PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA

God, Obasanjo, Jonathan and all that

ndajika@yahoo.com

The last time we met on these pages penultimate Wednesday it was over the propensity of former president, General Olusegun Obasanjo, for swearing on oath in the face of all evidence to the contrary. On at least three occasions during his presidency the man called on God as his witness to deny having a hand in crises everyone, except of course himself, knew he was the architect of.

The first famous occasion was in December 2004 when Obasanjo denied having a hand in the crisis that engulfed Anambra State over the gangster-like attempt by a cabal, which clearly enjoyed his support, at removing its then Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor, Chief Chris Ngige, from office. The party chairman, Chief Audu Ogbe, had accused the president of fiddling while Anambra burnt - and worse.

In his lengthy reply, the former president swore to God that he had no hand in what happened in the state even though everyone knew he could have pre-empted it but didn’t. “I stand before God and man and in clear conscience,” he said on that occasion, “to defend any measure that I have taken anywhere in Nigeria since I became president and I will continue to act without fear or favour or inducement. And it does not matter what is sponsored in the Nigerian media, in particular the print media.”

The most recent example of the man’s penchant for living in self-denial and at the same time calling on God to be his witness was the subject of this column two weeks ago. The reader would recall how the man tried to seize the golden opportunity he was offered by his chairmanship of the 7^th Trust Annual Dialogue on January 21 to deny any responsibility for the constitutional crisis that the ill-health of President Umaru Yar’adua had plunged the country into. He had been almost universally blamed for foisting Yar’adua on the nation as president back in 2007 when the man’s ill-health was one of the most poorly kept secrets in the country. Many saw this imposition as either an attempt by a vindictive Obasanjo to punish Nigerians for overwhelmingly rejecting his Third Term agenda or an attempt to secure the agenda through the back door – or both.

“What I need to say,” he said on January 21 in an obvious attempt at disowning his bedridden protégé, “is that nobody picked Yar’adua so that he will not perform. If I did that God will punish me.”

God may yet punish the man over his proclivity for all too often swearing in His name in vain. Thus far, however, it does look like the man was right when he once told Nigerians that his God has never disappointed him. This was way back in December 2003 during the Thanksgiving service for his second term. “In fact,” he said on that occasion, “I make bold (to say) that if you want your prayers answered pray in the name of God of Obasanjo. So far that your prayer will just be answered because God has never ever disappointed me.”

As if to remind us about how his God had never failed him, he seized the opportunity of his departure from office in2007 to tell us in blatant self-denial that, “If I sought the third term and I wanted it, I would have got it. I have not said it before. God would have given it to me. I did not want it. If I had wanted a third term, I would have prayed for it. I would have worked for it and God would have given it to me. I know this because there is nothing I wanted that God did not give me.”

Everyone, except of course the man himself, knew that that fine morning in 2006 when the Senate roundly rejected the amendment of the clause in our constitution that would have allowed him to carry on as president for the third time, the man’s God had for once disappointed him. 

Last week’s declaration of Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President by the National Assembly in the teeth of stiff but futile opposition from Yar’adua’s men suggests that Obasanjo may after-all be right that his God has never disappointed him; who, it may be asked, does not know that Jonathan’s rise from obscurity to the height of power in 10 short years is as much due to his good luck as it is due to Obasanjo, his wily benefactor?

The question now on the lips of almost every Nigerian is will the protégé be at the service of his benefactor or would he, like Yar’adua, turn out to be an ingrate in his benefactor’s eyes? God help Nigeria and Nigerians if the answer is the former.

The omens don’t look good. First, Jonathan’s declaration as acting president has no basis in law or in our Constitution. The Senate’s invocation of the doctrine of necessity, as far as I can see, is simply the civilian equivalent of a military coup. The constitutional basis for a Jonathan acting presidency is as clear as daylight. These are sections 144 or 145 of the Constitution. The second option is a voluntary “stepping aside” by the president as a result of his infirmity while the first allows both the Federal Executive Council and the Senate to force the obviously incapacitated president to step aside.

Neither option was used in declaring Jonathan acting president. Section 143 as the impeachment option touted my many leading Nigerians is really no option because the man may not be available to answer the charges against him whereas the doctrine of fair hearing demands that the man gets a hearing.

This apparently takes us back to the option of doctrine of necessity. But that is a matter for the courts and not the Senate to decide.

In short Jonathan’s presidency is of dubious legality, to put it mildly. This leaves him in hock to those, including his main benefactor, who manipulated him into his new job.

And then, as if to confirm fears that he’ll be obligated to those behind his rise, Thisday revealed last weekend that he held his first and longest one-on-one meeting so far with Obasanjo, and in the thick of the night to boot. It would be most interesting to know what was discussed during what the newspaper said was a three-hour meeting. Nigerians can only hope and pray that it was not about the protégé returning the long list of the benefactor’s favours.

God, as I said, may yet punish Obasanjo for swearing in His name in vain, but right now the loud laughter ringing in your ears is of the man’s happiness with recent events in the country which seem to suggest his God is yet to refuse each of his every whim and caprice.