Nigerian Presidency: Finally, Revelation 101

Barely over seven months to the 2007 presidential elections there is no visible or real successor to Obasanjo in sight. It’s a somber thought.

Nigerians are witnessing the ultimate assault on their sense of decency and national pride.

As President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar wash their dirty linens in public to the chagrin of every decent Nigerians, this sorry saga confirms two facts: First, as General T. Y. Danjuma once asserted in reference to the Nigerian Presidency in the current dispensation, “the fish rots from head”; second, what we have always suspected of the present Government is being validated openly. Despite the righteous indignation of the President and his cohorts on matters of official malfeasance and profligacy, the executive leadership itself has not been truly above board. What seems to be the guiding principle has been the so-called “eleventh commandment”: Thou shall not be found out.

Invariably, it will be safe to assume that all those who have been caught in the web of the anti-corruption campaign during the Obasanjo-Atiku tenure were those who were found out or, alternatively, those who had rubbed the powers-that-be the wrong way. Now that the chicken has come to roost, and the top two citizens of Nigeria are doling out to their compatriots and the world an engrossing but ignominious lesson on political revelations. In the unfolding and grotesque epic, both the president and his vice have emerged as rayless majesties. If their disclosures about each other’s culpability in less than legitimate financial dealings were meant to remedy their respective images, they ought to know that the remedies they chose are far worse than the disease of corruption itself. But all said, the entire episode, which is yet to be played out fully, is instructive in many regards.

Revelations: Chapter 1, Verse 1: Nigerian politics is full of imponderables.

If the OBJ-Atiku crass feud and political debauchery were not so tragic and inherent threats to national security, they would have been just another comical soap opera of Nigerian politics. Nigerians may be witnessing what Henry Louis Mencken once referred to as “the virulence of national appetite for bogus revelations.” Ironically, in the present instance, the revelations emanating from Obasanjo and Atiku camps, as we are coming to learn, are not in any way bogus.

Sadly, what we are witnessing has the immense capacity to be politically ruinous for the nation. The explicit and implicit dangers are enough to jerk every well-meaning Nigerian out of the complacency, stupor, and resignation that we have been lured into by our politicians and their shenanigans. We must remember that in the short history of Nigeria, our national political hiccups have been cyclical. The events of 1964 culminated in the civil war of 1967. General Yakubu Gowon’s reneging on a transition to democracy agreement extrapolated to the coup of July 29, 1975 and countercoup of Friday, February 13, 1976. The annulment of the 1993 presidential elections had its historical consequences with immense costs in lives too. The (s)elections of 2003, which is yet to play itself out fully, are just about to come a full circle.

Transparency International, Inc., to which President Obasanjo was once a board member and retains close affiliation, would be impressed with the prosecutable disclosures coming out of Obasanjo and Atiku camps. The truth is that the President and his deputy can no longer coexist peacefully. But the troubling and inconvenient truth is that they both seem inclined to drag the nation into the fray of their visceral fight. That will be double jeopardy.

First, it is the nation that has been disenfranchised by both and their ruling PDP, if what we are being told is true. Secondly, they now wish to rubbish our collective aspiration for peace and security, having jointly squandered the trust and confidence that devolved on them by virtue of their respective public offices. This must not be allowed to happen. More importantly, justifiable as the President may think that his complaints against his deputy are, we the Nigerian people need to remember what Edmund Burke said: “It is a general error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”

Revelations; Chapter 2, Verse 1: There’s honor among thieves only when there’s equity

What the President and his deputy have done is create a squalid nuisance. Nigeria is now witnessing the pernicious effect of their bad governance over the past seven years. Simply stated, our perennially bad leadership has led Nigeria down the era of moral discernment, if not onto the road to perdition.

I guess that those who wish to be fair would say that the President had it coming, having himself fired the first salvo at his vice. Now the gloves are off, there is no holding back. In a native parlance that Nigerians would fully grasp, the bolekaja disposition of the Presidency has turned into a full-fledged roforofo fight. The reality is that besides the two pugilists, there will surely be other collateral damages.

Revelations; Chapter 3, Verse 1: those who live in glass houses throw stones at their own peril

By the time the President and his deputy are done with each other, they will both have no modicum of reputation to protect. At every word hauled by their assistants and apologists on their behalf, a facet of their respective reputation dies. Ditto our national dignity!

Let me pose rhetorical question here: Why did the President turn on his deputy, knowing fully well that he would fight back and possessed enough “armor” and evidence to sink the flagship. Like many Nigerians, I can hazard a guess: The unforgiving character the President and his messianic disposition. Well, there may be more to it. Perhaps, the answer lies in that observation by Thomas Hardy about the Mayor of Casterbridge: “the hard, half-pathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance, except, perhaps fair play.” Let’s think of it: the President has not been known as someone who places high premium on “fair play” when dealing with subordinates, talk less of his perceived adversaries.

In his 1966 classic, How to Be A Nigerian, Peter “Pan” Enahoro admonished us to “Never underestimate the Nigerian Progressive. He’s the Fifth Estate of the Realm.” Attentive Nigerian observers know too well that many of the so-called political strategists around President Obasanjo claim to be “progressives” and that they had more than one scenario or option up their sleeves when they started pushing the third-term agenda that flopped.

Option A was a constitutional amendment. That flopped, notwithstanding Julius Ihonvbere’s characterization of those unwilling to partake in the exercise as “intellectually lazy.” Option B was an Interim National Government (ING). That too, like an albatross, was glaring but did not take off the ground. The final joker when all else failed was to be Option C, where C stands for “confusion.” Obasanjo’s advisors have long referred to this scenario as the “other option.” It is this option that is now being played out behind the façade of trying to indict and impeach Vice President Atiku Abubakar. One needs to look at the tree despite the forest.

The incessant and widening attacks on Atiku Abubakar are mere broad brushes meant to mask the true intent behind the process which, simply stated, goes beyond the attempt to put him down; the strategic objective of which -- sidelining the Vice President is a sidebar -- is to sow seeds of discord, create tension and national restiveness that will make it impossible to conduct a peaceful national elections in 2007. Were that to happen, a state of emergency will be declared and, in order not to create a political vacuum, the President and his supporters will propose that the incumbent should continue in office until such a time that law and order is fully restored and elections can be held. A recent published paper in the July 2006 Journal for Democracy titled, Nigeria: Completing on Obasanjo’s Legacy (Sklar, Onwudiwe, & Kew) also adduced other pretexts that could be used as basis to declare a state of emergency.

The precedent had already been orchestrated and successfully tested out, though on a minor scale in Plateau State several months ago. The state of emergency declared in Plateau State without National Assembly's prior consent was a test run of how to use the Constitution as a pretext for resolving a national crisis but, in actuality, to serve narrow political interests. Nigerians need not look too far for a parallel. The untenable situation in Ivory Coast under President Gbagbo can be easily replicated in Nigeria. Just as in that country, the international community can be suckered into accepting the fait accompli all in the name of peace and security and the stability of Nigeria.

Those gullible enough to think that the public cockfight between the President and his deputy is pure spectator sport, in which the bloodletting will be limited to the contestants, need to think again. Already, many Nigerians from the southern parts have been brainwashed into believing that Obasanjo’s attempt to stop an Atiku Abubakar presidency augurs well for a continued southern presidency. Conversely, in the north, the plummeting of Atiku Abubakar is seen as a campaign against the northern presidency and an attempt to repudiate the prevailing power shift compact. Meanwhile, the minorities in the South-South and Middle Belt zones of Nigeria are wishfully hoping and believing that the impending north-south debacle would be to their sectional benefit.

What is clear, is that the impending confusion will not augur well for Nigeria and its nascent democracy. It will also not be in the interest of Nigeria’s international interlocutors. But we must first understand the subterranean plot afoot to be able to combat it. As I see it, if Atiku Abubakar is indictable and impeachable on account of the evidence adduced by his boss, then it follows that his boss will be equally culpable and indictable on account of whatever the Vee-Pee knows and is willing to reveal. After all, they have been partners in the leadership of Nigeria for the past seven years. President Obasanjo once reminded us that the Presidency was a tag team. But that was during the honeymoon period. Nonetheless, all their strengths and imperfections considered, neither Atiku Abubakar nor Olusegun Obasanjo will go down without taking the other, or at least trying to. If the two must go down, they must not take Nigeria with them. Figuratively and literally, neither is greater than the nation.

Meanwhile, while we watch the evolving abracadabra with the intensity reserved only for a full eclipse or the final episode of the Survivor show, Nigerians need to be vigilant with their eyes keenly trained on those so-called “progressives” around President Obasanjo, who are the architects of his various self-succession options. This is their final push and they will crush anyone in their way beginning with Vice President Atiku Abubakar. They have learned well from the errors of the Babangida and Abacha failed self-succession efforts. They do not employ hidden agenda. Rather, these “progressives” employ the “open society” and the “divide-and-rule” approach. Yet, for them, like others, the end still justifies the means. In this context, Enahoro’s observation of the Nigerian “progressives” is instructive: “The experienced progressive is contemptuous of right and sympathetic to wrong. Which is not as twisted as you may think. For there is often so much wrong with right and such a lot of right in wrong.”

Revelations: The Final Chapter

Finally, it needs to be remembered that we are just barely over seven months to the 2007 presidential elections and there is no visible or real successor to President Obasanjo in sight. It’s a somber thought and reality. We should all be deeply troubled by this fact.

As Obasanjo’s putative heir apparent, Atiku Abubakar is presently being publicly excoriated and discredited, the Nigerian political terrain is again roiling with the same depressing familiarity that has hitherto led us to confusion, crises, and unending cycles of fractious politics. What is most troubling is that, if Nigeria hits its next tipping point, it may not survive as nation. Then, the American prognostication that the Nigerian state will disintegrate within the next fifteen years would have become a reality.

For now, Nigeria’s fate hangs precariously on a balance. Ironically, the outcome of the current crises may yet validate that immortal comment by Thomas Hardy, “the offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.” May fate be kind to Nigeria, despite its past and present leadership!

With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.

Hank Eso, is a columnist for Kwenu.com. His commentaries on Nigerian politics and global issues have appeared in The New Times (Lagos), African Profile International (New York), The Nigerian And Africa Abroad, (New York), African Market News (New Jersey) and in Gamji.com.

THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER

Hank Eso