from The Guardian
I dedicate this article to Mr. Jonathan Goodluck, Nigeria’s new Vice-President. It is my hope he matches the goodwill of President Umaru Yar’Adua, and publicly and promptly declares his assets.
While we await his good gesture, I congratulate the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party, Tony Anenih, for his courage. This week, he made it clear to the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, that he is not about to become one of his whipping boys.
Referring to a newspaper headline which said he was “in soup,” he said, “I was wondering which pot can be big enough to cook me before I can become soup, at least not in Nigeria.”
That is profound Nigerian English. Notice how and where the context, “not in Nigeria” is cleverly inserted. But Mr. Anenih was not done: from the very rafters of the PDP, he praised the work of the new administration, while castigating the Obasanjo years. Owing to Mr. Yar’Adua’s “prompt and commendable efforts,” he concluded, “Nigerians are beginning to breathe a sigh of relief”.
“Beginning to breathe.” Somewhere in Otta, doctors must have had to use tranquilizers on a screaming old man.
How did we get here? Mr. Anenih was returned to his post atop the PDP food chain at a June 27 meeting of the BOT, a return announced by Ojo Maduekwe. At that time, Mr. Obasanjo was out of the country. The following day, Mr. Obasanjo returned from his travels. He had apparently been fully briefed by his people, and it seems he was angry. A pleasant Obasanjo can barely be described as a pleasant man, let alone an angry one.
Anyhow, the next BOT meeting was not until the night of the following day, June 29. It is now history how, about 12 hours ahead of it, and in its place, Mr. Obasanjo convened his own meeting, attended by 20 or 30 of his loyalists, and was pronounced Chairman. The announcement was also made by Mr. Maduekwe.
But let me go back a little bit. Perhaps on the evening of June 27, Mr. Anenih should neither have been returned to his post as Chairman, nor that meeting even held. After all, the PDP had already changed its constitution providing only for a previous President — by implication, Mr. Obasanjo — to be its BOT Chairman, and it made no sense that he was not present at the meeting.
Anenih’s, then, was the first coup, and only insiders can explain not only why he took such a bold step, but the amateur gamble of traveling out of Abuja and leaving his flanks thoroughly undefended. He should have known Mr. Obasanjo was going to be angry. An angry Obasanjo is not a pretty sight.
That, then, justifies Mr. Obasanjo’s counter-coup. Unlike in conventional coup d’etat, there were no live bullets fired in any of these manoeuvres. Nobody lost his life or needed treatment at Igbobi Hospital. One man’s gain was simply another’s loss, and with neither the former policeman nor the former soldier possessing conventional arms, only one ego had been swapped for another.
The problem is that these are huge egos, and there are acres of political real estate at stake, including the President. That is, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. The PDP fully believes that the presidency belongs to the PDP, and that the PDP is the same as Nigeria. That is why election-rigging has always been such an easy and amoral alternative for the party. And whoever controls the PDP, the reasoning goes, gives President Yar’Adua his commands.
It may be said that this is particularly true of Mr. Obasanjo, who sees President Yar’Adua as his creation, and feels that to him fall the rights of the puppeteer. If you remember that the same balance of forces did not exist between Anenih and Obasanjo between 2003 and 2007, you might understand how Obasanjo truly thinks he owns the party.
But the PDP is not the big, happy family it advertises. If anything, it is more like a holiday resort for the wealthy and their admirers than it is one happy village. That is because its members came together not as a political umbrella with a distinct philosophy—some may challenge this, claiming that its philosophy is and always has been a treasure hunt and a concern for the shortest route to the national treasury – but as an assemblage of the wealthiest and the most powerful in the interest of the wealthiest and most powerful. There is no loyalty to Nigeria, and too few, alas, are the positions available to so many egos.
This is why the PDP has consistently splintered, with key groups and individuals losing faith and losing ground. The transition that the party must now undergo is a necessary step before it begins the journey into a real party. That transition is how to organize as a real political party, with clear and marketable values and principles.
Former President Obasanjo poses a particularly interesting conundrum in this regard. It is obvious now that he believes he must always occupy the top of the hill. The last time he shared— or occupied an alternative chair—was the day before Murtala Muhammad was killed. He is convinced that no Nigerian should even consider speaking when he is in the room.
This is the lesson that Audu Ogbeh learned when he
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