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P308082004

Vanguard (Lagos)
OPINION
August 7, 2004
Posted to the web August 9, 2004

By Sina Babasola Ibadan

The age-long fear that the military would maintain its stranglehold on
political power for a very long time, after disengaging from governance,
appears to be gaining a large measure of credibility after all, judging by the
scenario that is glaringly playing out on the nation's political turf. About
two years to another presidential election, political calculations have
increasingly weighed in favour of the military class, which has, in the recent
past, been a constant factor in the succession arrangements that have been
witnessed at the level of presidential politics in the country: this is
because, from the Northern part of the country, where the next President is
expected to emerge, the field is being taken over by retired military Generals,
without any serious opposition from the civilian class.
The inclination is to conclude that, whichever way it goes, a retired General
or a stooge of the cabal of retired Generals, will be foisted on the polity.
Samplers: former President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, former Head of
State, General Muhammadu Buhari and former Lagos State Military Administrator,
General Buba Marwa have emerged forcefully as contenders for the coveted Aso
Rock Presidential Villa in 2007.
Even Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is also known to have a very strong
interest in the plum position, is not a civilian in the real sense, given his
para-military background, for he retired as Deputy Comptroller-General of
Customs. Though, that paramilitary background, paradoxically, has denied him
the garb of a thoroughbred civilian, yet, it is not enough to initiate him into
the cult of the power brokers/usurpers.
Military class
Like the proverbial bat (which is neither rat nor bird), the Vice President is
neither a military man (retired General, to be more specific) nor is he a
civilian in the genre of former President Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, Alhaji
Adamu Ciroma, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, Dr. Olusola Saraki
and Alhaji Maitama Sule, Chief Olu Falae among others.
Which is why members of the "cultic" military class and the clan of their
sympathisers /apologists are treating him (Atiku Abubakar) as an outsider.
Prognoses favour the military class: Political calculations and prognoses on
the presidency, the balance of power equation and the forces that would swing
the power pendulum in 2007 have always hinged on the machinations of the
military class, whose godfathers are the incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo
and General Babangida. And from this class, a cabal has, over the years,
emerged to usurp the people"s rights to govern themselves with the
instrumentality of the people's constitution.
Members of the class have also usurped the people's wherewithal-the
commonwealth of all- in a grotesque tradition that has left the people and
national infrastructure in a terrible shape. By that singular act of profound
political adventurism, they have acquired (is it purchased?) the monopoly of
financial capacity to bestride the nation"s political space like a colossus,
influencing, as it were, always covertly, the ceding of power to one of its
own.
The arrangements have always been quite easily facilitated: whoever controls
the mechanics of control is in charge; and, the mechanics of control are the
awesome federal might and its attendant structures/institutions of coercion
such as the military, the police and other security agencies as well as the
electoral body. Whoever enjoys the support of the power brokers as typified and
manifested in these structures becomes the unstoppable political hurricane.
Consider the emergence of Alhaji Shagari as President in 1979. He was packaged
by the caliphate North, which had extended its frontiers of governmental
control into the military, for the plum job. The packaging has always been done
on the basis of an understanding that the anointed one must pay some kind of
homage to the powers-that-be.
Right from the nomination of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), where
he contested for the ticket with stronger and richer aspirants, to the general
elections of 1979 supervised by the Obasanjo-led Federal Military Government,
in which he ran against and defeated the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the
defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe of the
defunct National Peoples Party (NPP), the late Aminu Kano of the Peoples
Redemption Party (PRP) and the late Waziri Ibrahim of the defunct Great Nigeria
Peoples Party (GNPP), it was an easy passage for Shagari.
Obasanjo, who took over following the assassination of General Murtala Ramat
Muhammed in a military coup on February 13, 1976, was not prepared for the job.
He barely managed to hold on with the support (protection) of his powerful
Second in Command, the late General Shehu Musa Yar"Adua.
The three-year period spent in office during which a transition was hurriedly
organized and power transferred back to the North was therefore understandable
within the context of Northern hold unto power. It was not an accident,
therefore, that power was handed over to Shagari by Obasanjo; it was a
deliberate design perfected by the Northern elements in the military with the
active collaboration and prompting of the Caliphate to return political power
to where it had always been intended to be pigeon-holed.
The "coup" that brought in Shagari, although the whole exercise was made to
look like a democratic process, was akin to the one that brought in General
Muhammadu Buhari in 1983 following the overthrow of the Shagari administration.
Bits and pieces of the reports of the coup have indicated that Buhari did not
make any input into the coup plot and that Buhari was only brought in because
the officers who planned the coup needed his credibility and acceptability
within the military to gain stability.
Besides, his choice would renovate the ego of the Hausa/Fulani hegemony, being
a Fulani man from Katsina, a bastion of the caliphate. But when Buhari was
overthrown in December 1984, apparently without any stiff resistance, it was
deliberate: to yield power back to those who installed him as Head of State in
the first instance.
Those close to him said that he (Buhari) did not see any need to round up the
plotters despite an early security report, maintaining, as claimed, that he did
not look for the job in the first instance and that if those said to be moving
against him were actually determined to have him out, then he was not ready to
take any action that would cause an implosion in the military. So, entered
Babangida.
Why godfathers do not trifle with power: The Babangida eight-year transition
programme, tortuous and expensive as it was, did not produce a "Khalifa" (the
anointed successor) from among the members of the political class that jostled
for the presidential seat. Not even the politically correct Yar"Adua (given his
military background) could be trusted with power, let alone the "bloody"
civilians like Ciroma, Bamanga Tukur, Umaru Shinkafi, Olu Falae, Lateef Jakande
and so on.
The godfathers do not trifle with power; they do not give it away for the sake
of it; power must be jealously guided and guarded for self-preservation and
protection. And, it is to the person with whom it could be trusted that power
is given; not the one that will turn round to bare his fangs against his
benefactors.
The cabal"s fear is daily being confirmed by the political drama in Anambra,
Oyo and Enugu, where the political myth of Chris Uba, Lamidi Adedibu and Jim
Nwobodo have suffered a collateral damage in the hands of their godsons:
Governors Chris Ngige, Rasheed Ladoja and Chimaroke Nnamani respectively. And
when it became inevitable to ease out, Babangida had stepped aside on August
27, 1993, packaging, as it were, Chief Ernest Shonekan as Head of the then
Interim National Government (ING), a contraption designed as a stop-gap
arrangement of sort. The hidden agendum crystallized when the late General Sani
Abacha who was left behind in the ING as Defence Minister kicked out Shonekan
and took over the reins of government. Abacha, who was responsible to no one
and feared no one, was to pursue a heavily tele-guided and manipulated
transition programme that was designed to end in his self-transmutation into a
civilian President.
The scenario then while in office was that of caution on the part of all. Those
who stuck out their neck in criticism of his regime were hounded either into
jail or exile. Yar'Adua paid for it with his life. Ask Obasanjo. Ask General
Oladipupo Diya. Ask General Abdulkarim Adisa. Ask General Tajudeen Olanrewaju.
Ask other beneficiaries of Abacha's iron-fist rulership.
When Abacha died on June 8, 1998 in a rather mysterious circumstance, General
Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar, who was reportedly due for retirement on that same
day, emerged as the Head of State. He was also packaged by the powers-that-be
otherwise an alternative arrangement that would have left him in the cold would
have been perfected. It is believed that Babangida was one of those who made it
possible.
The Abubakar regime ran an eleven-month transition programme that produced
President Obasanjo. Babangida and Abubakar arranged the emergence of Obasanjo
in 1999. Fresh from prisons (courtesy of Abubakar and also granted state pardon
courtesy of the same man), without network or funds to prosecute electoral war
of the presidential magnitude, Obasanjo over-ran Dr. Alex Ekwueme and five
others to pick the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the Jos
presidential primaries.
He went into the election to defeat the alliance ticket of Chief Falae/Alhaji
Shinkafi on the Alliance for Democracy (AD)/All Peoples Party (APP) now All
Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) platform. The ease with which he did that was made
possible by the intervention/involvement of the powers-that-be, who insisted
that it must be Obasanjo. And, Obasanjo it was. In 2003, Obasanjo, had
syndicated with Babangida, to secure a second term, which expires in 2007.
How esprit de corps works: The former military President had said that he would
not run for the 2003 election if Obasanjo wanted to run and he kept to his
word. The esprit de corps and the respect demonstrated by Babangida can only be
reciprocated, given their antecedents and pedigree. For instance, why is
Obasanjo playing pranks with the celebrated Okigbo report, even though those
who have an insight into it have said that there is nothing in the report to
indict anybody as the projects on which the oil windfall were spent are there
for people to see? Obasanjo has always been impatient with questions that
border on possible probe of the Babangida years.
These were just significant digressions. But on the platform of the ANPP and
All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), General Buhari and Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu
(a retired Colonel) ran against Obasanjo at the 2003 presidential election.
Obasanjo, Babangida and co. will determine who becomes President in 2007.
Sunday Vanguard gathered that there is indeed a group in the military, which
decides who becomes the President; it was learnt that whoever does not belong
to the group or enjoys its backing gets nowhere in the power game. Support by
Nigerians at the polls (expressed in terms of votes) does not count; what
counts is the backing of the federal might and the deployment of its
institutions to achieve victory for the candidate so endorsed, and these are
secured in the hands of the man they have already put as President (Obasanjo).
Which is why, the 2007 presidential race is considered won and lost from the
outset. Reports available to Sunday Vanguard indicate that the forces that will
determine the next President have plotted more than three scenarios to guard
against being caught unawares in case of any eventuality.
To that extent, it was learnt that no person who does not feature in the
scenarios could emerge as President by default. One of the political players
hinted that "even if Babangida and Marwa ease out of the contest, there are yet
other scenarios in place, if you like, call it fall-back positions that will
bolster the hold of the military cabal on presidential power". This position
has profoundly underscored the form, shape and texture of the "coup" being
hatched and perfected by the military cabal against the political class. Many
members of the political class are lending themselves to the actualization of
the plot to perpetuate military hegemony in political governance.
Can Atiku Abubakar survive the onslaught? However, the only person who has a
vast and formidable political structure and network of loyalists/supporters as
well as financial war chest that can square up with the entrenched interest of
the military cabal is Vice President Abubakar.
Those in his support have decided to accommodate his paramilitary pedigree.
But, plots, as learnt, are being perfected by the opposition elements in and
outside the PDP to completely undermine his leadership and influence in the
scheme of things with a view to provoking him to take actions that will quicken
the disintegration of the party. Some powerful officials of the Presidency and
the Party, under the control of the military cabal, are bolstering the plots,
which Sunday Vanguard gathered, would climax before the forthcoming National
Convention of the party in December, next year.
They have kept a tab on both the private and official activities of the Vice
President and intensified moves to run rings round him with the objective of
rendering him politically ineffectual in the PDP on whose structure he is
believed to have a significant measure of control. The calculations, as learnt,
are that the Vice President might become angry by the "deliberate acts of
provocation" and decide to allow the entire party structure to collapse without
knowing, that by so doing, he is actually acting in tandem with the original
plot/expectation of some restive elements within and without the party to
deprive him of the PDP platform.
Although, alternative platforms exist, it is calculated that if he falls into
the trap of destroying the PDP and jumping ship, he may be confronted with a
situation where he may have to build afresh, party structures, which may be
impossible to successfully achieve within the existing time frame.
Feelers in Abuja indicated that the strategy being adopted is two-pronged: the
first one is to use blackmail to intimidate him out of the race while the
second strategy is to provoke him by deliberately setting out to wrest from his
hands the significant control he has since 1999 exercised on the PDP structure.
Although the nature of the planned blackmail could not be ascertained yet,
there were hints that documents alleging his secret involvement in certain
transactions supervised by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) would go into
circulation about the middle of next year to seek to dent his reputation and
make him lose the moral high ground to run for the presidency.
Besides, for not having a military background, his chances of being considered
for the topmost job, which is being seen for now as the preserve of the
military cabal, have further dimmed. His emergence as Vice Presidential
candidate to President Obasanjo in 1999 was attributed to the endorsement of
the cabal (as typified by Obasanjo in that instant case) that has held the
leadership of the nation in its grip for about three decades. Feelers pointed
to a possible collaboration between the cabal and its accomplices in the
political class to frustrate the emergence of the Vice President or any other
civilian as successor to President Obasanjo.
Sunday Vanguard also learnt that the assault on the position of
the Vice President is total. The implications of this global conspiracy, as
learnt, are not only to weaken him, but also to intimidate other "civilian
politicians" from plunging into the presidential arena. For instance, the on-
going allocation of chairmanship and membership of boards of parastatal
corporations and agencies is being done, at the behest of some top presidency
officials, to whittle down the patronage and influence of the Vice President.
Opposition forces to the Vice President have, as gathered, latched on the
exercise to empower their own loyalists while ensuring that his identified
loyalists are denied patronage.
The decision to clip his wings, as learnt, informed the move by some presidency
officials and the Party leadership to change the method adopted in 1999 that
saw the Vice President, part of whose schedule was the supervision of the
party, administer the process of appointment of board chairmen and members. He
was said to have used the exercise to empower his loyalists and expand his
network of loyalists and supporters nationwide. The recent dissolution of the
boards has therefore provided an opportunity by forces that are not comfortable
with his growing influence in the party to square up to him.
Retreat or surrender? But feelers also indicated last week that the Vice
President has been taking the developments in his strides. Sunday Vanguard
gathered that he has continued to pledge his loyalty to President Obasanjo just
as he is said to be working to keep the party together, just in case that could
bring about a change of mind and earn him the sympathy of Obasanjo and the
other forces that are holding court on the succession issue. Last week, he
ordered the removal of posters on his speculated 2007 presidential campaign
wherever they were pasted. His Special Adviser (Media and Publicity), Adinoyi
Onukaba Ojo, announced that the Vice President had ordered security men to
remove all posters bearing his photographs and soliciting for public support
towards the presidential election 2007.
According to a statement issued by the VP's publicist: "This is not the first
time in which the Vice President has ordered the removal of such posters".
According to him "the Vice President is at present occupied with the task of
assisting President Olusegun Obasanjo in bringing the dividends of democracy to
the people of Nigeria and no amount of mischief will distract the Vice
President from achieving the goal of assisting the President to improve the lot
of Nigerians.
Political watchers
When the Vice President eventually decides to run, he would do so, based on the
excellent and enviable records of this administration". But political watchers
see through this as a strategy to further restrict the expansion of the
political frontiers and political mobilization/sensitisation of Nigerians on
the aspiration of the VP. Ojo is an Obasanjo loyalist who was deployed to the
VP's office by the President when the VP's aides were sacked for allegedly
moving forcefully into the media to position their boss for the 2007
presidential contest, very early in the life of the administration's seconds
term, a development that was seen as capable of undermining the administration.
What perhaps the VP is enjoying at the moment is the strong support of the
National Chairman of the party, Chief Audu Ogbeh, whose fate at the party's
National Convention in December 2005 is hanging in the balance. If Ogbeh does
not survive the leadership change, the VP would have to move in to ensure that
he is replaced with a loyalist of his, otherwise, he would have been out of the
2007 presidential contest from 2005. The support (loyalty) by Ogbeh's
leadership of the party, as learnt, stemmed from the funding of the party by
him (Vice President) when the new National Executive Committee (NEC) took over
and there was no money to operate. Sources said that for nine consecutive
months, the National Secretariat was funded to the tune of N50 million per
month for nine months.
The extent to which the duo could collaborate to hold the party together before
and after next year's National Convention cannot yet be ascertained as forces
engage themselves in a supremacy battle for the presidency using or not the
party's platform. Again, how many loyalists of the Vice President would still
be standing in the NWC and the Executive Committees at other levels after the
2005 congresses and National Convention? The outcome will show whether the
military cabal is surefooted or not in its plot. This is indeed a battle
between the military and the political clans, a coup in the making against the
political class. Can it be foiled? And, if it is foiled, who and where is the
civilian upon whose shoulder the mantle of presidential leadership can rest?
Time, as usual, will answer these posers.

   

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