Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recorded abysmal failure in his latest efforts at resolving the many troubles of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this piece, Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu, x-rays the former president’s attempts at saving the party, leading to speculations over his personal agenda, and wonders if the retired General would soon give up the fight?
Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, stepped out from the meeting in very low spirits. An Aso Rock staff, who caught a glimpse of the retired army general at the end of the stalemated meeting, said he has never seen him in recent time “so demoralised, so exasperated.”
“Even his strong, unemotional face could not fully hide his anger or disappointment,” the staff added.
That was on Tuesday night, August 13, 2013, after Obasanjo’s meeting failed to reconcile the governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who have been divided over the leadership of Nigeria Governors Forum and other crucial issues within the party, ahead of 2015.
Before the crucial Tuesday meeting, which held in Aso Rock, the seat of the federal government, the former president had, according to inside sources, taken it for granted he had finally resolved the crisis threatening the party.
He based his assumption on some promises he allegedly got from the warring governors in some of the earlier meetings he held with them and some other stakeholders.
“For example, after the meeting he held with the 23 PDP governors on Monday, Obasanjo was in high spirits. On Tuesday morning, he cited the openness of the governors at the meeting as a proof that the matter would be resolved that day.”
So, the sharp disagreement on Tuesday night, was to Obasanjo, to the other leaders of PDP and to the presidency, most disturbing.
The Nation learnt that the Presidency had reckoned on using the parley to ease out Rivers State’s Governor Rotimi Amaechi as the chairman of NGF. This project was considered a necessary prelude to the grand scheme of recapturing the party’s straying soul. So, the presidency was said to be elated by Obasanjo’s consensus candidate dummy, which, they said would require resignation of the contending parties to the chairmanship of NGF, Amaechi and Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State, and then the installation of a neutral leader.
But unimpressed by the argument of installing a consensus candidate “in the interest of peace and reconciliation,” Amaechi, who won the NGF election with 19 votes against Jang’s 16, refused to resign his position.
For Obasanjo, who The Nation gathered may have a personal agenda of using the reconciliation process to regain control of the party ahead of 2015, it was a hard set back. A PDP national official in Abuja confirmed in confidence that the former president was not just involved in this project because of President Jonathan but also because of his special interest in the leadership and control of the party. “He and some of his associates are worried that PDP may be finally destroyed if they fail to resolve the current face-off between governors and Mr President. So, he considered this project as a personal task not just an assignment to help Mr. President,” the source said.
Why Obasanjo?
It would be recalled that this last effort was the second time the former Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees would undertake a failed bid to reconcile the governors with President Goodluck Jonathan.
Also, since the founding fathers of PDP, like former vice- presidents, Dr. Alex Ekwueme and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, lost control of the party to the then incumbent president, Olusegun Obasanjo, he (Obasanjo) and many of his followers and some elders of the party have continued to view him as the supreme leader. So, whenever there is a crisis, both at the national and state levels, he is usually invited by his followers to intervene.
For example, five months ago, when the crisis in the South-West chapter of the party was at its peak, Obasanjo had to hold a closed door reconciliation meeting with some leaders of the party in the zone at his Hilltop residence in Abeokuta.
Although the reconciliation move was rather stillborn because of the curious absence of some key members who had the support of the party’s national secretariat, some observers insist it helped to moderate the crisis. Those in attendance at the four-hour meeting included Segun Oni, a former PDP National Vice-Chairman, South-West; Jubril Martins Kuye, a former Minister of State for Finance; and Sarafa Ishola, a former Minister for Mines and Steel Development and some others.
Kuye had explained after the meeting that the development was part of the moves to reposition the party ahead of the 2015 General Elections. He said intra-party crises had caused a lot of setbacks to the party in the state, adding that it was necessary for elders of the party to come together and “mend broken fences,” to move the party forward.
He added that “the former president is an embodiment of peace and a rallying point of the party both in the South-West and at the national level.”
It was this point of view that has primarily facilitated the choice of Obasanjo. But critics of the former president said his involvement in the peace project is part of the major problems of the party.
“This great party lost bearing the day Obasanjo, with the aide of associates like Chief Tony Anenih, pushed out the founding leaders in order to instal himself our monarch. That is the root cause of the PDP crisis. So, how can you expect success when you ask such a man to preside over reconciliation meetings? It won’t work because the man has his personal agenda,” said a PDP chieftain who begged not to be named.
His personal agenda
Although close associates of Obasanjo and some aides of the five northern governors, who first took the matter to Obasanjo, denied that the former president has any personal agenda in the current reconciliation moves, our investigation shows that Obasanjo, who has since begun preparations to protect his political interests during the 2015 elections, is desperate to take back the control of the party.
When the late President Umar Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan were to be voted into power, Obasanjo was in firm control of PDP. But he lost out completely after the emergence of Jonathan as President.
The first official public confirmation of this fact was during the well publicised laying of the foundation stone of a mosque at the multi- million naira Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) complex. Although members of the National Assembly and top PDP chieftains attended the event, Jonathan shunned it and could not send a representative.
The matter got worse when it was alleged that Jonathan had stopped picking Obasanjo’s calls and dipped further when Obasanjo himself became a major critic of Jonathan’s government.
For example, both at local and international fora, he reportedly took a swipe at the Jonathan administration for wasting the country’s foreign reserve, put at about $35 billion in 2007. Obasanjo had been quoted a saying, “We left what we call excess crude, let’s build it for rainy day, up to $35 billion; within three years, the $35 billion disappeared. Whether the money disappeared or, like the governor said, it was shared, the fact remains that $35 billion disappeared from the foreign reserve I left behind in office. When we left that money, we thought we were leaving it for the rainy day… But my brother said the rain is not falling now. But the fact is that when the rain is falling, we will have nothing to cover our heads with because we have blown it off. The Chinese do not think that way.”
As the relationship deteriorated to that level, Jonathan, who is a political godson of Obasanjo, also demonstrateda resolve to be his own lord. But because PDP’s very survival is now seriously threatened, the presidency has allegedly reconciled with Obasanjo and actually depended on him to help save the party. Insiders, however, said Obasanjo, who still feels rubbished, is bent on showing his political might in 2015.
Another personal agenda Obasanjo may be pursuing, which has allegedly led to the failure of the peace moves, is the project of saving the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. Ironically, while the opposing PDP governors see Tukur as the major problem of the reconciliation moves and are bent on his removal, Obasanjo’s loyalists see Tukur’s survival as non- negotiable.
Can Obasanjo give up?
Although Obasanjo told the governors at the end of Tuesday meeting that
“the door is neither closed nor opened,” a top PDP source said on Friday that the former president is getting tired of the hard posture of all the stakeholders in the PDP crisis. “Unless the principal actors in the current face- off change tactics and agree to the spirit of give and take, I do not see Chief Obasanjo accepting to chair another peace meetings that everybody knows will crumble again. The way Baba spoke after the last moves indicate he my be getting pissed off with the whole intrigues. We should not be surprised if he chose to give up on the reconciliation path. As a general, he may, from now, prefer adoption of military tactics and that may mean anything for the party and the polity,” the official said.
As the key actors of the PDP crisis return from the Abuja’s latest peace effort, observers are wondering what Obasanjo’s next step would be. Will he give up on PDP? The drama’s final curtain is yet to be drawn.
