Is President-Elect Umaru Musa Yar Adua Ready for the Troubled Nigeria?ByDan Azumi Kofarmatadanazumikofarmata@yahoo.comSunday, 27 May 2007
The question posed above is pertinent for a number of reasons. First, it would be observed that even before Mr President-elect, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua steps forward to be sworn as the new civilian President and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 2007, the outgoing President Obasanjo (and Minister-for-Nearly-Everything) has been very busy. He has been busy laying booby traps and banana feels all along the road to Aso-Rock Presidential Villa for the in-coming administration. For example, some of the many actions of President Obasanjo in the last two weeks speak volumes of treachery and Machiavellian machinations.
In a true and genuine democratic setting and practice, soon as the election results are released, an outgoing administration usually puts on hold all new appointments of key staff and personnel and would not engage in major financial and strategic commitments. These things are done in order to allow the incoming administration the opportunity to put in place its own governmental administrative structures and policy agenda. That is why an out-going administration is usually termed lame duck in the sense that it has little to do in terms of new policies, projects and programmes. It has come to its terminal end, period.
However, contrary to this standard norm of practice, in the past few weeks since the declaration of the election results, President Obasanjo has been behaving as if nothing is going to change in terms of change of baton from him to the declared President-elect Governor Umaru Musa Yar Adua. For example, there have been last minutes profligacy and squandering of public fund and resources. These are taking place especially through auctioning of oil blocks and selling of choice government-owned business enterprises to his cronies and family-linked relations and associates; awards of telecommunications licences and multi-billion naira contracts; appointment of a cabinet minister, Defence and Army chiefs and top government functionaries and dismissals of top government functionaries etc.
In addition, Obasanjo is at the same time busy staring up crises all over the place; heating up the polity and escalating tensions. For example, his public comments regarding the disputed elections results; poor handling of the lingering Niger Delta restiveness; his uncomplimentary, insulting and derogatory public remarks against his estranged Vice President Atiku Abubakar. His refusal to dialogue with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU); his recent refusal to fulfil his earlier promise of 15 percent pay rise for Nigerian workers; denouncing and abrogating the existing special salary structure for workers in some strategic public sectors such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) etc are further examples. All these actions portend clear and present danger especially for the in-coming administration. One begins to wonder the motives behind this brazen despotic behaviour of President Obasanjo.
Similarly, the direct and indirect interference and meddlesomeness of President Obasanjo in shaping the in-coming administration of President-elect Yar Adua in terms of who comes in and who becomes retained is another area of concern for the country and democracy watchers. For example, his attempt to influence the selection and appointment of presidential staffers for the in-coming president is nauseating to say the least.
It is on record that President Obasanjo vowed to continue to be very relevant in the scheme of running the affairs of the country even after he constitutionally ceases to be the President on May 29, 2007. As usual, Obasanjo would go to great lengths to realize his inordinate ambitions. He has already taken all the necessary steps to make this a reality. For example, he succeeded in forcing a change in the Constitution of ruling Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) to enable him become the life Patron of the party with unfettered executive powers to dabble in all aspects of national governance; policy development and implementation, party administration and guidance among others.
In other words, he would be ruling the country by proxy – ala Third Term in disguise. He has already said that he will be spending four of the five working days in Abuja to insure that Umaru Musa Yar Adua dutifully implements his failed economic reforms. In addition to occupying an executive office at the PDP headquarters at WADATA Plaza, he will be using one of the presidential lodges in Aso Rock as his residential quarters while at the helms of affairs of the ruling PDP.
Nevertheless, what are the broad implications of this intransigent behaviour of President Obasanjo on the incoming administration, the Nigerian polity and our shaky democratic experimentation?
The first, there will be major complications arising from bursting of Obasanjo’s pre-handover booby traps that he embedded in his actions during the days of his administration. This will be further compounded by his post-handover meddlesomeness and attempt to micro-manage the Presidency by remote command and control. Therefore, there will be strain relationship between him and his anointed successor, President Umaru Musa Yar Adua. The Godfather- syndrome and its meltdown will play itself out just as it happened under similar circumstances as exemplified by the type of relationships that existed between Obasanjo himself and his estranged Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Other examples of frosty type of relationships include those of Ngige versus Chris Uba, Adedibu versus Ladoja and those between almost all the State Governors and their deputies for most of the eight years of the fourth republic. Therefore, attempts by Obasanjo to micromanage Umaru Musa Yar Adua’s presidency will open the doors for complications in running the affairs of the country. No one has done that to Obasanjo in his eight years rein as President of the country. Why would he do that to Yar Adua?
The answer to this question is not difficult to find. However, to answer the question, one needs to examine the legacy Obasanjo is leaving behind and the reasons why he would like to be much around the corridors of power to safeguard the legacy. Nevertheless, Obasanjo’s eight years and legacy are currently receiving ample attention: debates, analyses and discussion by public affairs commentators and analysts are going on. From what is available so far, there is not much to say positively about Obasanjo’s eight years of presidency except that he came, he promised heaven on earth but delivered hell and anguish to the generality of Nigerians.
However, it seems the most important fears; terrible concerns of Obasanjo are the thoughts running in his mind and brain of public scrutiny of his sudden change in his net-worth among other improprieties he committed during his eight years in office. For example, his sudden rise and transformation from someone with only N20, 000 in his bank accounts when he came out of prison in 1998, to someone whose net-worth today, is in billions of naira and dollars in just eight years raises serious and fundamental ethical concerns! Thus, Obasanjo dreads these fears and concerns that is why he likes to hang around corridors of power until death. He is therefore just doing what his previous military predecessors are good at doing.
Just like his previous military predecessors (alive or dead), Obasanjo’s eight years presidency were marred in sleaze of unimaginable proportions. In fact, to say that he presided over the worst corrupt government in Nigeria’s history to date is not an overstatement. For example, widespread corruption and corrupt practices particularly linked to the Presidency are legendary. President Obasanjo single-handedly presided over the secretive gargantuan foreign exchange earning ministry of petroleum resources for seven and half years.
Under his inept leadership, the ministry suffered credibility problems. For example, transparency and accountability of oil and gas revenues; excess crude oil revenues, crude oil lifting (exports), oil blocks auctions; petroleum products imports; Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries were all compromised and riddled with bribery and corruption, nepotism and cronyism. Of particular concern is that Nigeria is losing over 25 percent of its daily crude oil production (equivalent to about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd)) largely because of outright theft, leakages from old pipelines and flow lines and insurgency by armed bandits and militant youths in the Niger Delta area. Of recent, refineries and oil blocks have been privatized and auctioned off to friends, relations and associates of the Presidency. Huge sums of oil revenues from the nation’s federation and excess crude oil accounts continued to disappear and remained unexplained by the ministry of petroleum resources, the NNPC and the presidency.
Several times the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) had accused the Presidency and the NNPC of not accounting for substantial amounts of crude oil revenues belonging to the federation account. Only a few days ago for example, the RMAFC Chairman, the indefatigable and courageous Engr. Hamman Tukur, filed a lawsuit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, against the federal government for illegal withdrawals from the federation account amounting to over $16.7b and N73.7b. Also in 2006, Engr. Tukur disclosed to the bewilderment of the nation, the operation of at least three illegal accounts, namely, the excess crude oil, excess royalty, and excess petroleum profit tax by the ministry of petroleum resources and the NNPC.
Engr. Tukur maintained that the existence of such accounts was illegal and unconstitutional, being in contravention of section 162, subsection 1, 2, 3 and 10 of the constitution. Dogged by a series of such allegations throughout its tenure, the outgoing administration has yet never provided a satisfactory explanation, leading to the latest suit by the commission against the federal government. As usual, instead of addressing these allegations squarely, President Obasanjo has written the Senate leadership of the National Assembly to remove Tukur from the Chairmanship of RMAFC.
Furthermore, worried by the persistent allegations against the Presidency and the NNPC regarding lack of transparency and accountability in the management of Nigeria’s oil revenues, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) hired a British private Audit firm, the Hart Group, to audit the books of the NNPC for a certain period of Obasanjo’s administration. The audit result uncovered among other failures, the sum of $250 million that could not be accounted by the NNPC. It is not surprising therefore, that information concerning the activities of the ministry of petroleum resources, its flagship parastatals the NNPC, and the numerous subsidiaries of the behemoth are classified as top secret. Probably this may be one of the reasons why President Obasanjo refused to accent to the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill sent to him by the National Assembly.
Other catalogued sleazes ran through the eight years of President Obasanjo’s presidency. These are for example: privatization of public enterprises; Oil blocks bidding rounds, handling of Nigeria’s payment of foreign debts; the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) debacle; Transcorp scandal, Presidential Library Affairs, unsolved political assassinations and the latest fallouts from the April 2007 general elections. These and other sleazes will continue to trail Obasanjo’s legacy. They are about abuse of privilege, trust and opportunity. They will also constitute the major problems areas for Umaru Musa Yar Adua’s presidency.
The central challenge, therefore, is for President-elect Umaru Musa Yar Adua to review and reform rather than to continue with the failed legacy bequeathed to him by President Obasanjo. More importantly, is Umaru Musa Yar Adua capable of surmounting these and other problems of national leadership and development in Nigeria? President Obasanjo will soon become PDP’s “Minister-for-Nearly-Everything”. Will he influence Yar Adua’s actions and / or inactions? What will be the role of the so-called “National Think Tank” that was hurriedly put together by some smart Nigerians a few days ago? The answers to these pertinent questions will go along away in understanding the nature and type of administration Yar Adua will run in the next four years bearing that the election tribunals sustains the result of the April 21 2007 presidential election.
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