Revelations have emerged on how former president Mr.
Olusegun Obasanjo vowed that 2007 and 2011 would be a “transition period”, and
how he would continued to spearhead the affairs of the nation from his Ota
Farm, in Ogun State irrespective of the fact that there would be a ‘sitting
president.’
All these and more were revealed in a recently published
memoir by an Obasanjo confidant and former minister of the Federal Capital
Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai.
The book entitled, “The Accidental Public Servant” x rayed
the good, bad and the ugly of the Obasanjo’s regimes.
The book reveals that though OBJ as he’s fondly called had
personally ensured that the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded him in 2007, he
nevertheless planned to administer the country from his Ota Farm. He described
the 2007-2011 period as a transition because all his point’s men, including the
“economic team” would continue to dominate the scene.
El-Rufai recalls the former president telling him thus:
“Well, nothing will change, you know. I will be in Ota but we will be running
things. Everything will remain the same, you know. You will remain in the
government, the economic team will remain. Nothing will change. Only I will
move to Ota and Yar’Adua will be here but we will be running things.”
When el-Rufai informed Obasanjo that he intended taking at
least two years’ break from government business, the former president
responded: “OK, well I just thought I should call you and explain to you that
the next four years is just a transition period. The real change in government
will happen in 2011. Not now.”
The book, which will be launched at 10:30am on February 7,
at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja exposed that the former president begged his
deputy on “bended knees,” for his political survival.
In the 627-page book, El-Rufai said on page 151, “The stakes
were high enough for Obasanjo to swallow his considerable pride and go to Atiku
on bended knees.
“Obasanjo had no problem going down on his knees to beg for
what he thought was impossible to obtain any other way.”
This rare and calculated display of humility came around
2003 when Obasanjo feared he could lose the People’s Democratic Party’s
re-nomination bid, if he did not make peace with Atiku.
“The political bricksmanship got so bad that Obasanjo had to
visit Atiku’s residence unannounced to plead for Atiku’s support.
The book also faults the leadership recruitment processes,
noting that it is at the root of the nation’s problems, as it sacrifices merit.
He said that the choice of the late Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as
president and vice-president by Obasanjo was “the final nail in the coffin of
any meritocracy or track record of governance in Nigeria.
“President Obasanjo chose Umaru Yar’Adua whose ill-health,
among other challenges, was known already constituted a serious impediment to
the possibility of any inspired and energetic leadership. The view of many
well-informed Nigerians is that Yar’Adua and his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, emerged
for no other discernable reasons than being ‘weak’ governors sympathetic to the
‘Third Term’ project and therefore handpicked as payback.
“The subsequent electoral imposition of Goodluck Jonathan as
president in 2011 via military occupation and rigging has been unhelpful in
raising leadership quality. Jonathan went into a presidential contest without a
campaign manifesto, boasting of no experience, merit and any track record of
previous performance other than wearing no shoes to school and his ‘good luck’.
Source: Nigerianewsday
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