EARSHOT BY SAM NDA-ISAIAH

Iyabo Obasanjo and Cabinet Meetings

samndaisaiah@yahoo.com
                                    
Iyabo Obasanjo now attends Federal Executive Council meetings? Even the children of former heads of state, Mohammed Abacha and Mohammed Babangida whom Obasanjo had found reasons to incarcerate at one time or the other, did not go this far in their days. As far as Nigerians still remember, Iyabo is only a state commissioner in Ogun State, but she now welcomes and attends to visiting heads of state apart from occasionally gracing FEC meetings in Abuja.

When the president of Liberia came visiting, Iyabo was the chief hostess. Now that Atiku is unofficially not her father's vice president, who knows, she might have already begun acting as the VP.

                                                                                      
This article was first published about a year ago 'precisely October 30, 2005 'on this page. The piece remains quite material to the situation in the country today. It is germane for the state governors, considering that they have become the target of a president who has never been introduced to the phrase 'rule of law.'

The need for a convergence of all elite groups in this embattled nation, irrespective of interests, has become even more compelling. I am therefore repeating it today to refresh the nation.

It would be simplistic to say, as some Nigerians currently do, that Vice President Atiku Abubakar is now merely getting his just deserts from President Olusegun Obasanjo. A display of schadenfreude towards the vice president's ongoing battle of wits with his boss can be dangerous. Yes, there's some logic in the reasoning that the vice president should be allowed to stew in his own juice. After all, was he not a conspirator and beneficiary in all of Obasanjo's transgressions against the Nigerian people in the past? Didn't they rig the 2003 elections together? All that and even more may be true, but Nigeria has moved beyond that now and we are currently confronted 'and starkly too 'with a far worse disaster than the nonsense called 2003 elections and their aftermath.

Nigerians must not allow Obasanjo to completely destroy the vice president as he has done to several others before him in his long and somewhat successful career of pulling people down. The Nigerian president is one who does not know limits. When Nigerians like Barnabas Gemade hailed him in his bid to remove Solomon Lar as chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because they thought (probably correctly) that Lar was venal, Gemade didn't know his own Obasanjo treatment was waiting for him. And when his own turn came, Audu Ogbeh thought his integrity would see him through when Hurricane Obasanjo starts blowing. He didn't reckon his own would be worse; after all, Obasanjo did not point a gun at Gemade's temple to get him out of the way.

If Nigerians allow Obasanjo to waste Atiku, then several others will follow as a matter of course. Nobody should forget that the bottom-line in the Obasanjo/Atiku brawl is the 2007 presidential election. Both of them are interested in the presidency. Atiku is only the immediate enemy that needs to be sorted out quickly. After finishing with Atiku, he will move to IBB, since the former military president also has his eyes on the job 'on the PDP platform. And after completing the job within his own PDP, he could move out. He has been trying very hard to destroy General Muhammadu Buhari since he became president in 1999. He turned the accounts and finances of the defunct Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) inside out. He concocted stories of fraud, but there was no luck. He has not given up. He is desperate. Buhari remains a major obstacle to his sit-tight agenda. His ill-treatment of Buhari is only a part of a continuum.

In spite of the public posturing, he just cannot stand T.Y. Danjuma's myth. In 1999, T.Y. spent millions of his own money on Obasanjo's presidential campaign and when General Danjuma told the world during a meeting of Northern Christian Elders at the Arewa House, Kaduna, in 2003 that Obasanjo's government was under an occultic stranglehold, the president immediately attempted to checkmate him by tampering with his oil business through the lucrative Bloc 246 owned by his company, South Atlantic Petroleum Company.

Obasanjo is currently toying with a very dangerous idea that will have far-reaching effects on the nation. His reckless ambition to continue beyond 2007 will bring down the country and whatever there is left. If the ultra-elite and top echelons of the Nigerian society do not come together for the common good and ensure that Obasanjo is pushed out of power after May 29, 2007, no matter what he and his third-termers do with the country's constitution, they will lose whatever they think they are protecting by staying aloof. If they tread softly with Obasanjo because they fear for their profitable businesses, they will lose the businesses sooner than later. If it is for self-preservation, they will be surprised how effortlessly Obasanjo will ruin them. There can be no self-preservation by being sitting ducks in this brutal and inordinate game of power. If Bola Ige, Marshal Harry, Chuba Okadigbo and Aminosoari Dikibo could be sacrificed so easily in the past, then the realities of the immediate future can only be imagined.

History provides grim lessons. People who have similar deportment with the Nigerian president have shown us what they can do. Adolf Hitler of Germany started by undermining the Versailles Treaty and Germans celebrated him for that. This gave him an opportunity to rise to power under a democratic dispensation (like Obasanjo). People should never forget that Hitler was actually elected chancellor under a democracy. When he started dealing with the Gypsies, the Jews and the gentry kept quiet. 'What's their business?' many of them must have thought. When Hitler had completed the job, he moved on to the Jews whom he called traitors, blood suckers and all sorts of names. The Europeans and the rest of the world kept quiet because what was happening did not 'concern' them. After that, the Second Anti-Christ, according to the gospel by Nostradamus, got bolder. He annexed Austria-Hungary and under that guise plunged the world into a savage war that consumed six million Jews, about eight million Germans, and more than 20 million Russians who had earlier thought 'Hurricane Hitler' was not moving in their direction.

Why, therefore, should Nigerian leaders keep quiet in the face of this sure path to national catastrophe that the president is leading us 'death of democracy; suborning of institutions like INEC, the judiciary, and political parties (as we saw with the recently concluded PDP re-registration exercise to achieve selfish goals and the dissipation of the AD); the pauperisation of the citizenry through mindless fuel price increases; massive official corruption; insecurity of life and property and, to add insult to injury, a self-perpetuation agenda?

The West African sub-region should offer a sombre reflection. Out of the 11 West African countries, five are currently neck-deep in crisis, due in most cases to irresponsible and good-for-nothing leadership. Are we just sitting and waiting for our own turn? I even wonder why Obasanjo should be a problem to anyone. Where is his power base today, anyway? Nil! The political class is not with him. The fact that members of the political class do his bidding only confirms the depravity of the group. They despise him. The state governors are most certainly not with him. They are only in awe of his crude machinery for blackmailing them because he has proved that he can unleash the EFCC and the international criminal justice system on them and their families in his fake and selective war against corruption. The Yoruba are not with him. They know better now. They've just discovered that Obasanjo is more pro-Obasanjo than he can ever be pro-Yoruba. The PDP has transmuted from being a political party to a disco party, and disco parties cannot provide a base for anyone. So where is the power base that gives him the nerve to ride roughshod on just about anyone who crosses his path?

It is my considered opinion that men and women of goodwill, who still believe in Project Nigeria, must get back their country from the clutches of those who are destroying it. Those who are still confident enough to call themselves statesmen (a species fast becoming endangered in Nigeria today) must suspend their personal interests and unite under a temporary common interest to preserve the territorial integrity of Nigeria, its constitution and constituent parts. Men like General Buhari, General Babangida, General Danjuma, Atiku Abubakar, Chief Awoniyi, General Bali, Col. Dangiwa Umar, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Professor Wole Soyinka, Chief Olu Falae and Chief Gani Fawehinmi must come together to save Nigeria. It will also be important for them to link up with Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of Lagos State because whatever it is that made it impossible for Obasanjo to rig them out in 2003, will come in handy in the coming years. Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, could also be co-opted. So far, he appears to be fighting the sit-tight agenda and his boys are solidly behind him.

After that very important task has been achieved, then individuals may revert to their different interests because, by then, the people will be able to elect leaders of their choice. Anything short of that, Nigerians can as well start looking towards Liberia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire or Sudan for possible scenarios.

This plea should be considered a distress call!