Of Obasanjo And His Controversial Endorsement -By Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

Of Obasanjo And His Controversial Endorsement -By Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

But those in Atiku’s camp knew and rightly too that OBJ endorsement is nothing but adverse publicity and therefore they are not losing sleep about the purported endorsement. They have come to see OBJ as a noise-maker and a rabble rouser, always craving for attention, whose conduct does not befit his status as an ex-head-of-state.

The news of the purported endorsement of Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the forthcoming election by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo alias OBJ hit the news waves the penultimate week eliciting reactions and comments from the camps of the other presidential contestants and concerned Nigerians. And many interpretations and attributions have been ascribed to the controversial endorsement. But the important questions remains: of what effect will the endorsement be for the endorsee Mr. Peter Obi given that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is not known to be a good mentor and is not known for supporting good candidates?

Analysts and concerned Nigerians have rightly dismissed the endorsement as of no effect given that OBJ has no political base and has no electoral value. OBJ is seen a political feather weight. In 1999, he had to rely on the votes from the South East and the Atiku’s controlled political structures in the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) and the North to win the presidential election and in 2003 he had to use executive powers as the incumbent president to rig himself back to power and thereafter tried vainly to perpetuate himself in power. In the Southwest region where he comes from he has never been in control of the political machinery and he has on many occasions lost election even in his ward and polling unit.

Some people opined that the endorsement of Obi in place of Atiku was a slight on His Excellency Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who was the former vice-president and deputy to OBJ. But those in Atiku’s camp knew and rightly too that OBJ endorsement is nothing but adverse publicity and therefore they are not losing sleep about the purported endorsement. They have come to see OBJ as a noise-maker and a rabble rouser, always craving for attention, whose conduct does not befit his status as an ex-head-of-state. Yes, it is insinuated in some quarters that the hasty endorsement of Obi by OBJ is an attempt to spite Atiku whom he swore would never be president for frustrating his infamous self-perpetuation agenda while in office. OBJ has been at the head of the smear campaign against his former deputy, spinning out unsubstantiated allegations against him. And some ignorant members of the public seems to be distracted by the spurious allegations.

For instance, one of the stories being bandied around is that Atiku bought up Nigerian assets through the government Privatization Program. But that is totally false. The law setting up the privatization program specified that the program should be under the office of the Vice-president but Obasanjo in his selfish dictatorial manner took over the privatization exercise because of his disagreement with Atiku and auctioned over 150 national assets to himself and his cronies. The 2009 Senate Committee report headed by Senator Ahmed Lawan indicted OBJ, El-Rufai and Irene Chigbue who were the DGs of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) for boycotting Atiku and taking files to OBJ for approvals.

Some believe that the controversial endorsement by Obasanjo is a face-saving attempt; an attempt to identify with the youth, the vulnerable and the many Nigerians that he has wronged in the past; an attempt to crave attention and relevance in the contemporary Nigeria where he seems subsumed in the mesh of political shenanigans that are currently out of his control. It is also said that it was an attempt to mend ways with his past being one of the architects of the problems bedeviling the nation. Obasanjo is a member of the “cult of generals” as one of my colleagues would put it, that has militarized Nigerian politics and held this country down for a long time.

Furthermore, Obasanjo’s obtrusive endorsement is seen by some analysts as an attempt to patronize the South East region that he had shortchanged while he was in office both as a military head-of-state and civilian president. Chief Obasanjo’s regime formulated revanchist policies that saw to the gross marginalization of the Igbo in Nigeria. The cruel and uncharitable way OBJ treated Dr. Alex Ekwueme, one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his supporters and Dr. Chuba Okadigbo is still fresh in the minds of the average Igbo man.

But, those in Tinubu’s camp believed that he did not endorse Tinubu because he was jealous and because he did not want to appear as an ethnic jingoist.

Be that as it may, the Obasanjo open endorsement of Obi will not in any way influence or affect the voting behavior of the electorates who are disenchanted with the likes of OBJ, with his foibles and hypocritical grandstanding.

Granted, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo by virtue of his status as a citizen of Nigeria is free to identify and associate with any political affiliation of his choice. But by openly endorsing a presidential candidate, he has obviously lost his position as an elder statesman who is supposed to be neutral in matters of this nature having declared his voluntarily retirement from partisan politics.

By

Hajia Hadiza Mohammed
An actress, social activist, politician

Categoría:
Política