By Kayode Ojo
Presidents, the world over, are known to rely on the services and
friendship of dependable allies, party members and even family members
outside the defined and regular cabinet appointees throughout their
tenure. It does not matter whether that president is Barrack Obama or
Vladimir Putin, or even any of the African presidents. As a matter of
fact, it was reported most recently in the media that an inner ring of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s circle of friends has started digging in and
influencing all the appointments made so far by him. Like it or not, that
is how the presidency works, especially in a democracy. And that was how
the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan operated until he was voted out of
power in 2015.
And discussing the Jonathan Presidency, one of the few people who stuck
close to him come rain and shine was Chief Tony Anenih. Of course, it is
trite to say that Anenih’s name is one that rings bell in Nigerian
politics. As a former minister of works in the Obasanjo presidency and,
later, Chairman of Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), Anenih had come to symbolise the tenacity of the PDP and its
unequal ability to rejig and bounce back from one crisis after another to
a stronger party until its final defeat last year.
It is all too clear for any casual observer to see that the defeat of
Jonathan could have come much earlier than the 2015 general elections but
for people like Anenih. The succession politics from the late President
Umaru Yar’ Adua to Jonathan, more than anything, defined the character of
the Jonathan presidency and later its defeat in 2015 and this would be in
spite of rather than because of people like Anenih. Make no mistakes about
it, Anenih was perhaps the most loyal and dependable ally of former
President Jonathan. This was probably why he was entrusted with
assignments that involved fund disbursements to political allies.
Besides, he never ceased to put his national political network and
reputation to stabilise the Jonathan presidency by winning more friends,
supporters and loyalists to Jonathan. Not only did he commit his time, he
spent his own money to carry out assignments for the President even when
those have been rightly mobilised for the action simply pocketed the
money.
It is perhaps too easy to assume that Anenih was ferociously supporting
Jonathan for his own selfish, political and any other pecuniary interests.
Yet the truth remains that Anenih felt a moral burden to help the
president succeed. First, as a statesman and party leader, it behoved
Anenih to help steady the hands of Jonathan with the right advice in the
interest of the Nigerian nation. Second as the politician with perhaps the
highest profile from the South-south region, and with a President from the
same region for the first time in the country’s history, Anenih could not
have done other than provide the strongest support for Jonathan. Even when
Jonathan lost the 2015 presidential election, Anenih volunteered to resign
from his BoT position to allow the former president to assume it and find
a strong platform to engage in national politics.
Although it is easier for the Nigerian politician lacking in principles to
always run to where it is cooking as many PDP leaders of yesterday are
doing now by defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC),
Anenih can look back with satisfaction and dignity at his contributions,
loyalty, support and service to the Nigerian state through the Jonathan
Presidency. As an elder statesman, he has nothing to be ashamed of because
there is no record that he abused his rare privilege as a confidant and
ally of the former president. When Jonathan needed fearless Nigerians to
speak the truth to his party members in 2010 that the zoning principle in
the PDP could not override the Constitution of the country, Anenih found
his voice and used his experience and vast political network to pass that
message. And when it became clear that the president was wrongly handling
the issue of the break-away “New –PDP” group, Anenih did not mince words
in telling Jonathan the truth that he needed to listen to the aggrieved
group and mend fences with them. Of course, this drew the anger of the
many sycophantic and tragic “advisers” making their living by singing to
the ears of the former president, the lyrics he wanted to hear. They did
not wait to pour out all manner of invectives on their party’s BoT
chairman. Strangely, many of those who goaded Jonathan on to the wrong
path then have now jumped out of the apparently “sinking” PDP ship into
the now “thriving” APC fold. More will still jump out.
In a country where the president is so powerful to make and unmake,
whether in terms of power politics, business and policies, anyone who has
the ears of the president easily lends himself/herself to both creeping
and outright envy. If Anenih thought that everybody was cool with his
chummy relationship with the former president, then the events of the past
few days must have cleared any doubt in his mind. His name has been
circulating in the media as one of the recipients of the alleged Dasuki
$2.1 billion arms budget scam. In fact, the EFCC said it confirmed
payment of N260 million from the Office of the former National Security
Adviser into his account. In spite of the fact that Anenih quickly wrote
to the EFCC clarifying how he was merely running errands for the former
president, he is being wrongfully clobbered daily in the media as part of
the people who stole from the Federal Government. In Anenih’s letter to
the EFCC, he detailed how the former president instructed him on trust to
deliver specified amount of money to some known politicians, including
Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, Chief Olu Falae and Senator Rashidi Ladoja- for
some political ends. And it is on record that none of the people Anenih
mentioned refuted his story. Indeed they have all acknowledged that they
received the said money from Anenih. Now the question is, if the NSA was
directed by President Jonathan to pay some money to Anenih for specified
presidential assignments that he had carried out, how on earth was Anenih
to know if the money was drawn from the arms budget meant for fighting
Boko Haram or from any other source for that matter?
The fact that Anenih willingly furnished the EFCC, upon its request, with
the truth clearly shows his honest intentions. I do not know anybody,
including those now trying Anenih in the media and attempting to drag his
name and reputation to the mud, who will be summoned by President Buhari
and given a sensitive assignment on trust, who will turn the President
down or ask the president how he would fund it or where the money to fund
the assignment would come from. Perhaps Tony Anenih has overstayed in
Nigerian politics and some agents have taken it upon themselves to retire
him willy-nilly. Maybe some people in his home-state are getting
apprehensive of his never-waning influence in Edo politics, especially as
a governorship election nears and are willing to throw everything to
discredit him. Maybe Anenih is simply paying the price of being too loyal
to a president who was too weak as to be defeated by small decisions of
governance he could not take!
•Mr Ojo, public affairs commentator, lives in Ketu Alapere, Lagos.