President Muhammadu Buhari’s dream to seek re-election in 2019 has suffered a terrible setback following this week’s vote of no confidence letter written to him by former President Olusegun Obasanjo advising him not to do so. In the letter entitled: “The way Out: A Clarion call for coalition for Nigeria movement,” Obasanjo wants Buhari to have a dignified exit from power; go home and rest and operate from the sideline like Obasanjo and others are doing.
The letter which summarized the two and half years’ regime of Buhari accused him of so many sins including nepotism, clannishness, gross dereliction of duty, buck passing, poverty, insecurity and poor management of internal politics. However, Obasanjo was too generous to award a pass mark to the tottering administration on only two key areas: the fight against corruption and insurgency but added that it is not yet uhuru.
The ex-President, who recently bagged a Ph.D in Christian Theology from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), is versed in writing warning letters to sitting Nigerian presidents. He cherished writing those lengthy but thought-provoking letters. The ex-president has promoted the dying art of letter writing with those incisive letters.
And most of his predictions in those patriotic letters had come to pass. Recall his famous letter to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan entitled “Before it is too late,” prior to the build up to the 2015 presidential election and the unpalatable outcome to Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party through which Obasanjo came to power in 1999 and ruled Nigeria for eight years.
Apart from repudiating the PDP, Obasanjo had openly torn to shreds his membership card and has since then shunned partisan politics, except the current one he plays from the sideline. Obasanjo was one of those that made Buhari’s victory in the 2015 poll against Jonathan (his political godson) possible. He was an ardent supporter of Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
If the same Obasanjo now advises Buhari to quit the stage, it should be safely assumed that the game is over for Buhari and his APC apologists who decided to look the other way while Nigeria burns. Obasanjo’s bombshell has sealed the fate of APC in 2019 and Nigerians have bought into it. No amount of APC propaganda will save the situation.
This must be the most distressing time for APC and its blind acolytes and praise singers. It is hoped that they see the wisdom in Obasanjo’s red card. What Obasanjo said in his letter is not novel. Many critics of the failed administration have said so times without number yet the party and its rudderless leadership kept moving as if nothing is happening.
The only difference is that the message is now coming from the oracle himself. And there is no doubt that the oracle has spoken so well and his message resonates with most Nigerians. Obasanjo spoke the mind of most Nigerians and they are with him. Therefore, Buhari and his APC supporters must not ignore the message even if they want to ignore the messenger.
They should not throw away the baby with the bath water. To a very large extent, the message is significant enough in moving Nigeria forward. Obasanjo has in his letter dismissed the two main political parties in the country, the APC and the PDP and described them as wobbling. To some extent he is right. His views on the two parties tally with those of other Nigerians.
Whether the existing political party structures or a coalition of Nigeria movement/a new party can be used in the realization of Obasanjo’s vision is left for Nigerians to decide. By extension that will take us to discuss the way forward for the wobbling entity called Nigeria. For how long shall this country of great promise be fumbling and wobbling among comity of nations?
Nigeria’s problem has been profoundly reduced to leadership deficit by the late renowned Nigerian writer and polemicist, Prof. Chinua Achebe. I largely agree with him but wish to add that it is a little bit more than that. Nigeria has foundational structural problem. Until this edifice is reconfigured to suit our taste and temperament, it will continue to wobble and fumble till the end of time. Unfortunately, I do not see any messiah in sight that will clean the Augean stable. And there is no hope that they will come pretty soon.
Besides, the ruling party has demonstrated most disdain and insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians since it came to power in 2015. It has refused to fulfill its mouth-watering electoral promises and continued to blame the past administration for its own failings, including self-induced economic and political recessions. The leadership’s silence over incessant Fulani herdsmen killings of other Nigerians is the height of this disdainful treatment. The government’s inaction over the herdsmen killing of over 73 Benue citizens is the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Buhari’s appointment of only members of his ethnic group to key positions of government is his greatest undoing. The APC reply to Obasanjo authored by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, though not confrontational, is feeble and hollow. His assertion that Obasanjo’s busy schedule might have prevented him from seeing the giant strides of the administration is an ingenious attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. That porous defence is rather begging the issue. It lacks fire and verve.
Instead of replying Obasanjo and committing more errors of denials and blame game, the APC should reflect on what Obasanjo has said and see if there is any way it can redeem the situation. Alas, there is no remedy in sight because the letter coming close to election year and scoring the change regime so low is devastatingly injurious. It has nailed the political coffin of the ruling party.
The party and its members can only ignore Obasanjo’s admonitions to their own peril. They should ask Jonathan and the PDP of their own experience. Nigeria is not a horse you ride anyhow without dire consequences. APC has ridden the Nigerian horse with reckless abandon. APC has treated Nigeria and Nigerians like a war booty.
The payback time is the 2019 general election. Obasanjo is not just an ordinary Nigerian. He has seen it all. He has been there as a military leader and as a civilian president. He has played at the global scene and he is well known and connected all over the world. When he speaks about political issues in the country, it is not only Nigerians that listen to him but the international community.
He is an authority on Nigerian affairs. You can disagree with his personal conduct but ignoring the thesis of his present argument will be at your own peril. Buhari and the APC should better heed Obasanjo’s timely and fatherly advice in good faith and treat Nigerians well in the remaining one and half years of their wounded tenure and forget 2019.