Obasanjo/Atiku: Putting The Nation Before PoliticsByBatholomey Adegbenro
Life sometimes, if not always, has an intriguing way of outsmarting our understanding of its enigma. The simultaneous death of the nation’s First Lady, Mrs. Stella Obasanjo and that of 117 other souls in a plane crash on Sunday 22nd October 2005, is a further confirmation of nature’s mysteries. And although the frontiers of man’s knowledge expand rapidly, including in the field of science and technology, nature still beats us hollow in comprehending its inscrutable power and intriguing way of doing things. However, our consolation is that, despite the colossal national tragic loss of precious lives in separate circumstances, we cannot question why God does certain things in certain ways.
In this period of national grief, while we pray for the souls of the departed, we must also pay tribute to the President and his Vice-President for the mature manner they have united us at a time of national mourning. What impresses most Nigerians is the fact that our period of grief has brought our leaders closer, putting behind the bitterness created by recent political intrigues in the PDP. Until this tragic intervention, there seemed to be no love lost between the President and his Deputy. This incident, though unwelcome and tragic, has pushed recent political quarrels and animosity into the shade. The Vice-President, who was thought to be the underdog of the PDP internal crisis, had wowed many Nigerians by his display of magnanimity and statesmanship. He not only cancelled his scheduled trip to Saudi Arabia to perform the Lesser-hajj (Umra), but also joined the President as one of his chief mourners and comforters in this dark period of national grief. In a panegyric for the First Lady during a special session of the Federal Executive Council meeting held at the State House in Abuja, the Vice-President paid glowing tribute to late Stella’s virtues of tenacious fidelity at the most trying moments of her husband’s life.
He recalled that during Gen. Obasanjo’s mentally torturous period of detention and imprisonment, the late Stella did not abandon him because he was facing the reversal of fortune. Instead, he argued, it strengthened her faith in her husband and consequently became an accidental human rights crusader, fighting at great personal risk for the freedom of her husband under the repressive Abacha military junta, which incarcerated Gen. Obasanjo over controversial coup allegation in 1995. According to Atiku Abubakar, the late Stella also worked with evangelical zeal to promote the electioneering campaign efforts of her husband in 1999.
In a nutshell, the Vice-President was telling us that the late First Lady was remarkably unique because she proved a dependable ally of her husband, when other so-called friends of weaker or dubious loyalty were scared to associate with the General because he was perceived as a fall guy. With her steadfast record of loyalty in adversity to her husband while he was going through the tribulations of life, we can now understand, through Atiku’s testimony, why no one could have contested Stella’s claim to the status of a First Lady.
Vice-President Atiku’s eulogy is one of the most brilliant tributes anyone could ever possibly have paid to the memory of the First Lady. Indeed, his speech had confirmed what many of us did not know before: his closeness to the First Lady and how he had worked behind the scenes with her to help accelerate her political passion to advance the cause of women by giving them a stronger voice and greater relevance in government through participation. Atiku’s warm and deep tribute to Stella must surely have disarmed anyone who had ever thought that the Vice- President is an enemy of the First family.
As the former American President Bill Clinton once remarked, “we don’t have to be enemies because we have different opinions.” And the tragic death of the First Lady and the Bellview air crash victims had brought perceived adversaries together, united by common grief, despite recent political differences about the direction the PDP should go. In Lagos, Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu, who is widely regarded as an arch-enemy of General Obasanjo, was another good example of how this tragedy brought people together. While receiving the body of the First Lady, Governor Tinubu said Stella’s sterling qualities manifested themselves even before she became a First Lady, because according to him, she stood by Obasanjo in his hour of adversity. We don’t know our true friends until we are in difficulty, and the First Lady had proved herself as a reliable friend of Gen. Obasanjo while he was serving a life imprisonment.
Both the Vice-President and Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu have had political differences with President Obasanjo, but our common national grief has brought them together, putting aside those differences for the sake of the nation. In the United States, former President Bill Clinton and ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich were known to be political adversaries, and it took the death of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, to bring them face-to-face together in common grief for a lover of peace in the Middle-East.
Our dark period of national mourning has dimmed our memory of recent bitter political wrangling in the PDP and the maturity of President Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar in this awful moment of national life must be praised. In fact, not even President Obasanjo’s best friends (whoever they may be) could have spoken with deeper and more sincere passion than Atiku Abubakar did.
He stood firmly behind his boss as he grieves the loss of his dear wife and the lives of 117 other Nigerians in the ill-fated Bellview aircraft at Lisa village of Ogun State. By canceling his planned religious trip to the holy land in Saudi Arabia to bring comfort to the President and other members of the family, the Vice-President has tremendously touched this writer. In the Bible, we are taught not to let the sun grow upon our wrath. By this singular act, Atiku Abubakar has risen above the pettiness of our national politics.
His moving tribute to Stella was persuasive enough to disarm even his hardened enemies and, in fact, tempt many of them to redefine their perception of this gentle northern politician. His closeness to and knowledge of the First Lady goes deeper than many of us would be willing to accept. Indeed, we can only equal his grief for the First Family but we cannot possibly surpass it. The Vice-President’s comportment and depth of passion in this gloomy hour of double national tragedy do not betray any sign of someone that has lately been at loggerheads with his boss. And contrary to the morbid imagination of sensation loving Nigerians, Atiku Abubakar has become a warm comforter to his boss at this sad hour. This tragedy has managed to douse the flames of recent bitterness engendered by internal PDP intrigues.
This writer is deeply impressed by the exemplary leadership provided by the President and his deputy. One hopes however, that this period of grief would also mark the beginning of renewal and reconciliation. The President and his deputy should ordinarily be partners in a common cause rather than behaving like bitter enemies. If they can throw the nation behind a common grief, they should equally begin the process of healing the wounds, because the bitterness and violence caused by the recent controversial congresses does not augur well for our democracy.
It is never too late to heal provided we let the sense of justice and fairness guide our corporate and individual relationships. A reputation for justice and fairness can give the PDP a more lustrous democratic image than its touted claim of being the largest political party in Africa. Justice is the life and soul of a stable polity. “The fundamental purpose of justice,” according to Gen. Douglas McArthur, “is to rectify wrong, to protect rights and produce order, safety and well-being. The American hero also noted that, “no sophistry can confine justice to a form. It is a quality; its purity lies in its purpose, not in its detail.”
Therefore, one has the conviction that it is never too late to mend if the PDP is sincerely committed to rebuilding love and confidence through the unique opportunity provided by our period of grief. Who knows whether God is not using the two recent tragic losses to create the opportunity for national renewal and reconciliation. What is most intriguing is that the two national tragedies have overshadowed the political bitterness of the recent past. While the nation mourns, political enemies have sheathed their swords and one hopes that this spirit of reconciliation should be sustained beyond this period of national mourning. The PDP should see this moment as a God created opportunity to build the future of our country on the foundation of justice, unity, love and forgiveness.
BATHOLOMEY ADEGBENRO Ikeja, Lagos State
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