A cascade of political events in the last ten days gives the impression of a coordinated attack on the Nigeria presidency from disjointed groups. Could Iyabo Obasanjo’s intervention yesterday destroy the most formidable foe of the president?
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
It took the supernatural insight of Mr. Yinka Odumakin, the spokesperson of the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere for many to comprehend what was alleged to be a coordinated attack on President Goodluck Jonathan.
“Last week Monday, Tambuwal made his own comment, by Tuesday, they released Lamido’s letter, by Wednesday, they released Obasanjo’s letter and by Sunday, APC is calling for Jonathan’s resignation,” Odumakin told Vanguard last Sunday in his reaction to what he sensed was a coordinated assault on the presidency.
The attacks apparently have not ended. By Monday, the Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM a newly registered political party asked the National Assembly to investigate the allegations raised against the president by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Odumakin, a long time canvasser of a sovereign national conference saw the attack as a premeditated attack by those against the restructuring of the country to abort the national conference which President Jonathan recently promised to convene.
“I think they are jumping the gun and they are showing that there is a sinister agenda that is being coordinated by forces that want to abort the national conference by calling for a regime change,” Odumakin said.
Speaker Aminu Tambuwal of the House of Representatives kick-started what Odumakin observed as the sinister agenda at an anti-corruption awareness campaign organized by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA in Abuja last Monday.
Given widely held perceptions that some major elements in the NBA national leadership were helped to office by the Jonathan administration, it was indeed surprising that the lawyers’ leadership gave Tambuwal the platform to ventilate.
Tambuwal who was elected speaker of the House of Representatives against the desire of the PDP leadership had since his advent in 2011, maintained a political idiosyncrasy at odds with that espoused by the presidency.
This was particularly obvious in the tone of the speaker at the NBA gathering where he said that the president’s body language was promoting corruption as he literally gave instances of recent developments in the polity.
“What has happened to all the exposed corruption cases? The pension scam, recent and obvious fraud in the Aviation sector, that of the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, where trillions of Naira from private investors were suspected to have been mismanaged. When we commenced investigations into the matter, what became of paramount importance to the EFCC was allegation that one of our members collected money as estacode to travel but failed to do so.”
“I have not heard or read anywhere that she was invited by the EFCC or that any member of SEC was even invited. We at the National Assembly, for the sake of probity and accountability, agreed that budgetary allocations to the Commission should be suspended, only for us to hear that the Executive found a leeway of funding the agency. We are currently investigating that.
“Coming to what happened in the Aviation industry recently, do we need an angel to report to EFCC that something happened there? No, we don’t! We all belong to this country so people should stop taking us for granted,” he added.
The echo from the Speaker’s vituperation was yet to die when a letter from the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Mallam Sanusi Lamido to the president informing him of the leakage of N49.8 billion from oil receipts between 2011 and 2013.
The amount missing, he said, was 76% of the total oil receipts into the Federation Account.
“Our analysis of the value of crude oil export proceeds based on the documentation received from pre-shipment inspectors shows that between January 2012 and July 2013, NNPC lifted 594,024,107 barrels of crude valued at $65,332,350,514.57.”
“Out of this amount, NNPC repatriated only $15,528,410,098.77 representing 24% of the value. This means the NNPC is yet to account for, and repatriate to the Federation Account, an amount in excess of $49.804 billion of the value of oil lifted in the same period.”
Nigerians did not have much time to distill the contents of the Sanusi letter as at that time many Nigerians were already immersed in discussions about the letter from Obasanjo to the president. At that point the letter had not been leaked but was already the subject of discourse among the political class and some journalists who were desperately searching for the letter.
The letter dated December 2, 2013 was eventually let out last Wednesday. Obasanjo said he made it an open letter because Dr. Jonathan did not dignify him with a reply to at least four earlier letters written by him to his one time godson.
The 18-page letter was an articulation of the several perceived gaffes of the president against the interest of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the integrity of the nation.
The former president observed that Dr. Jonathan had through divide and rule splintered the ruling party and in some cases like in Lagos, Anambra, Ondo and Edo States worked against the interest of the PDP for his personal political advantage.
The former president also kicked against what he said was President Jonathan’s determination to rubbish an agreement reached not to seek re-election in office.
The letter which dripped with anger and bile also lamented Dr. Jonathan’s perceived tolerance of corruption and his enthronement of corrupt persons in the corridors of power in government and the PDP.
President Obasanjo did not mince words in saying that some of those men and women should not be kept around government.
Concluding the missive, Obasanjo said:
“My last piece of advice, Mr. President, is that you should learn the lesson of history and please do not take Nigeria and Nigerians for granted. Move away from culture of denials, cover-ups and proxies and deal honesty, sincerely, transparently with Nigerians to regain their trust and confidence. Nigerians are no fools, they can see, they can hear, the can talk among themselves, they can think, they can compare and they can act in the interest of their country and in their own self-interest.”
“They keenly watch all actions and deeds that are associated with you if they cannot believe your words. I know you have the power to save PDP and the country. I beg you to have the courage and the will with patriotism to use the power for the good of the country. Please uphold some form of national core values. I will appeal to all Nigerians particularly all members of PDP to respect and dignify the Office of the President. We must all know that individuals will come and go but the Office will remain.”
The president’s response was a statement issued by Dr. Rueben Abati in which it was revealed that Dr. Jonathan had directed his aides not to make any response to Obasanjo as he said that the president had promised to make a personal response to his one time benefactor.
“While many patriotic, objective and well-meaning Nigerians have already condemned the leaked letter as self-serving, hypocritical, malicious, indecent, and very disrespectful of the highest office in the land, President Jonathan has directed that none of his aides or any government official should join issues with Chief Obasanjo over it,” Abati wrote in a statement.
“The President himself will, at the appropriate time, offer a full personal response to the most reckless, baseless, unjustifiable and indecorous charges levied against him and his administration by the former Head of State.”
With many Nigerians engaged over the contents and correctness of the Obasanjo missive, the main opposition party, All Progressives Congress, APC last Sunday, intervened with a plea to the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against the president.
In a statement issued by the party’s Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the president should be removed from office for misconduct arising from serial breaches of the constitutional provision that the security and welfare of the citizenry should be the concern of government.
The party also latched onto the allegation raised by Obasanjo that the presidency had worked out a watch list of 1,000 political opponents to be monitored by the presidency.
‘’Since the raison d’etre of any government is the security and welfare of the citizenry, and the present administration has failed to live up to the justification of its existence, there can be no other definition of gross misconduct than that,” Mohammed said in his statement.
‘’Therefore, the time has come for the head of that government, on whose desk the buck stops, to be removed through the provisions stipulated in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is the patriotic thing to do,’’ the party deposed.
Unlike Obasanjo’s letter, the president did not pass over the opportunity of a response and immediately responded with a warning to the APC and its sympathizers not to toy with treason.
Having been warned by the president not to directly engage Obasanjo, Dr. Abati apparently seized the opportunity of replying to the APC to hit at Obasanjo.
He said: “The APC’s false copy-cat allegation that 1, 000 snipers are being trained by the Jonathan Administration clearly shows that they are now in cahoots with some other elements who are bent on discrediting this administration and inciting the public against it.”
Following the APC, the PDM, the newly registered political party which broke out from the group with the same name, on Monday followed up with a call to the National Assembly to commence an investigation into the issues raised by Obasanjo in his letter.
Dr. Jonathan, meanwhile, has continued with the same pace and pattern of governance apparently waiting for an appropriate time to get back at his traducers.
Yesterday, apparently living to his name, good luck smiled on President Jonathan when Senator Iyabo Obasanjo intervened to discredit the most formidable messenger against him..
Iyabo’s 11 page expose on her father could not have been anything but good luck for the president.
Vanguard