By Kayode Ojo<\/p>\n
Presidents, the world over, are known to rely on the services and
\nfriendship of dependable allies, party members and even family members
\noutside the defined and regular cabinet appointees throughout their
\ntenure.\u00a0 It does not matter whether that president is Barrack Obama or
\nVladimir Putin, or even any of the African presidents.\u00a0 As a matter of
\nfact, it was reported most recently in the media that an inner ring of
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s circle of friends has started digging in and
\ninfluencing all the appointments made so far by him. Like it or not, that
\nis how the presidency works, especially in a democracy. And that was how
\nthe presidency of Goodluck Jonathan operated until he was voted out of
\npower in 2015.<\/p>\n
And discussing the Jonathan Presidency, one of the few people who stuck
\nclose to him come rain and shine was Chief Tony Anenih. Of course, it is
\ntrite to say that Anenih\u2019s name is one that rings bell in Nigerian
\npolitics. As a former minister of works in the Obasanjo presidency and,
\nlater, Chairman of Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party
\n(PDP), Anenih had come to symbolise the tenacity of the PDP and its
\nunequal ability to rejig and bounce back from one crisis after another to
\na stronger party until its final defeat last year.<\/p>\n
It is all too clear for any casual observer to see that the defeat of
\nJonathan could have come much earlier than the 2015 general elections but
\nfor people like Anenih.\u00a0 The succession politics from the late President
\nUmaru Yar\u2019 Adua to Jonathan, more than anything, defined the character of
\nthe Jonathan presidency and later its defeat in 2015 and this would be in
\nspite of rather than because of people like Anenih. Make no mistakes about
\nit, Anenih was perhaps the most loyal and dependable ally of former
\nPresident Jonathan. This was probably why he was entrusted with
\nassignments that involved fund disbursements to political allies.
\nBesides, he never ceased to put his national political network and
\nreputation to stabilise the Jonathan presidency by winning more friends,
\nsupporters and loyalists to Jonathan. Not only did he commit his time, he
\nspent his own money to carry out assignments for the President even when
\nthose have been rightly mobilised for the action simply pocketed the
\nmoney.<\/p>\n
It is perhaps too easy to assume that Anenih was ferociously supporting
\nJonathan for his own selfish, political and any other pecuniary interests.
\nYet the truth remains that Anenih felt a moral burden to help the
\npresident succeed. First, as a statesman and party leader, it behoved
\nAnenih to help steady the hands of Jonathan with the right advice in the
\ninterest of the Nigerian nation. Second as the politician with perhaps the
\nhighest profile from the South-south region, and with a President from the
\nsame region for the first time in the country\u2019s history, Anenih could not
\nhave done other than provide the strongest support for Jonathan. Even when
\nJonathan lost the 2015 presidential election, Anenih volunteered to resign
\nfrom his BoT position to allow the former president to assume it and find
\na strong platform to engage in national politics.<\/p>\n
Although it is easier for the Nigerian politician lacking in principles to
\nalways run to where it is cooking as many PDP leaders of yesterday are
\ndoing now by defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC),
\nAnenih can look back with satisfaction and dignity at his contributions,
\nloyalty, support and service to the Nigerian state through the Jonathan
\nPresidency. As an elder statesman, he has nothing to be ashamed of because
\nthere is no record that he abused his rare privilege as a confidant and
\nally of the former president. When Jonathan needed fearless Nigerians to
\nspeak the truth to his party members in 2010 that the zoning principle in
\nthe PDP could not override the Constitution of the country, Anenih found
\nhis voice and used his experience and vast political network to pass that
\nmessage. And when it became clear that the president was wrongly handling
\nthe issue of the break-away \u201cNew \u2013PDP\u201d group, Anenih did not mince words
\nin telling Jonathan the truth that he needed to listen to the aggrieved
\ngroup and mend fences with them.\u00a0 Of course, this drew the anger of the
\nmany sycophantic and tragic \u201cadvisers\u201d making their living by singing to
\nthe ears of the former president, the lyrics he wanted to hear.\u00a0 They did
\nnot wait to pour out all manner of invectives on their party\u2019s BoT
\nchairman. Strangely, many of those who goaded Jonathan on to the wrong
\npath then have now jumped out of the apparently \u201csinking\u201d PDP ship into
\nthe now \u201cthriving\u201d APC fold.\u00a0 More will still jump out.<\/p>\n
In a country where the president is so powerful to make and unmake,
\nwhether in terms of power politics, business and policies, anyone who has
\nthe ears of the president easily lends himself\/herself to both creeping
\nand outright envy. If Anenih thought that everybody was cool with his
\nchummy relationship with the former president, then the events of the past
\nfew days must have cleared any doubt in his mind.\u00a0 His name has been
\ncirculating in the media as one of the recipients of the alleged Dasuki
\n$2.1 billion arms budget scam.\u00a0 In fact, the EFCC said it confirmed
\npayment of N260 million from the Office of the former National Security
\nAdviser into his account.\u00a0 In spite of the fact that Anenih quickly wrote
\nto the EFCC clarifying how he was merely running errands for the former
\npresident, he is being wrongfully clobbered daily in the media as part of
\nthe people who stole from the Federal Government. In Anenih\u2019s letter to
\nthe EFCC, he detailed how the former president instructed him on trust to
\ndeliver specified amount of money to some known politicians, including
\nAlhaji Tanko Yakassai, Chief Olu Falae and Senator Rashidi Ladoja- for
\nsome political ends.\u00a0 And it is on record that none of the people Anenih
\nmentioned refuted his story.\u00a0 Indeed they have all acknowledged that they
\nreceived the said money from Anenih.\u00a0 Now the question is, if the NSA was
\ndirected by President Jonathan to pay some money to Anenih for specified
\npresidential assignments that he had carried out, how on earth was Anenih
\nto know if the money was drawn from the arms budget meant for fighting
\nBoko Haram or from any other source for that matter?<\/p>\n
The fact that Anenih willingly furnished the EFCC, upon its request, with
\nthe truth clearly shows his honest intentions. I do not know anybody,
\nincluding those now trying Anenih in the media and attempting to drag his
\nname and reputation to the mud, who will be summoned by President Buhari
\nand given a sensitive assignment on trust, who will turn the President
\ndown or ask the president how he would fund it or where the money to fund
\nthe assignment would come from. Perhaps Tony Anenih has overstayed in
\nNigerian politics and some agents have taken it upon themselves to retire
\nhim willy-nilly. Maybe some people in his home-state are getting
\napprehensive of his never-waning influence in Edo politics, especially as
\na governorship election nears and are willing to throw everything to
\ndiscredit him. Maybe Anenih is simply paying the price of being too loyal
\nto a president who was too weak as to be defeated by small decisions of
\ngovernance he could not take!<\/p>\n
\u2022Mr Ojo, public affairs commentator, lives in Ketu Alapere, Lagos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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