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ON March 6, 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo will be 70 years old: 11 years out of this spent as Nigeria's foremost political leader and more than half of the total spent in various capacities in the public arena. There are Nigerians insisting vociferously that Baba is closer to 80 than 70, to determine Baba's true age, a DNA test may have to be conducted, I hear, but that is not the focus of this piece.
In other societies, when a leader gets close to the kind of crossroads that awaits President Obasanjo, he embarks on the necessary task of putting a fence around his own legacy and era. This is a leadership function, for it also entails the preparation of the people for a new beginning, it defines for the in-coming era, a number of national priorities, if there is any grand vision, it is restated for emphasis. The self-serving part is the individuation of some of the highlights, the location of the existing leader in the context of national history and the existing development framework. It is a useful process of remembering and thinking; planning and creativity.
The bad news is that President Obasanjo is rushing to the end of his tenure like a train that has missed the tracks and is yet dangerously on high speed. Both his own interest and the nation's are endangered. Two simple-minded, equally confounding explanations, but clearly de-constructible have been offered for this inability to pause and close shop. The first is that President Obasanjo does not want to be a lame duck President. This has been operationalised in form of continual motion for its sake.
About a year to the end of this second term, the Obasanjo government suddenly became hyper-active, embarking on new projects, some ad-hoc, most of them, long-term running into the future and yet, these are projects and ideas which stand the risk of reversal by a succeeding government which may see no reason for being loyal to the past.
Being lame duck is not a function of motion, but of the given effluxion of time. A government that is on its way out at the end of its tenure is simply on its way out. Where such a government starts behaving like it is about to renew itself at midnight, it lays itself open to suspicion that it has a hidden agenda. This is the fate that the Obasanjo government has suffered. Its programme for the April elections faces a crisis of credibility; the outcome may face a bigger test of legitimacy. Too many Nigerians suspect that the President does not want to leave. And if he eventually does, others will take the credit for his exit. Besides, the Obasanjo government shot itself in the foot the moment the President turned the dispute with Vice President Atiku into the primary business of the Federal Government. The government became truly lame duck since then; it became dependent on politics.
The President devotes his time, energy and state resources to the anti-Atiku campaign. By refusing to focus on his own legacy, he has helped to create a strong platform for Atiku as a politician. The President has been running Atiku's campaign for him. The man gets free advertisement, prime time coverage in the media; his messages get heard because the Presidency has become "a stop Atiku by all means affair." This distraction will hurt the President's legacy ultimately. He may be remembered more for his last gestures than the processes of the past eight years.
The second excuse that is given for the government's present-mindedness is that government business is continuous. But how continuous is government business in the present environment? The idea of continuity is in the form of the Obasanjo government trying to rob a future Federal Government of its own initiative. Their idea of continuity is in form of the destruction of the opposition and the possibility of change. On many occasions, President Obasanjo has announced that he, alone, will determine his own successor. He knows those who will not succeed him. Now, he knows those who will succeed him.
And since the emergence of Yar'Adua/Jonathan Goodluck as flagbearers of the PDP, indeed as his own choice for the party, the President has spent his time campagning for the Yar'Adua/Jonathan ticket. The PDP Presidential candidate has even been allowed to use the President's official jet. The voters don't know Yar'Adua, they don't know what he stands for, but they know that he has been anointed by Obasanjo.
The President has also taken the additional step of insisting that his successor must continue with his government's reform agenda. And to ensure continuity, PDP candidates have been made to sign "a bond of allegiance to the party." The President has also ensured that he will remain a leader of the PDP for life. But it is clear to those who can see that what the President seeks is the continuity of his influence. He is insisting that "it is only his way for Nigeria, or no other way at all". He has even declared that the April election is "a do-or-die affair", a statement that is totally devoid of statesmanship.
But the President's definition of continuity is flawed. It is predicated on a poorly constructed notion of allegiance. But is there any guarantee that his anointed candidates if they come to power will remain loyal to him? The President has obviously not learnt any lessons from his Atiku experience. Atiku was his "boy" whom he trusted. And he made him Vice President in 1999. But Atiku soon turned out to be nobody's "boy". He insisted on being his own man. It was at this point that he was accused of disloyalty. Would Yar'Adua if he becomes President lick Baba's feet, and defer to him continuously? Would he remain faithful to the bond of allegiance to the PDP which he has signed?
President Obasanjo should know the exact answers to these posers. When the Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday, this week, that Vice President Atiku ceased to be a puppet of the PDP the moment he was sworn in as Vice President, with the additional retort that the PDP is unknown to the Constitution, their Lordships spoke not just for Atiku but all men who in the future may be accused of treachery simply because they choose to assert themselves. The Court of Appeal has offered a dignified interpretation of the word loyalty in public office - loyalty to the state, as opposed to loyalty to an individual. President Obasanjo's definition of continuity can only end in disappointment.
Umar Yar'Adua as President could if he so wishes change the Constitution of the PDP and remove Obasanjo as leader for life. And if someone else, not Yar'Adua becomes President, Baba should know that he may need to re-negotiate his own relevance in the scheme of things. The President may also be under the illusion that he has been able to create a community of disciples in the corridors of power, who will be inherited if he is able to hand over to Yar'Adua and who will then stay on to protect his economic reform programme. He'd be surprised. Those who surround him today, professing so much loyalty would soon find new masters, join the new train and dance to new tunes. It is strange that President Obasanjo who has had so much experience in power still behaves as if he does not know this.
The foregoing review is necessary to show that if the President argues or anyone does so on his behalf that he indeed has a good exit strategy, or that his legacy is in no danger that would be an exercise in casuistry. About 51 days to the beginning of the end of the Obasanjo tenure, what the average Nigerian remembers after eight years, is the fact that the roads are still bad, there is no water supply, the nation is in darkness, its youths are unemployed; factories are closing down, there is no prosperity here, only despair, and the politicians have not changed their ways. But there is a paradox. When you listen to some of the people working for the Obasanjo government in various departments, they have good stories to tell, not about the soft issues of social infrastructure, but deeper macro-economic reforms through which in the last eight years, the country's foundations have been strengthened; and the grounds have been prepared for a future harvest. The Obasanjo government has also shown us both the beauty and the ugliness of democracy; it has exposed our strengths and limitations in every sphere of our lives.
The biggest arena of failure for President Obasanjo is the inability to communicate these achievements, which in truth represent his legacy and the root of the continuity that he seeks. Power and politics depend on the force and clarity of communication. By communicating its own vision and direction clearly and consistently, a responsible government creates among the populace a sense of collective ownership and belief. What the Obasanjo government needed at the centre was to ensure this buy-in by the people, sell the new brand that it has created. In eight years, President Obasanjo has been counting on the assumption that when the fruits of his reform agenda begin to ripen, the people will discover the truth. This is not likely to happen.
What may happen is that if and when a fructification occurs, a future government will claim the credit. And there will be no one to tell Obasanjo's story as it should be told, because for eight years what the critical majority has heard from the centre are tales of quarrels, and abuse, corruption and discord within the family; alienation and despair in the land. .
And so I ask: what is Obasanjo's exit strategy?
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