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Why The Aspirants Are Shy By Garba Abdul-Majid Surely, Gen. Obasanjo’s third term ambition has thrown Nigeria at the crossroads, thereby shooting the country’s political temperature to one of its most frightening levels in our political history. Obviously, the President is facing the biggest credibility crisis of his political life. A man who in 1999 was widely perceived as a unifying force by Nigerians and enthusiastically elected to the nation’s highest public office, is sadly today treated with distrust and even detestation by fellow citizens. What could have been wrong that a President who had enjoyed enormous good will in 1999 is today more tolerated than loved by majority of Nigerians? More curious still is that millions of Nigerians keep wondering why such a commanding moral figure could decline so suddenly in popular estimation. Today, our President is negatively seen as divisive political figure whose actions appear to be putting our political future in some kind of minefield. Are we witnessing what Lord Acton described, as “great men are almost always bad men who debase their moral authority by their conduct?” But then, if we may ask, how long can societies continue to admire or tolerate such great men if their actions endanger the future of their nations? However hard we try, it is impossible to resist the temptation to ask troubling but relevant questions why public office has become such a matter of life and death that our President can afford to sacrifice his credibility for temporal political advantage (if any). The unfolding third term agenda has already thrown the President’s entire reputation and credibility on the line. The seeming determination of third term promoters to defy reason, public opinion and even the unambiguous constitutional provisions makes many Nigerians wonder what is driving our President to such level of desperation after many years of distinguished record of public life in the past. If the men urging him to continue in office beyond 2007 are motivated by private gains, what more favour does President Obasanjo want from God in terms of political power which the creator has not given him? If eight years are not enough for any leader to improve the quality of life for majority of citizens, how many more years can be enough to gratify a man’s greed for power? Power, like money and women, can never be enough. This is because its desire increases ever with the acquisition of it; such is the lure of power which, like a bitch goddess, consumes those that worship her. In fact, millions of Nigerians remained puzzled or even nonplussed why a man of his own mind such as Gen. Obasanjo should follow the path of over-ambitious African dictators he had once despised. The greatest disservice one can do to our President is to ever attempt to tar him with the same moral brush with his former tormentor, the late Gen. Sani Abacha. Though the comparison may hurt President Obasanjo, his actions today towards self-succession are making such comparison irresistible. If the third term advocates are driven by sheer opportunism, should our President let them lead him down the garden path at the expense of his credibility? Those cautioning the President against a third term gamble, including his own Yoruba kinsmen such as Prof. Wole Soyinka and radical Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, may in the end be his real friends and not those self-seeking band of self-succession orchestra managers. Surely, our President should have followed the wise counsel of Samuel Goldwyn who said, “I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.” Given his perceived record of integrity, is President Obasanjo not putting his credibility on the line by keeping truth telling friends at bay and bringing knavish characters around him? Even if the President was not originally interested in the term enterprise, he now seems to have surrendered to its temptation, thanks to the relentless campaign by opportunists who are hoping to reap some private gains from the unpopular political project. The barbaric and undemocratic manner the President and his third term chorus boys have hijacked the PDP has removed any shadow of doubt that anyone sincerely committed to leaving office in 2007 could not have engaged in these desperate efforts to become a political Methuselah in power! Despite sustained but unconvincing denials, the credibility of the President is virtually lost over the third term project. During a recent NTA live phone-in programme, our President dodged the most important and interesting question of the day. A caller from Sokoto had sought to hear a categorical statement from the President about the rumoured third term controversy, but instead of answering the question directly, Gen. Obasanjo cleverly and deliberately digressed, discussing his achievements in agriculture, the economy and NEPA (now PHCN). The President may have thought that he was smarter than the television audience hooked to the live phone-in programme. What he did not realise however, is that by fudging the question of third term ambition, he only ended up confirming public suspicion about the issue. In fact, to make matters more complicated for him, the President’s credibility was blown away on that NTA live show. The scathing attacks on third term ambitions by African leaders against the limits of their constitutional terms, which came from the American government and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr Herman Cohen, has driven the final nail into the coffin of whatever remained of Gen. Obasanjo’s credibility at home and abroad. Dismissing America’s criticism as interference in Nigeria’s internal affairs by Presidential spokesman, Chief Fani Kayode, is ridiculous. Did Fani Kayode forget his master’s interference in the domestic political affairs of Togo, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau and Sao Tome a few months back? Isn’t democracy facing mortal threats in Nigeria? Should the outside world keep quiet when Nigeria pretends to be a member of the family of democratic nations? Once a President has lost the trust of his fellow citizens, so also will the credibility of his policies suffer because of perceptible insincerity and double standards. Take the case of EFCC, for instance, which despite its good intentions, is losing public trust and respect. When Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State claimed that he donated one hundred million naira to the Southwest PDP chapter to facilitate the 2003 re-election bid of President Obasanjo from the ecological funds he looted, many Nigerians had laughed him out of court. But now the EFCC itself had reportedly admitted that those who shared the loot have silently repaid the money. Why should any beneficiary of illegal money be granted the criminal privilege of returning illegal donation without any risk of punishment? The Vanguard newspaper had even furiously written an editorial, denouncing the double standard and bad faith of the EFCC in respect of the southwest PDP illegal donation scandal. Yet the EFCC had silently allowed the issue to die naturally because the Southwest politicians who benefited from the Dariye loot are untouchable. Again, the report of the EFCC on the activities of the Nigerian Ports Authority NPA) is still shrouded in secrecy. If there are wrong doings and illegal financial dealings, the public deserves to know the outcome of investigation. The EFCC Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, had once boasted that there are no sacred cows anywhere including NPA. Why then, is the agency dilly-dallying over the NPA investigations? While Nigerians support the effort to stamp out corruption, we should not at the same time condone double standards in the enforcement of EFCC justice. Once a public policy is infected by insincerity and selective justice, the entire effort will be reduced to nonsense. We refuse to be hoodwinked by any notion that the NPA scandals are not as important as the ID cards scam. The indefensible release of a former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Joseph Makanjuola through a nolle prosequi can’t go away from public memory. In serious societies, the EFCC or ICPC Chairman would have resigned once either of them found himself under any pressure to shield certain criminals at the expense of others. With a third term agenda becoming a reality every passing day and the hypocritical enforcement of EFCC law, our President has bargained away his credibility on the altar of maddening ambition. Worse still, even as his credibility has declined dramatically, as a result of insincerity and deceit, our President is now no longer trusted as the glue to bind our unity ever stronger. His third term ambition is now fatally threatening our unity because he has succeeded in driving Nigerians psychologically at war. This desperation to rule at all cost has already increased the distrust between north and south. Such is the calamitous scenario which his third term ambition is producing. His strategy of divide and rule may turn out to be a Frankenstein monster which, if care is not taken will consume the third term promoters. According to Thomas Babington Macaulay, “timid and ambitious politicians think much more about the security of their seats than about the security of their country.” Would President Obasanjo and his third term chorus boys be sobered by these profound words of wisdom? Signed. GARBA ABDUL-MAJID Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna.
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