bid to actualise his life-long ambition of being elected the president of
Nigeria.
The former president, one of the most influential of his living peers,
hinged his blistering position on the unsavoury corruption perception of
Mr Atiku while speaking with PREMIUM TIMES shortly after his arrival from
Kigali on Friday afternoon.
“How can I be on the same side with Atiku?” Mr Obasanjo asked. “To do what?”
“If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me. If I do not
know, yes. But once I know, Atiku can never enjoy my support,” he added.
Mr Obasanjo rejected all notions that his remarks could be deemed too
personal, coming as 2019 presidential campaign gathers steam with Mr
Abubakar amongst the front-runners.
The pronouncement comes barely two weeks after Mr Abubakar declared his
intention to run for president, touting his pro-business credentials and
lambasting President Muhammadu Buhari for his handling of the country’s
security situation.
Before then, the former vice president, who has unsuccessfully run for the
top office multiple times, spent the past few months criss-crossing the
country as part of a strategy aimed at broadening his appeal amongst
politicians and the electorate.
It also comes a little over a month after the two met at an event in Abuja
and shook each other’s hands before photographers, days after reports said
Mr Obasanjo was under pressure to back Mr Abubakar.
“I do not have personal grudges with anyone,” Mr Obasanjo said. “If you do
not do well for Nigeria, you do not do well for all of us.”
“It is not a question of working with or not working with an individual,”
he said. “If you are working for the good of Nigeria, I am working with
you. If you are not working for the good of Nigeria it does not matter who
you are I am not working with you.”
In making his position clear on Mr Abubakar ahead of the presidential
primaries in October, Mr Obasanjo has put to rest several months of
speculation about whether he would soften his borderline disposition to
his former vice president of eight years.
Settling old scores
The disclosure also exposed a fundamental fracture between Mr Obasanjo,
who seems hell-bent at ensuring that the alleged transgressions of the
past were not forgotten, and Mr Abubakar, who now appears in high spirit
for reconciliation.
The former vice president is locked in a fierce contest for the Peoples
Democratic Party’s presidential ticket with several political bigwigs on
the platform of the major opposition party.
The ever-broadening field already includes Rabiu Kwankwaso, Sule Lamido,
Ahmed Makarfi and Taminu Turaki. While some of these politicians are
already capable of challenging Mr Abubakar for the ticket, the recent
addition of Senate President Bukola Saraki and Governor Aminu Tambuwal,
both of whom are being rumoured as equally running for president, could
further complicate Mr Abubakar’s chances.
Mr Obasanjo did not specifically say whom he would back for the PDP
ticket. Already, the African Democratic Party, with which he now publicly
identifies, has entered into an alliance that would see it and over 30
other political parties present a joint presidential ticket with the PDP..
After the former president said he would not support President Muhammadu
Buhari for a second term, widespread conclusion had been that he would
back anyone presented as the major challenger, even if this turned out to
be Mr Abubakar.
“Most of you do not understand the way I operate,” Mr Obasanjo said. “And
I thought your own paper will understand better.”
“I know Atiku very well. And I have mentioned my position with Atiku. My
position has not changed,” he said.
On a personal note, he added, “If my children are getting married, he has
sent representatives. If his children are getting married, I have sent
representatives. That is social. That is not political.
But “on political ground, my position has not changed. If I support Atiku
for a political office other than the one I supported him in the past when
I did not know him,” maybe, but not “now that I know him, God will not
forgive me.”
A spokesperson for Mr Abubakar did not provide a response to Mr Obasanjo’s
statement when reached for comments Friday night, indicating that the
campaign was likely going to ignore the former president rather than
engage him openly.
Mr Obasanjo did not offer further remarks on his grouse with Mr Abubakar,
but he had repeatedly complained of his former right-hand man’s alleged
sharp practices.
Mr Obasanjo, 81, tapped Mr Abubakar as his running mate in 1999, and both
went on to rule Nigeria until 2007. The pair started on a good note for
Nigeria’s democracy, working together to dismantle the statist political
economy imposed by successive military administrations for more liberal
economic policies.
Mr Obasanjo trusted Mr Abubakar with key government initiatives, placing
him in charge of the National Council on Privatisation to midwife the sale
of federal assets which were not only dysfunctional at the time but fast
becoming white elephants draining national resources.
But years into the administration, Mr Obasanjo started accusing Mr
Abubakar of corruption, and at a point, set up a panel to probe his
deputy. aAnti-graft detectives allegedly came up with damning dossiers
that linked his lieutenant to a slew of financial misdeeds.
When United States authorities commenced investigation into the infamous
iGate scandal, Mr Obasanjo asked Nigerian anti-corruption agencies to
cooperate fully with their counterparts from America.
The F.B.I. accused Nigerian and American officials of running a bribery
racket in the award of a broadband project to expand Internet coverage in
Nigeria in the mid-2000s.
Specifically, Mr Abubakar was said to have received kickbacks for his role
in helping iGate, an American firm, secure the contract. Williams
Jefferson, an American politician who was a member of the U.S. Congress at
the time, was identified as a political associate of Mr Abubakar with whom
the Nigerian leader allegedly connived to inflate the contract and get
illicit payouts for seeing it through.
It was further reported that the infamous $100,000 cash which
investigators found in Mr Jefferson’s refrigerator was intended as parts
of the bribes to be paid out to Mr Abubakar. Mr Abubakar strongly denied
ties to the fraud.
Mr Jefferson was convicted on 11 out of 16 counts of criminal charges
filed against him in 2009 and sentenced to jail shortly thereafter.
But Mr Abubakar was never arraigned, much less convicted of any crime.
During Mr Jefferson’s trial, prosecutors failed to prove him guilty of
allegations of bribing foreign officials, which meant that there was no
evidence to link Mr Abubakar to the $100,000 bribe.
Still, the claims that Mr Abubakar was involved in the bribery remained
widespread. They were also largely linked to the mystery surrounding the
former vice president’s ability to travel to the U.S., which was perhaps
the biggest of his alleged political baggage until the position of Mr
Obasanjo.
Mr Abubakar strongly denied having any questions to answer in the U.S.,
and repeatedly said he applied for U.S. visa but was not granted. The U.S.
Embassy in Abuja often declines comments on visa matters involving Mr
Abubakar.
Mr Obasanjo, whose two terms were on the platform of the PDP, has since
become estranged from the party. In 2015, he abandoned former President
Goodluck Jonathan and threw his support for Mr Buhari, after years of
tension over which direction held better promise for the country’s future.
Although Mr Obasanjo said he regretted supporting Mr Buhari, and now said
he would work to ease him out of office in 2019. He also wrote a public
letter aimed at the president in January, urging him not to run for
reelection and or risk being disgraced out of office.
Yet, he felt that Mr Abubakar would not be appropriate as his stand-in
candidate next February.
“If Jonathan had performed, we would not have had Buhari,” Mr Obasanjo said.
Mounting vulnerabilities
Mr Abubakar defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress last
November. It would be his third time of leaving a political party in a
quest to actualise his presidential ambition which began in 1992.
He contested against Moshood Abiola for the Social Democratic Party’s
ticket in the 1993 elections, but said he stepped down for the late
business mogul after being pressured to do so.
After completing his two terms as vice-president under the PDP, Mr
Abubakar moved to then-newly-formed Action Congress after it became clear
that Mr Obasanjo will not tip him as his successor.
He won the ticket of the AC, now defunct, but lost to Umar Yar’Adua in the
2007 presidential polls. He later returned to the PDP, in time for his
disclosure of interest in the then-ruling party’s presidential ticket for
the 2011 elections. He was, however, beaten to this by Mr Jonathan, whose
status as acting-president following the death of Mr Yar’Adua in May 2010
placed him in a better position to use the party’s machinery to his
advantage.
In 2014, Mr Abubakar again abandoned the PDP and joined the APC, which was
a merger of at least four political parties. He vied for the party’s
ticket and lost to Mr Buhari at the December 2014 convention in Lagos.
Mr Abubakar made his way back to the PDP in November 2017, after it became
clear to him that Mr Buhari would seek re-election and he would be
difficult to stop him as an incumbent.
Mr Abubakar’s apparent inconsistencies, the raging controversy around his
U.S. visa status and now the unambiguous position of Mr Obasanjo could all
make for a devastating political cocktail, said political analyst Gbola
Oba.
Mr Oba said the short term consequence of Mr Obasanjo’s comments is
two-fold: “One, he is now vulnerable to easy shots from those contesting
the primaries with him. And secondly, there would be genuine fears amongst
the kingmakers within his party that Mr Obasanjo might work actively
against the PDP if Mr Atiku gets the ticket.”
Mr Oba, chief executive at Automedics in Lagos, said Mr Obasanjo’s
statement was not entirely surprising.
“Once you have offended him, you can never get rehabilitated to the point
that he will like you again,” Mr Oba said, implying that the former
president is vindictive. “Atiku is politically dead if Obasanjo is still
around.”
Mr Oba expressed strong doubts that Mr Obasanjo’s reasons for not
supporting Mr Abubakar was strictly based on alleged corrupt personality
traits.
“It was because of what Atiku put him through in 2003 when governors said
they did not want Obasanjo to return as president,” Mr Oba said. “Once
Atiku accepted the pleas of his boss at the time, many concluded that his
future in politics would be very tough.”
On Thursday, Nobel laurete, Wole Soyinka, said Mr Obasanjo “knelt down” Mr
Abubakar in 2003 to clinch the ticket of the PDP.
Speaking during the presentation of his new book in Lagos, Mr Soyinka was
quoted by The Nation as saying he warned Mr Abubakar that he would pay a
heavy price.
“Before the PDP primaries in January 2003, Obasanjo got everyone he knew
could reach me on the surface on the earth including Yemi Ogunbiyi and my
son, to get me to help him intercede when it was clear that (Abubakar)
Atiku was in a position to take his job. He knew Atiku had a lot of regard
for me and calls me ‘Uncle’” The Nation reported.
“The pressure was intense. Of course, I could not have knelt before Atiku
not to embark on a course of action that would lead to his boss’ disgrace.
But I can confirm to you that Obasanjo as president knelt down before
Atiku so that he would not lose his job.
“But I warned Atiku that for making Obasanjo to kneel down for you, be
sure you would have to pay heavily for that. I guess my warning came to
pass if you remember Atiku’s dramatic change of fortune once Obasanjo was
sworn in for a second term of office.”
Still, Mr Oba said Mr Abubakar may continue his campaign, but should be
ready to swim against the tide where Mr Obasanjo is concerned.
“He should not see Obasanjo as a complimentary force in any way, shape or
form,” the analyst said.
Mr Oba described Mr Atiku as “one of the very few characters who are
well-resourced to play the game on the field of play now,” because to be a
president of Nigeria now, “you need a minimum of between $1.5 billion and
$2 billion.”
Mr Abubakar is seen as a favourite for his vast wealth. A former Customs
officer, former vice president has investments in agriculture, education,
logistics and even fast-food businesses.
While he is expected to mouth these credentials throughout the campaign,
his major policy thrust is rooted in the urgent needs to restructure the
country. He has since taken the message of restructuring to Nigeria’s
inner corners, describing the current federal system as unitary and
virtually unworkable.
At a time of heavy sentiment and growing distrust against the federal
structure, which critics say concentrates power at the centre to the
detriment of a larger, diverse population, Mr Abubakar’s campaign said his
message was resonating greatly amongst Nigerians. But how far he would be
able to go would depend on which support he gets and at what price,
analysts said.
Although Mr Obasanjo currently holds no position in the PDP, his contacts
within the party are still widely deemed deep enough to influence
decisions. The former president has been courted extensively in recent
weeks, and the party’s leadership is still said to be keen on getting his
support in regaining its lost political fortunes.
Only three weeks ago, PDP Chairman Uche Secondus led other party stalwarts
to hold talks with Mr Obasanjo at his residence in Abeokuta.
But next year’s presidential ticket would be won largely by a candidate’s
ability to convince the delegates than the domineering influence of a
politician, said PDP’s spokesperson Kola Ologbondiyan.
“There will be a convention and there will be statutory candidates elected
from all the local government areas in the country,” Mr Ologbondiyan told
PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Friday night. “It is those who would
participate in the election that the delegates would vote for, and there
would be no internal or external influence.”
A backhanded compliment
Before wrapping up his exchanges with PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Obasanjo weighed
in on Mr Abubakar’s campaign. The former vice president appointed Gbenga
Daniel as campaign director at the end of May, becoming the first of PDP’s
presidential candidate to fully form a campaign structure.
But the former Ogun State governor also has a history with Mr Obasanjo.
“As for Gbenga Daniel, they are birds of the same feather” with Mr Atiku,
he said. Mr Daniel had an open confrontation with Mr Obasanjo over the
2011 governorship ticket in Ogun State. As Mr Daniel wound down his two
terms, Mr Obasanjo favoured Tunji Olurin, one of his long-term associates,
a proposal Mr Daniel rejected, according to those familiar with the feud.
Although Mr Obasanjo had his way, as Mr Olurin got the PDP’s ticket in the
election, he strongly believed that the PDP would have defeated Ibikunle
Amosun had Mr Daniel not supported Gboyeka Isiaka in Peoples Party of
Nigeria, using his power of incumbent to split potential PDP votes in the
three-way race.
Both Mr Daniel and his spokesperson declined PREMIUM TIMES’ requests for
comments between Friday night and Saturday morning.