baba just shred his membership card! It was the hilltop drama of February 17.
Adabayo Dayo, Ogun PDP chairman would, two hours later, announce Obasanjo’s expulsion; the brash Ayo Fayose would prompt South West PDP to make some hostile noise; but PDP National would eat crow, with Sule Lamido, Jigawa governor, hinting at begging the old man. Too late: the old fox had outsmarted his estranged presidential godson and allied traducers!
But beyond the high drama: the card Obasanjo tore — did it symbolise the original PDP? Hardly! Rather, it was the PDP Obasanjo moulded in his own image. But how could somebody’s own image disgust him so much — the severe wages of playing god?
Make no mistake: the Alex Ekwueme-led G-34, with the likes of Solomon Lar and Sunday Awoniyi (both late), who confronted Sani Abacha, were no especial revolutionaries. G-34 later formed PDP.
Indeed, while the NADECO home pair of Adekunle Ajasin and Abraham Adesanya intensified their anti-Abacha war of attrition, Dr. Ekwueme and company were, at best, moderates; at worst, putative co-habitants, that nevertheless grimly told Abacha his transmutation would be morally wrong.
Still, there was some democratic temper, some etiquette, some decorum. But all that vanished when President Obasanjo gruffly proclaimed himself the PDP national leader — sure a US convention, but with thick and heavy bad faith — that vaulted the president over and above the party that presented him for election.
With a new party Leviathan, the purge list was instructive: Chief Lar, first PDP national chairman, forced to abdicate because the “national leader” declared he could not work with him; and Chief Awoniyi, who accused Obasanjo of “spiritual corruption”. “When a man is afflicted with spiritual corruption,” he warned, “he corrupts everything around him”. Still, no stopping the new PDP king-kong! Lar and Awoniyi were in the original G-34.
The last PDP chairman with a mind of his own was arguably Audu Ogbeh, now an All Progressives’ Congress (APC) chieftain. But Obasanjo crushed him over the Chris Ngige Anambra governorship kidnap, pulled off by Chris Uba and gang. Ogbeh, the national chairman, shrieked his outrage. Obasanjo, the national leader, bawled what the heck!
Years later, Uba is fingered in the Ekiti rigging scandal. From kidnapping a governor without sanction, he has graduated, given allegations from the Ekiti rigging audiotape, to crossing the Niger into Yorubaland, with soldiers under his command, to rig another governor into office. Pee-dee-pee … pawa!
Even Ahmadu Ali, Obasanjo’s garrison commander, he of 101% zombie-like loyalty as national chairman, has switched camp as Jonathan campaign director-general. The hirelings of yesteryear have come of age — and are feigning the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph!
That was the PDP which card Obasanjo tore! Will the pristine PDP, warts and all, ever reincarnate?
Then, the excitement from Defence Headquarters. Declaring as an “embarrassment”, Gen. Obasanjo — four-star general, three-time commander-in-chief and Civil War hero, who received the Biafra instrument of surrender — makes the Army velvet ranks themselves an embarrassment to that once great national institution that brought the old soldier to national fame, honour and even wealth!
Even the gibberish about the present-day military besting the Obasanjo-era one is pure gas! Obasanjo-era military went to Congo and everywhere and excelled. Buhari-era military chased intruding Chadian rascals almost all the way to Ndjamena. Now, present-day Nigerian military gasp for breath facing a hitherto ragtag Boko Haram — until, irony of ironies, the same Chad came to the rescue — or the latest push, which the ever fond Jonathan somewhat hopes will save his doomed re-election chances! Nice dreams!
Some spiritual-inclined could even wager the authors of that brutal putdown have earned themselves a Karma-like professional curse, which dooms them to similar treatment from future juniors.
The saving grace though, is that there is no evidence that release came from DHQ, since no one from there signed it, even if it appeared on their website. Just like the unsigned document that started the disastrous annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election result, this is another bastard document by cowards not man enough to append their signatures.
But the Karma bit is no comfort, for again it emanated from the Obasanjo war of attrition manual.
Just as the present military commanders now mock their old commander-in-chief, Gen. Obasanjo once mocked his.
In his Not My Will, with supreme rudeness and intolerable petulance, Obasanjo growled at Gen. Yakubu Gowon. He accused “Mr. Gowon” of duplicity and complicity; and merrily trumpeted his dismissal from the Nigerian Army. Whenever Gowon set foot on Nigerian soil, he thundered, he would answer for his crime! Gowon’s “crime”? Unproven allegations about involvement in the Bukar Dimka failed coup, that took the life of Gen. Murtala Muhammed.
As it happens, Gen. Gowon, 80, honour fully restored, remains the quintessential elder citizen, officer and gentleman. In contrast, Gen. Obasanjo faces a tempest in his winter years. Is the supernatural whispering something to the old general?
Ironically, his latest anti-Jonathan campaign seems for public good, though yoked with private ire. Yet, he looks more and more like Barnabas, the tragic hero in Christopher Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. Barnabas loved only himself. But the first time he committed to others, he was double-crossed! Obasanjo always pushes a private agenda. But now that he seems to push a public one, not a few remain sceptical!
Obasanjo, in the context of a collapsing PDP, should be a lesson to APC. No political party should allow its own nominee, though he be president, so much power as to turn the party into his own fiefdom.
History may doom Jonathan for destroying PDP — and possibly Nigeria, as Obasanjo fears. But it would also, while recording his present heroics, blame Obasanjo for creating the Jonathan destructive genius.
