President Olusegun
Obasanjo triggered off what could as well mean the end of the present
order last week. He sent an EFCC report on Vice President Atiku Abubakar
to the National Assembly, prodding it to consider impeaching and
removing the vice president from office. The move could not have come as
a surprise to adept watchers of the Nigerian government. Even my
six-year-old son has been aware of the well nurtured misandry between
the No. 1 and No. 2 citizens of the nation. For a long time, it is the
president that has been on the offensive, but now it appears that the
vice president would have no choice but to discard his pacifist and,
sometimes, “police action” approach to a full-scale war in which every
weapon shall be legitimate.
Both the president and the vice president are in a fight of their lives.
It should not surprise anyone that things have come to this sorry pass
for this government, because the Obasanjo presidency was conceived in
sin in 2003. For the president, he cannot afford to lose this one after
the disgrace of the defeat of the third term struggle in which the vice
president was a key adversary. And for the vice president, the prognosis
of this could be likened to the difference between life and death. It
should be clear to the vice president by now, no matter how naïve he had
been in the past, that his defeat at this stage of the war would lead
directly to his imprisonment, just as what is currently happening to
former Governor DSP Alams of Bayelsa State. It will be Obasanjo’s
pleasure to send him to jail. It will bolster the president’s oversized
ego and he will like to be remembered as a president that sent his
deputy to jail. Nigerians should know, by now, that the late General
Sani Abacha is Obasanjo’s role model. Whatever Abacha achieved in his
day in terms of governance and misgovernance, Obasanjo has tried to
outdo him. The only thing about which the president needs to achieve to
stand on the same pedestal with his mentor is the arrest and
imprisonment of his number two. The achievement of that is what the
president has just placed in process.
Not unexpectedly, the vice president’s men have started to fight back in
kind. They would have no problem compiling impeachable offences against
the president, but if they do they can always find help easily. The last
time I checked, some people had already compiled 265 impeachable
offences against the president. That was as at five months ago, before
the record-breaking bribes of N50 million to each legislator for the
approval of an illegal third term for Obasanjo. This does not include
the felony of selling the people’s heirloom to a company of which he
(the president) is a promoter, nurturer and one of the largest
shareholders. Obasanjo has compiled impeachable offences against Atiku,
and the VP might in fact be guilty and should be impeached, but for
every offence of Atiku, Obasanjo is guilty five times over. So this
fight between the president and his deputy is not about corruption, and
Nigerians are certainly not deceived.
But the world would be treated to some fun in the coming weeks. The
greatest beneficiaries of this drama would be members of the National
Assembly. They will be bribed by both sides. In Nigeria, nobody
impeaches anyone without being bribed to do so. And a lot of NASS
members who lost the N50 million Obasanjo bribes during the third term
bonanza because all eyes were on them will not miss this one. They will
collect the bribes with both hands and legs. They even need the money
now that the next election and party primaries are staring at them. Many
are going to collect from both sides. And even though the Obasanjo side
will try to outdo the VP side naira for naira and dollar for dollar, the
former will attempt to arrest some legislators loyal to Atiku and accuse
them of bribe-taking and hand them over to the EFCC. But, again, the
EFCC may attempt to set traps for both groups, especially now that it is
receiving flaks for having done nothing about the Obasanjo third term
bribe.
And I don’t expect the VP’s group to continue in its simplistic
appreciation of the Obasanjo persona. Obasanjo will not follow the rules
of engagement. This is the same man who got Audu Ogbeh to resign as his
party’s chairman by putting a gun to his temple. He is also the one who
is still pretending that the Oyo State governor, Rasheed Ladoja, has
been impeached. For all intents and purposes, Ladoja is still the
governor of Oyo State and many of us will continue to address him as
such.
So I expect the VP to know that Obasanjo can wake up tomorrow and get
soldiers to arrest him even with his immunity still in place. For
starters, therefore, I expect the VP to take extra measures for his
security. And if anyone points a gun at him asking him to resign, he
must never. Under no circumstance should he resign. It is better that he
is shot by the president’s hit men than for him to resign voluntarily.
Whatever happens to the VP from today will be interpreted in the context
of this ongoing fight. In fact, no mosquito should bite the VP as from
today, or else the resulting malaria would be deemed to have been caused
by Obasanjo. Obasanjo will also find help from a few Northern governors
who will attempt to outdo one another in providing assistance towards
the VP’s impeachment. I hear the competition for Atiku’s replacement has
already begun among some Northern governors.
My advice, free of charge, to the National Assembly members is that they
should acquiesce to the requests of both the Obasanjo and Atiku groups
to investigate both sides. They should do a thorough job and, if both
Obasanjo and Atiku are guilty, both should be impeached and removed from
office.
So while the international diplomatic world is contributing such terms
as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to the world vocabulary, Nigeria
would be contributing its own: Mutually Assured Impeachment (MAI). And
maybe Senator Ken Nnamani and Hon. Aminu Masari should start seeing
themselves as president and vice president respectively, in order to
fast-forward the process. This opening is probably what Nigeria has been
waiting for to earn a fighting chance of getting democratic elections in
2007!