Obasanjo is stranded AMANZE OBI Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, is caught between two stools. He is in a dilemma as to the way to go. In recent weeks, he has played host to strange bedfellows. A powerful lobby group of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, went looking for him. Tinubu said their mission was to get Obasanjo’s opinion on some of his former ‘boys’ who are jostling for the office of the president. Apparently to neutralise the APC mission, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Obasanjo’s estranged party, also joined the fray. A team which comprised the National Chairman of the party and the President of the Senate paid him a courtesy visit. They asked Obasanjo to forgive them their trespasses and join hands with the party in the task ahead. Those were the recent missions to Obasanjo’s Hilltop Mansion in Abeokuta. But the former president, as calculating as ever, did not betray any emotion. There was no indication that either party extracted any commitment from him. We are told that in politics there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies. What you have is permanent interest. That may be the ideal. In real terms, permanent enemies do exist in politics. Obasanjo, the wily and rugged player, knows this. He made a fetish of this tendency during his years as president of Nigeria. He was not known to have forgiven anybody who transgressed against him. Even when he gave the impression that all was well between him and his political foe, he usually sprang a surprise that would sweep that foe off his feet. We must recall that Obasanjo and Tinubu were implacable foes when they were in the saddle as president and governor respectively. They fought a bitter political war over the control of the South West. In 2003, Obasanjo’s coup saw to the ouster of Alliance for Democracy (AD) who held sway in the zone then. Only Tinubu survived the Obasano onslaught. What followed was a free style denigration and denunciation of Obasanjo by Tinubu and his cohorts. From what transpired in those years of struggle, it was evident that Obasanjo and Tinubu had no regard for each other. Their estimation of each other was low, through and through. It is doubtful if anything has changed today, regardless of the ongoing shenanigans about consulting Obasanjo or seeking his opinion on critical national issues. What is really playing out now is that Obasanjo’s estrangement with the PDP is making it possible for opportunists to cash in on the situation. That is what Tinubu and the APC team tried to do. Their quest is legitimate especially in the light of the fact that nature abhors a vacuum. They are trying to fill the gap left by PDP. But what makes their quest a tall order is that Tinubu is not the only strange bedfellow in the APC that Obasanjo is being urged to associate with. There are others like Atiku Abubakar, Obasanjo’s own Vice President with whom he fought a very bitter political battle while they were in office. The relationship between them remains frosty to this day. There is also Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the former Head of State. Buhari and Obasanjo confronted each other on the electoral battlefield on more than one occasion. The outcomes were bitter. They remain suspicious of each other till today. The list of the people in the APC whose presence will put off an Obasanjo is really long. That is why some of us see something false about the rapprochement that the APC is trying to foist on Obasanjo. But we also know that Obasanjo, the old war horse, will hardly be taken in by the antic. What about the PDP? How is Obasanjo expected to relate with some elements within the party? It is a well known fact that Obasanjo’s problem with the party stems largely from his frosty relationship with President Jonathan. There is no gainsaying the fact that Obasanjo was a major factor in the emergence of Jonathan as president. But the relationship between them did not endure, for whatever reason. At some point, the former president felt so claustrophobic within the party that he had to resign as the chairman of its Board of Trustees. But that did not tell all the story. Obasanjo stepped out in a more daring manner when he began to write open letters denouncing the Jonathan presidency. His last letter to the president was particularly damaging. He asked Jonathan to drop his second term ambition, claiming that the president promised to stay in office for only one tenure. The effects of the letter reverberated on the political scene. It was an upper cut for Jonathan. Can an Obasanjo whose bitterness against Jonathan is so deep-rooted, going by the tone and content of his open letter, be expected to sheathe his sword at this point in time and throw his weight behind Jonathan? It is very doubtful. Obasanjo’s grouse with PDP does not begin and end with Jonathan. The former president is also worried about some other issues. He is bitter with the PDP leadership for making a certain Buruji Kashamu the leader of the party in Obasanjo’s South West zone. Obasanjo has personal differences with Buruju who he has consistently denounced as a man wanted in the United States over some shady deals. Obasanjo is not making any secret of his disappointment with the seeming lionization of Buruji by the PDP. He said that much a few days ago when he wondered how the PDP leadership expects him to put up with a Buruji as his zonal leader. There are other factors that bother Obasanjo about the PDP but which are not exactly in the public domain. The fact is simply that PDP under Jonathan has taken a number of steps which Obasanjo would not have allowed if he still had a say in the running of the party. One of such is the return of Ayo Fayose, the Governor of Ekiti State, to political relevance. Let us recall that Obasanjo as president was instrumental to the impeachment of Fayose as governor in 2006. An acrimonious relationship ensued between both men afterwards. Fayose, since then, has stopped at nothing to deride Obasanjo. Today, the PDP has made it possible for Fayose to return. Obasanjo, obviously, is ill at ease with this development. This is the dilemma that Obasanjo faces. Neither the APC nor the PDP presents him with anything attractive. He is just left in the cold. Obasanjo is not likely to pitch his tent with either camp, and this leaves the man stranded. It may well be that Obasanjo is looking for or expecting an opening before he strikes. The old war horses Obasanjo has had a running battle with may not be an option. Obasanjo may be expecting a new set-up, a different scenario that may make it possible for him to seize the stage. Such expectation may not be out of place. In politics, everything is deemed possible. Every possible scenario must be taken into consideration when permutations are being made. At moment, analysts and observers have more than tasked their imagination in the bid to know how things would play out in 2015. Many have over stretched their ability for guess work. They are now waiting with baited breath. But what many seem to agree with is that the burden of 2015 lies with APC. By that they mean that the case of PDP is already decided. Jonathan will be the candidate. What is left, and that is really the issue, is who APC would square him up with. Many seem to believe that neither Buhari nor Atiku is electable owing to their past records. The prediction is that Jonathan would have an easy ride back to power should any of these men be presented by APC. But then, should the party take the daring step by fielding a young breed? That, in itself, is fraught with problems. But whatever the case may be, the APC must stand somewhere. Wherever it decides to stand may help Obasanjo to resolve his own dilemma. But the real dilemma for Obasanjo is that he will remain a fringe player in all these. If he decides to assist APC, he can only do so from outside and that will not make it possible for him to wield sufficient influence. And if PDP decides to shift grounds in order to accommodate the former president, he will still have to subject his preferences to those of Jonathan. Thus option may not be attractive to Obasanjo. But only time will tell how it will all play out. For now, Obasanjo remains stranded.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 06:39:25 +0000
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