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Forgive Me For I Knew Not What I Was Doing! By Bemigho Reno
It was only last week that I saw a bold headline in which Vice President Atiku called for leaders to learn to accept criticism. I was relieved to hear that from the number two man in the country because it is a fact of leadership that leaders must accept criticism and be tolerant of it and not take it personal. It was not long after, precisely on the 21st of August that the same VP Abubakar gave his interview to Thisday on Sunday, where he revealed among other things that the President swore to him that he would go in 2007, and that he saw no way for a third term.
Now whether you support the perceived third term bid of Mr. President or not, you must accept that the statement of the VP is a direct criticism and disavowal of the idea. Now if you had believed like I did, that Mr. President did not nurse any such idea, you would have expected that there would be no flak directed at the VP so soon after coming out categorically to reject the bid. I mean it is almost wishful thinking to believe that the salvos directed at the VP immediately after he gave his interview is coincidental. A week after he came out in Thisday, the report on the raid on his Potomac residence was splashed all over the world and Nigerian press, in a way that threw people off from the sting operation directed at Congress man Jefferson and made the whole issue be about VP Abubakar. Mr. President then personally issued the next salvo on prime time national T.V. in effect calling Atiku Abubakar a liar when he said inter alia about the VP that “ I think that there is a little bit of exaggeration here and there, or its loss of memory…Even when I discovered that there were proven cases of doubtful loyalty on his part I think because I wanted to resolve it between me and him, I brought out a Bible and Quran. And I said between us, let us swear because we should not have a divided house. He refused to. Why? Because he obviously knew that the cases are proven”. This is most revealing coming from a President who had just said “ for what reason would I swear? Those who know me know that I don’t talk frivolously, you either accept my words or you don’t” This is the same person who just admitted that he wanted himself and the VP to take an oath of loyalty to each other, showing a willingness to swear!
I don’t know about you my readers, but this shows a disposition to ask for an oath in order to establish a thing by the President. And the VP did say in his Thisday interview that when he discussed the issue of third term with the President, the man swore to an oath that he would leave in 2007. My dear fellow Nigerians, take the words of our president in his last media chat where he said “ And I said, between us, let us swear…but he refused” and the words of the VP that Mr. President swore an oath to him, then objectively answer the question, who between these two persons really does not swear? Is it the man who refused to swear when asked to, preferring to be judged by his actions, or the man who demanded that an oath be taken?
I am thus inclined to believe what Senator Kuta was reported to have said in all the dailies of Tuesday, August 30, 2005. Senator Kuta said that the current travails of the Vice President, where as a direct result of the battle for supremacy in 2007, stating 2it is all about third term”. Kuta went further to say that the President wanted to discredit his Vice because he knows that he will not support the third term bid. Alas, when I read that statement, the scales fell from my eyes, and me that has always come out strongly for the president both on T.V., on the print media and as an internet blogger, had to face the obvious, In quoting Sherlock Holmes, “ when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth”. It has been in doubt before that there was a feud between the President and his vice as both denied it categorically. But with the recent media war between the duo, they can no longer deny it. Then it was only when the Vice President came out strongly against the third tem that the President chose to discredit him. There leaves only one obvious conclusion. THE THIRD TERM BID IS REAL!!!
One begins to get a new kind of understanding about the recent travails in the ruling P.D.P. The removal almost at gun point of the erstwhile P.D.P. chairman, a known loyalist of the VP, by the President only after he had sent the VP to represent him at the Sudan peace accord signing. One begins to see in a new perspective, the recent sack of Safana and shuaib Oyedokun, P.D.P. Deputy National Chairmen for North and South respectively on charges of corruption, while a known loyalist of the President who himself is a Godfather of Corruption (a la NPA) was promoted to the position of Deputy National Chairman South. It makes one re-examine the deaths of notable people like the late Bola Ige, Harry Marshall, Amino Dikibo, OGB, and several other small fry. Recent happenings bring back sharply into focus comments by Tony Anenih, the ‘fixer’ that “ president Obasanjo would determine his successor”. I begin to look back at the recently concluded National Political Reform Conference with new eyes. Could it be that after all these six years of going about trumpeting the achievements and democratic credentials of the President, Olusegun Obasanjo that I have been deceived, led on a wild goose chase?
And one begins to ask why now, why now when we are so close to the P.D.P. convention does the President suddenly remembers that his deputy has been disloyal to him? Did Senator Kuta not say on the 30th of August that Atiku Abubakar and Ibrahim Babangida should confront Obasanjo on his third term bid, because it was they who persuaded Nigerians to vote for him in the first place. What better act of loyalty could the Vice President have displayed than to blow the lid of the coup plot of last year. Now we know from court transcripts that it was the intention of the coupists to fire a stinger missile at the president’s helicopter while he was on the way to his Otta farms. It stands to reason that if they had succeeded, Atiku would have become President. But it was the same Atiku who blew the lead off the plot.
And now an unelected pundit like Ojo Maduekwe calls a press conference calling on the Vice President to resign if he can not be loyal to his boss. What bull! If the Vice President was not loyal to his boss, his boss would not have been re-elected in 2003. Whatever might have passed through the Vice President’s mind, it can not be denied that it was his decision to stick with Obasanjo in January of 2003, that ensured that Mr. President won the 2003 P.D.P. presidential primaries. So Mr. Maduekwe should think twice before calling on the Vice President to resing, because I recall the President himself saying openly that the VP was the only person he could not sack. And this is true, because Nigerians did not just vote the President, they voted for his Vice. In fact it can truthfully be said that they voted him because of his Vice. So for unelected people who rode to power through this union to begin to to over heat the system, I consider to be most unfortunate.
It is now that I understand what Wada Nas said soon after the April 19th 2003 Presidential elections that Obasanjo had stooped to conquer Atiku, and for which I replied lampooning him. I now beg to apologise to Col. (rtd.) Abukar Umar, who I ravaged after he wrote his several letters to President Obasanjo, stating that the president had a hidden agenda to frustrate his two most likely contenders for the 2007 race. I did the same thing to Mohammed Haruna, who alleged likewise. Finally, I want to tender an unreserved apology to Ike Okonta of Thisday Newspapers, whom I took to the cleaners when he took on Obasanjo in one of his recent articles. Please fellows, forgive me, for I knew not what I was doing!
Kubwa Abuja. |