After Olusegun Obasanjo failed to secure a third term in office, he
boasted that 2007 and 2011 would be a “transition period”, as he would
run the affairs of the country from his Ota Farm, irrespective of the
fact that there would be a sitting president.
This has been
revealed in a recently published memoir of an Obasanjo confidant and
former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir
Ahmad el-Rufai, entitled, “The Accidental Public Servant”.
The
book recounts that though former president Obasanjo had singlehandedly
ensured that the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded him in 2007, he
nevertheless planned to administer the country from his Ota Farm. He
described the 2007-2011 period as a transition because all his
pointsmen, including the “economic team” would remain in office.
El-Rufai
recalls the former president telling him thus: “Well, nothing will
change, you know. I will be in Ota but we will be running things.
Everything will remain the same, you know. You will remain in the
government, the economic team will remain. Nothing will change. Only I
will move to Ota and Yar’Adua will be here but we will be running
things.”
When el-Rufai informed Obasanjo that he intended taking
at least two years’ break from government business, the former
president responded: “OK, well I just thought I should call you and
explain to you that the next four years is just a transition period. The
real change in government will happen in 2011. Not now.”
Obasanjo begged Atiku on his knees
El-Rufai
also said in his seminal book, which will be launched at 10:30am on
February 7, at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, that the former president
begged his deputy on “bended knees,” for his political survival.
In
the 627-page book, El-Rufai said on page 151, “The stakes were high
enough for Obasanjo to swallow his considerable pride and go to Atiku on
bended knees.
“Obasanjo had no problem going down on his knees to beg for what he thought was impossible to obtain any other way.”
This
rare and calculated display of meekness came around 2003 when Obasanjo
feared he could lose the People’s Democratic Party’s re-nomination bid,
if he did not make peace with Atiku.
The book recounts that
faced with the possibility of losing the PDP ticket to Atiku, who had
rallied all the governors on the platform of the party, the former
president paid his deputy an unscheduled visit in 2003.
“The political bricksmanship got so bad that Obasanjo had to visit Atiku’s residence unannounced to plead for Atiku’s support.
Upon
arriving at his deputy’s residence, he reportedly knelt before Atiku
and begged the vice-president to remain onside, thus guaranteeing the
support of the 17 PDP governors. In return, Obasanjo had to agree to
retain Atiku as his running mate (he was rumoured at the time to be
considering an alternative),” the book revealed.
In his book,
el-Rufai also queries the leadership recruitment processes, noting that
it is at the root of the nation’s problems, as it sacrifices merit. He
said that the choosing of the late Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as
president and vice-president by Obasanjo was “the final nail in the
coffin of any meritocracy or track record of governance in Nigeria.
“President
Obasanjo chose Umaru Yar’Adua whose ill-health, among other challenges,
was known already constituted a serious impediment to the possibility
of any inspired and energetic leadership. The view of many well-informed
Nigerians is that Yar’Adua and his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, emerged
for no other discernable reasons than being ‘weak’ governors sympathetic
to the ‘Third Term’ project and therefore handpicked as payback.
“The
subsequent electoral imposition of Goodluck Jonathan as president in
2011 via military occupation and rigging has been unhelpful in raising
leadership quality. Jonathan went into a presidential contest without a
campaign manifesto, boasting of no experience, merit and any track
record of previous performance other than wearing no shoes to school and
his ‘good luck’.”
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