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A Meta Analysis Of Obasanjo’s Letter To President Jonathan By Chris Aniedobe

December 18, 2013

Chinewizu believes that Obasanjo’s 18 page diatribe was a carefully contrived ruse to divert critical attention from the National Confab (SNC) which portends grave danger for the 1999 constitution that institutionalized lootcracy in Nigeria. Not so.

Chinewizu believes that Obasanjo’s 18 page diatribe was a carefully contrived ruse to divert critical attention from the National Confab (SNC) which portends grave danger for the 1999 constitution that institutionalized lootcracy in Nigeria. Not so.

The SNC at this point is ill timed and will not amount to much with or without Obj's 18 page putschist diatribe. Folks like Chinweizu who believe that the SNC is an imperative exercise will be disappointed by the outcome because the current political circumstances are too inauspicious for Jonathan’s SNC to amount to much.  It is unripe. In fact, the fact that it was instituted by Jonathan is all that is needed to call the outcome – waste of money.  A true Sovereign National Conference stems from the bowls of we the people and not the government.  The current SNC however is a healthy exercise and could be useful if the various sovereign nations sign off on the status quo as well as promote greater understanding of the expectations of the various ethnicities within Nigeria.  If the wily Obj is threatened by the SNC, he has enough guile to work for and secure an endorsement of the status quo through Jonathan’s SNC which would even make the status quo more legit and further legitimize the highly discreditable 1999 constitution believed to be drawn by Generals for Generals. 

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As it is, the Northern elite are not excited by the SNC if it would alter the economic and political relationship of the Regions which had been carefully crafted since 1966 to favor a particular region of the country. With the North’s lukewarm interest in the SNC, the outcome of the current SNC won't capture the hopes of revolutionary thinkers like Chinweizu for a new Nigeria radically different from the amalgam set up by the Imperial powers. 

Chinweizu’s perspective is interesting though and invites a meta analysis of Obj's letter to throw light on perspectives which Obj himself, I am sure, did not consider. Many people would have dismissed Obj's letter as the ranting of a spoilt child were it not in fact true that Jonathan is presiding over a lootcracy and does not appear to have any credible plans to stem the bleeding.  The nation is bleeding to death under Jonathan and the nation’s blood is on the streets for all to see – dilapidated infrastructure, economic hardships, grinding poverty, gutted educational system, and stench of corruption that reeks up to the highest heavens. We do not need Obasanjo to tell us. We are living it and he can only imagine it from his mansion and his first class seat in airplanes. The billion Naira estates in Maitama are in marked contrast to the apartheid style shanties in Kuruduma representing the lot of most Nigerians who live on less than three hundred Naira a day. 

There is a lot of truth in what Obasanjo said and to deny it would be disingenuous. What took every one aback were the sanctimony, the timing, and the method.  Obj really wanted to incite popular uprising against Jonathan and the locomotive may be gaining steam as the House leadership and Central Bank Officers spill out into the public domain to make a case for Jonathan's ineptitude and quanta of corruption, which by Nigerian's sordid standards, is running off the charts.

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What is at stake is greater than Jonathan though; it is the destiny of over 160 million people, and I would caution Obj and his ilk to forswear the attitude that regime change is all that is needed.  Nigeria has a deeply flawed system of government, not the least of which is a bloated public sector payroll based on a very expensive Presidential system of government, plurality of governments,  and a pre-bendel attitude to governance.  Getting Jonathan out of Aso rock is no panacea for all the economic woes that are bedeviling the country.  But Jonathan should know that he does not have a whole lot of time and is steadily loosing grip of the nation.  He could easily be swept off Aso Rock by expression of the popular will of the people in a properly conducted election.  It is far better for him to get serious about tackling corruption than to take issue with Obasanjo.  Obasanjo was pretty clear in his pronouncement - that Jonathan was unfit to continue to be President and should do the country a favor and bow out in 2015 or else face severe consequences. One of those unspoken consequences may even include death by assassination.  It won’t be the first time in Nigeria. 

If anything, Obasanjo's putschist remarks may be unwittingly ushering in the sort of political environment in Nigeria that would propitiate the sort of SNC that Chinweizu has in mind. If that is the case, Obasanjo's current antics should be seen as pro SNC because dark clouds of political storm are growing and gathering in Nigeria and the country has never been more polarized than this since after the civil war. The difficulties that lay ahead could finally force us to re-examine the Nigeria compact and Obj’s antics may force that re-examination outside what some erroneously believe, is a contrived effort to thwart the SNC. 

Here is why Obj wrote his letter, pure and simple. He has been at the receiving end of accusations for truncating the North’s turn at the Presidency and certain Northern elite believe that it is morally right for the Presidency to return to the North and they have communicated same to Obasanjo in no uncertain terms, warning him to expect both orchestrated and random acts of violence aimed at forcing the nation’s hands.  Obj simply felt that it was his duty as a statesman to warn Jonathan that he was steering the ship of state to shallow waters. Obj is frustrated that Jonathan’s performance in office did not justify the political risk he took in him and every act of official corruption in Jonathan’s government brings a reminder from a Northern elite that it was all Obj’s fault. The old man is simply tired of hearing it. 

But let me take a leap from the gloom and doom to assure Nigerians that our dear country is going nowhere. Those who are selling off their properties in Abuja should relax. As long as the current revenue allocation formula stays the same and North controls a super majority of the oil blocs, the North has zero incentive to go anywhere. The Igbo with all their assets all over the country has zero incentive to go anywhere. If the North is staying and the Igbo is staying, the Yoruba is not going anywhere. The very evil, namely oil, that is keeping Nigeria from developing is what is keeping Nigeria united as long as the North continues to sign off on the allocation formula.

Further, the North has zero motivation for a SNC that would tend to prescribe decentralization and greater political autonomy for the various regions because that would invariably affect their own share of the oil wealth. To Obasanjo, decentralization was the fertile ground that gave birth to Biafra and possible dismemberment of the country. To Southern Nigerians, decentralization would free the South from North’s shrinking hegemony but with the North’s hegemony shrinking by the day, the South sees political parity as well within reach. To the North, it would mean less control of the center and economic hardships including restricted access to the sea. As you can see, the forces that keep Nigeria together are greater than those that are forcing it apart and it would take seismic shifts in political arrangement to break up Nigeria.

If Obj’s diatribe was intended to placate the North’s clamor for regime change by any means necessary, then Obj was sadly mistaken. The Nation may be on a collision course with its own Arab spring, and Obasanjo was under a mistaken belief that his 18 page siren would avert the course whereas in fact he may have made it more likely than not that Nigeria’s Arab spring may be nearing full term. Contrary to what some believe, Nigeria’s Arab spring will not break up the country.

If the North truncates Jonathan's regime other than through the democratic process, it would ripen Nigeria's version of Arab spring because the South Southerners will make sure that Nigeria's oil spills to open seas than see the International Market Place.  Any attempt to truncate Jonathan’s regime other than through the democratic process will definitely backfire and could cause the nation to unravel in ways that Obasanjo would have no control over.  On the other hand, Jonathan’s stay beyond 2015 will be a stiff test for the North’s commitment to one Nigeria.  It is a test which the South believes that the North should take and do well in. Else, if the North wishes to force a national confab with a view to decentralizing the powers of the Central Government, it is a dialog which the South will very much welcome. 

As you can see, the destinies of the various regions have become so intertwined that the so called SNC is unlikely to yield a radical departure from the status quo.  Further, Nigeria has become too sophisticated for anyone to believe that Nigeria can be kept together by gun barrels and any soldier who contemplates that as an option is being delusional.  That option is off the table. Obj can huff and puff but that is all he can do. Force Jonathan out and the nation could unravel. Allow Jonathan to stay and sporadic acts of violence will intensify into pockets of civil war throughout the North but between Jonathan’s continued stay in Office and the SNC, the lesser of the two evils for the North is Jonathan’s continued stay in Office unless Jonathan is replaced in a credible election. 

If I may take another departure from the gloom and doom, the ship of state is headed into dangerous and choppy waters for the next five years, but we may be about to go through the birth pangs of a new Nigeria depending on the choices Nigeria makes over the disposition of Jonathan’s regime but Nigeria will not break apart. If new Nigeria does not die a still birth, then she would have come to stay in the comity of Nations else the rambling wreck that is the old Nigeria will continue to live its crude existence – one that is 99 percent dependent on oil. For a country that has so much to offer to her citizens, a new Nigeria would be a welcome outcome, but first, Jonathan has to get tough against corruption and stop the bleeding and be serious about building a nation where everyone, big and small, politician and proletariat, is subject to the same laws. He does not have a whole lot of time and minding Obj would be a further waste of the little he has. 

In summation, Obj’s letter is a clarion call for GEJ to shape up or shape out. Beyond that, Obj can huff and puff but should understand that Nigeria has outgrown the Generals. Force Jonathan out, the country unravels. Allow Jonathan to stay, the country will continue to totter on the brinks. The best way out is to get Jonathan out through a credible election. But to be able to do that, we have to be a nation of laws which sadly, we have never been. The only issue is whether we could ever become a nation of laws and that calls on each and every Nigerian to examine our conscience and our commitment to our country. Last time I checked, Jonathan did not stop anyone from obeying the laws of the nation.  In that sense, we deserve Jonathan just like we deserve Obasanjo. It is our government and Obasanjo has no greater rights to her destiny than the rest of us. 

 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters

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