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| Obasanjo |
The front page picture on the October
11, 2016 edition of ThisDay Newspaper had an interesting caption. The
phrase ‘Habitual Visitor’ headlined the image showing two Presidents of
Nigeria: an ex and the incumbent. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo had
the day before paid a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari, one of
several in the last one year since the latter moved into the
presidential villa on June 21, 2015. The striking import of the
picture’s caption could not have been lost as it simply conveyed the
point that the ex leader had become a recurring visitor to the villa he
bestrode like a colossus for eight years (1999-2007). The more
significant message especially for students of political communication
was that of substantial mutual confidence between a president and a
predecessor. Simply put, President Obasanjo had the ears of President
Buhari.
One month later
however, the narrative appears to have changed. Reports from a November
23, 2016 event which featured Obasanjo as guest speaker betrayed what
could be a crack in the supposed chummy relationship between both men.
Newspaper headlines the next day were salacious. Here is a sample:
‘Obasanjo to Buhari: Stop the Excuses, Nigeria Needs Results-oriented
Policies,’ ThisDay read. For the usually conservative Guardian, the
headline was no less inviting- ‘Obasanjo decries Buhari’s ad-hoc
approach to governance’ while the Sun in its usual sensational tabloid
fashion screamed: ‘Stop excuses, clear mess, Obasanjo tells Buhari.’
Although Daily Trust, the preferred choice of the northern establishment
adopted a less dramatic front page headline- ‘Obasanjo Opposes Buhari’s
$30bn Loan Plan’ – it could not help but shore up the rather bland
banner with a caricature illustration of the former president to attract
attention. The Punch simply screamed on the strip atop its masthead:
‘Obasanjo attacks Buhari.’ Such offer on the news stable of November 24
was enough tell-tale signs that things have begun to fall apart between
Obasanjo and Buhari. And the centre may not hold for much longer.
Last Wednesday’s tirade follows a
pattern of Obasanjo’s wars of attrition waged with friends-turned-foes
in the past. Such subtle nudges and knocks get to escalate into direct
open rebukes and then ascend a crescendo of letter-writing. And
somewhere in-between, a dinner table of delicious bowls of pounded yam
and sizzling egusi soup is shared with the unsuspecting foe to bait him
into a waiting trap. (Readers may wish to ask Minister Audu Ogbeh for
details of this deceitful format.) And if things get really messy, the
nation is then treated to the dramatic climax of public shredding of
membership cards. (Fortunately, the much known to the public is that
Obasanjo was only awarded the nebulous appellation of ‘navigator’ of the
then crusading All Progressives Congress (APC), a party now struggling
with its intractable contradictions.) Even though there may be no
political party cards to tear in Ota in the build-up to 2019, one cannot
put anything past the Olowu of Owu whose inexhaustible capacity for
theatrics has entertained the nation since days of yore.
But let us return to the clarion call;
the shrill cry of the falconer to a straying bird. In the moderated
outburst, Obasanjo told his arch rival-turned-chummy buddy to stop the
blame game and fix the country that is fast collapsing under his watch.
To be honest, Obasanjo did not quite say anything new nor did his
intervention make the anguish in the land more painful. The ex president
merely re-echoed what has since become a tale of lamentation across the
land. Hear him: “Businesses are closing, jobs are being lost and people
are suffering. I know that President Buhari has always expressed
concern for the plight of the common people but that concern must be
translated to workable and result-oriented socio-economic policies and
programmes that will turn the economy round at the shortest time
possible.” He then warned that “if we do not fix the economy to relieve
the pain and anguish of many Nigerians, the gains of fighting the
insurgency and corruption will pale into insignificance.”
Like one waiting for an opportunity to
defend his tenure in office, Obasanjo took exceptions to the penchant of
his successor to lay the blame for all the malaise of the country on
the 16 years of past Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administrations of
which he had eight years to himself. According to him, “the blanket
adverse comments or castigation of all democratic administrations from
1999 by the present administration is uncharitable, fussy and
uninstructive. Politics apart, I strongly believe that there is a
distinction between the three previous administrations that it would be
unfair to lump them all together.” Logically and has been demanded by
many voices of reason before his, Obasanjo asked the Buhari
administration to brace up and offer the goods it promised to offer
Nigeria during electioneering campaign. Hear him again: “It was the same
reason and situation that brought about the cry for change; otherwise,
there would be no need for change if it was all nice and rosy. Now that
we have had change because the actors and the situation needed to be
changed, let us move forward to have progress through a comprehensive
economic policy and programme that is intellectually, strategically and
philosophically based.”
If you think Obasanjo was done, then
wait for this: “We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect
things to change. No administration can nor should be comfortable with
the excruciating pain of debilitating and crushing economy.” He also
advised Buhari must expand his horizon in the search for capable and
competent hands to help the country out of its current quagmire.
According to him, “we have people inside and outside who can be brought
together to help device the right economic policies and programmes to
get us out of the pit before we fall over the precipice into a dark
cave.” He continued by asking the President to build confidence in the
economy which “requires a great element of trust to get it out of the
doldrums, let alone out of negativity. That trust and confidence has to
be created.”
Obasanjo who took the National Assembly
to the cleaners in a no-holds barred manner, focused on President
Buhari’s proposed $29.9billion external borrowing plan and dismissed it
as inchoate because a “comprehensive policy and programme will not
support borrowing US$30 billion in less than three years.” Noting that
the proposal was counter-productive, he explained that the amount being
sought “was about the magnitude of cumulative debt of Nigeria which we
worked and wiped out 10 years ago. Before that debt relief, we were
spending almost $3 billion to service our debt annually and the quantum
of the debt was not going down. Rather, if we defaulted, we paid a
penalty which was added on. The projects listed for borrowing are all
necessary in the medium and long-term for our economy but we have to
prioritise. Now we are being told the projects will pay themselves when
we know damn well they will not. If we borrow some thirty billion
dollars in less than three years, we would have mortgaged the future of
Nigeria for well over thirty years to come. There may also be the
problem of absorptive capacity which will surely lead to waste. A
careful scrutiny of the projects with prioritisation and avoidance of
waste and taking into account avoiding bunching of debt service in
future especially when no one can accurately forecast the global and
national economy will indicate less than thirty per cent of the foreign
loan being requested as prudent.
“Railway is a necessary service but it
is not profit-making anywhere in the world today. We need steady and
continuous but manageable funding on the railway project. The Mambilla
hydro project is the same; necessary but it cannot pay itself,
especially with the global energy sector of shale revolution, hydrogen
fuel and increasingly cheap renewable energy such as solar energy. OPEC
itself has projected that the price of oil will be hovering in the
region of $50 per barrel for the next 15 years or so. So the argument of
concessional mixed with commercial loans does not hold water. When the
concessional and the non-concessional borrowings are put together,
interests alone will be in the region of 3% to 4%. The bunching of debt
service will be a problem to confront other administrations in future.”
All of these may be friendly fires but assuredly, a flame has been set
off nonetheless. The question is why did Obasanjo take to a public forum
to make such remarkable criticism (call it wake-up call if you like) on
a President he did much to bring to office? Why did he abandon his
privileged and habitual (thanks to ThisDay newspaper) access to the
presidential villa and choose instead to communicate indirectly to its
prime occupant? Does he no longer have the ears of Mr. President? Or is
it that his ‘habitual’ host merely pretends to listen but does not
actually hear what he is told? Are we headed to the days of
letter-writing soon? Is the honeymoon over? Questions and more questions
searching for elusive answers buried in the bowels of time but which
would be exhumed in future memos and memoirs that are not in my place to
write. But like your good self, I will be glad to read.
––Epia, Publisher of OrderPaper.ng is on Twitter @resourceme.
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