How Obasanjo 'Captured' the Heart and Soul of Southwest
continued from http://www.dawodu.com/omoruyi20.htm
By
Professor Omo Omoruyi, mni
Former Director General, Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) (Abuja) 1989-1993
OBASANJO DID NOT CAPTURE
UNWILLING ENEMIES
Who says that Chief
Obasanjo is not a politician? I too underestimated him until I saw what he did
in the Yoruba land to change the political terrain. It is wrong for Dim Ojukwu
and Senator Adesanyan to use the military epithet to describe what candidate
Obasanjo brought about in the Yoruba land, the southeast and in the south-south
by calling it an ‘invasion’, a ‘conquest’ and the ‘capture’ of ‘unwilling
enemies’.
What candidate
Obasanjo did and how he did it should be studied by scholars and not
condemned. It is beyond the election tribunal to unravel, because it was a
scheme, a plan to bring about a Nigerian Political Mainstream that did not just
happen in April 2003.
How and why did
candidate Obasanjo scheme to take over the south especially the southwest that
rejected him in 1999 within three years is yet to be studied? This is what
scholars in Nigeria should be studying. We shall soon abandon this ripe and
veritable field of academic endeavor to foreign scholars who would turn out
books later. It is an abject laziness to adopt the refrain, ‘rigging’,
‘rigging’ with out understanding the simple logic in the expression, which the
Chief of Army Staff even acknowledged that ‘one can only rig where one is loved’
and that ‘one cannot rig where one is hated’. It is arrant nonsense to argue
as the National Chairman of the ANPP (Don Etiebet) did that the changes that
took place in the southwest, southeast and south-south was masterminded by
security agencies. We should not attempt to politicize our security
institutions to the extent that their demands by some opposition group for the
dismissal of Service Chiefs and Head of Police.
What should be noted
was that there was a scheme by the candidate Obasanjo to bring about the
Nigerian Political Mainstream to which the southwest would be an integral
part. The leaders of the southwest heard this message; they believed the
message and they trusted the messenger.
One may ask by way of
comparison or contrast when Dim Ojukwu told the Ndigbo audience at Aba that he
was on his way to Aso Rock did he think that his audience believed him? When
he told his audience that he would be taking the Ndigbo back to Nigeria did he
think that his audience believed him that they were not in Nigeria? When he
finally announced in a World Press Conference on April 23, 2003 at Enugu after
the presidential election that “I Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu won the
Presidential Election” but that Obasanjo robbed him of the victory, did he think
that the world and Nigerians and the Ndigbo believed him?
Also when General
Muhhammadu Buhari was appealing to Muslims to vote for someone who would defend
their religion, the voters in the far north followed him because they believed
in the message and trusted the messenger. But if he had talked to them on who
would deliver social amenities, he would have had difficulty matching his
message with that of candidate Obasanjo.
Those who knew the
inner working of Obasanjo administration since 1999 would tell one that
President Obasanjo swore to achieve one thing in the southwest. He knew he
became President in 1999 without the votes of his people for obvious reasons.
Since then he swore that the 2003 election would not be a repeat of 1999. He
set out to create a political environment that made it untenable for the
Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the Afenifere to think of fielding a candidate
in Yoruba land against him. He did not force them not to field a candidate.
It was the political environment that made fielding a candidate
counterproductive to the interest of the Yoruba people and the AD/Afenifere
leaders knew this and they did not want to risk it. What happened to the AD
Governors would have still happened if the AD had fielded a presidential
candidate against the PDP candidate, Obasanjo. The little respect they still
enjoy in Yoruba land after April would have been non-existent.
Let me just
identify what candidate Obasanjo from 1999-2003 did that bore fruits in the
April elections.
1.
Chief Obasanjo flooded the Yoruba land since 1999 with patronage to be
compared with what the AD in Yoruba States could do for the people.
2.
He made sure that the “made by Obasanjo (the Federal Government)” was
visible in all Yoruba States to be compared by the people with the “made by the
AD State Government”. Without talking about it, it was obvious that the
difference was clear.
3.
In preparation for the 2003 election, President Obasanjo made sure that
this “made by Obasanjo’s Federal Government” called the “federal presence” was
associated with persons in the different areas as “Obasanjo’s Men” in the
different Yoruba States. This was very visible as every community in Yoruba
land had “an Obasanjo man". This was explained to me by a former student of
mine who is one of the coordinators of Integrated Supporters for Obasanjo (ISO)
in New York in late March before the commencement of the series of election and
told me, “Prof. just wait for the outcome of the first election to the National
Assembly, ‘Baba’s men’ (meaning Obasanjo’s men) will sweep all the seats in
Yoruba land”. Was I surprised when the results were announced? Even
President Obasanjo himself said that it surprised him. As was discussed in
part 1 of this series, he took to the States in the southwest 48 hours to the
Presidential/Gubernatorial election to make it abundantly clear that the AD
Governors were men of yesterdays who he could not work with in the furtherance
of the interest of the Yoruba people. He then asked for the voters to give him
his men, the PDP candidates.
4.
President Obasanjo used these persons (Obasanjo Men) as his alternative
to the AD Governors or Senators as the case maybe in Yoruba land. The Yoruba
leaders and people knew these men as such.
5.
Hence in the election, the comparison was not too hard to make. The
difference was too obvious between “Obasanjo’s man”, the candidate and the AD/Afenifere
man as the incumbent Senator or Governor.
6.
President Obasanjo faced the Yoruba people as the voters and they chose
“Obasanjo’s men” as the PDP candidates in preference to the AD candidates in the
National Assembly election. When the National Assembly election results were
announced some asked would this be repeated during the Gubernatorial election.
This was obvious to all including the Governors themselves except the leaders of
the Afenifere who still even on the day of the Presidential/Governors’ election
were still hoping upon hope that miracle would happen that would make the AD
Governors triumph.
7.
The President cultivated the friendship of the Yoruba traditional rulers
who he visited routinely unannounced. He routinely talked to them on telephone
and made some of his aides to discuss the political situation in their areas.
8.
The President invited many Yoruba traditional rulers to Abuja as his
guests on a frequent and regular basis. This was a treat reserved for the
northern traditional rulers and selected traditional rulers from the south in
the past. Obasanjo extended this to all traditional rulers in Yorubaland. It
paid off during the election. The traditional rulers in the southwest became
the ‘unofficial campaign agents’ for ‘Obasanjo’s men’ and against the AD
candidates in the election. They embarked on what the Americans call the “Get
Out The Vote” (GOTV) for the PDP candidates in furtherance of the interest of
the southwest.
9.
The President used the Yoruba traditional rulers and not the AD Governors
as his alternative window to the Yorubaland. He had direct access to them as
his Kabieyesi. Candidate Obasanjo treated them with more decorum than the
Governors who saw them as employees of their respective states.
10.
President Obasanjo made frequent consultation with important
personalities in the private sector in Yorubaland. He sold to them his concept
of Nigerian Political Mainstream in so many words and the enviable place of the
people of the southwest in that arrangement. He made them associate themselves
with their local areas. Example was the late Rufus Giwa the captain of
industry who had to associate himself with the political fortune of the PDP in
Ondo State just the week he died. One would recall how the illustrious
business Mongol, Chief Ogunbajo had to step in for his son who was ill during
the campaign for the senatorial election in Ogun State. What was remarkable in
this race was that the Senatorial seat in question was the one held by Chief
Biyi Durijaiye a leader of the June 12 group in the southwest and the Senatorial
zone was the home of the leader of Afenifere, Senatorial Abraham Adesanyan.
The victory of the PDP in this zone was also a humiliation of the AD/Afenifere
leader.
11.
The President encouraged and supported the action of the leaders of the
PDP in the southwest under Chief Olabode George and Chief Sunday Afolabi. He
supported their determination to take over the southwest in the 2003 election.
12.
He sponsored an alternative to the Afenifere in Yorubaland, the Yoruba
Council of Elders (YCE) formed by the leaders of the former NPN and some
important leaders from the Awo camp in the Yorubaland, It was said that this
initiative had the blessing of the late Chief Bola Ige who doubled as both a
deputy leader of the Afenifere and a key actor in the YCE. The determination
of this group since 1999 was two-fold. One was to organize support for the
President in Yorubaland in the 2003 reelection battle. Two, was to take over
the Southwest and make it part of the Nigerian Political Mainstream.
13.
Candidate Obasanjo was uniter in the southwest. He made many
appointments in Yoruba land to both factions in Yoruba leadership from the Awo
and SLA camps. For example he appointed the daughter of Chief Awolowo and the
son of Chief Akintola Ambassadors. He pays visits to both families.
Are all these
foregoing efforts succeeding? First we saw the evidence of these efforts from
the results of the National Assembly election. We saw the final verdict on
April 19.
WILL AD SURVIVE AND FOR
WHAT?
The final verdict
of Obasanjo in road into and near complete take-over of the southwest is not in
terms of whether the PDP would dominate the political terrain because that would
be the result of April 19/May 3, elections. That would be a fact. But the
final verdict would be in terms of what would happen to the AD and the Afenifere
after April 2003?
Would the AD/Afenifere
survive as a political machine in Yoruba land in the context of the rival Pan
Yoruba organization, Yoruba Council of Elders headed by two Awoist, Pa Emmanuel
Alayande and Justice Adewale Thompson? There are many statements that AD would
bounce back. Bounce back as what! I have my doubt.
Those who say that
the D/Afenifere would survive, the question that would follow is survive as
what? For what would AD/Afenifere be surviving?
Those who say
that the AD/Afenifere would bounce back or that it would survive sometimes
ignore the role of money in political organization. Who would be financing AD/Afenifere’s
operations now that five of Six State Governments are gone?
AD SHOULD FUSE WITH PDP
What would the AD/Afenifere
do in the face of the electoral debacle of 2003? I’d leave this to the eminent
leaders of the AD/Afenifere.
The first issue
is disengagement of the AD from Afenifere. The second advice is that the AD
should fuse with the PDP as the solution to an unplanned demise of AD that seems
apparent after the April/May elections.
The concluding essay will focus on how the Obasanjo reelection could be the evolution of the new PDP. It will also focus on the lessons that could be learnt from what General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua tried to do in the past. This is important because the Awo followers did not find it difficult fusing with the Yar’Adua organization in 1989.