Rumble in the jungle

Verbal fisticuffs are flying between President Muhammadu Buhari and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and you couldn’t ask to be more enthralled if you had the ringside at legendary Muhammad Ali’s 1974 epic fight with George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. By the time the two leaders are done with their face-off, one of them would be conclusively demystified. It is to be seen, on one hand, whether the factor of Obasanjo’s antagonism that famously hallmarked the unraveling of past administrations in Nigeria’s recent history remains potent enough to upset Buhari’s chances of re-election to a second tenure of office in the impending 2019 poll; or, on the other hand, whether the former leader has outlived his touted relevance in king-making and public mood conditioning. Either way, one of them will come out finally worsted.

Buhari and Obasanjo were celebrated allies until the former leader issued a press statement last January in which he tore into the incumbent’s performance records and counseled him not to run for another term next year. Since the standard practice under amicable circumstances among the ruling elite globally is that predecessors privately advise sitting successors through back channels of direct access, you can’t deny that Obasanjo’s tack in going public was spurious. But it wouldn’t be Obasanjo any other way, because the former president has the reputation of having publicly criticised all past seven administrations in Nigeria – from those that succeeded him as military ruler in 1979 to those that came to office after his two terms as civilian president from 2007.

Considering that Buhari and Obasanjo were regarded, at least in the public, as buddies further bonded by their records of military rulership before returning to power through Civvy Street, it is moot if the former leader at all aired his concerns about the Buhari administration in private, and for how long he offered counsel, perhaps so to no avail, before heading for the stump. But by the time he took to the public domain, his views had so hardened that he spared no breath running the present administration through with spikes.

The high points of his public statement in January include allegations that the Buhari administration has performed rather poorly; that the president showed poor knowledge of economic management from the start but was expected to enlist skilled Nigerians for the task, which he allegedly failed to do; that though the administration had made remarkable strides in fighting insurgency and corruption, more needed to be done; that he (Obasanjo) considered the president sectional and nepotistic, having allowed the bloody herdsmen-crop farmers conflicts to fester; that the administration has left Nigeria more divided than ever; and that it should take responsibility for the current state of the Nigerian economy and stop blaming the immediate past administration for present ills. The clincher was his advice that Buhari take a dignified rest in 2019 and not seek another term. Obasanjo as well dismissed both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as holding any promise for Nigeria’s rebirth and canvassed a third force to be known as the Coalition for Nigeria Movement.

There apparently was initial reluctance on Mr. Buhari’s part to respond to those criticisms. The only rejoinder was that by Information Minister Lai Mohammed detailing achievements by the present administration. But the president made it known that he found the Obasanjo statement abusive. Speaking in an interview in Washington with the Hausa Service of the Voice of America during his visit to the United States early this May, he said he had not wanted any response to the public statement but was pressed to permit otherwise.  “Even when the Minister of Information and Culture wanted to reply that abusive letter written by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, I told him not to. But he said I should allow him to highlight the achievements of our administration,” the president explained. And he restated that reluctance at a state banquet in his honour during a recent visit to Bauchi State.

The restraint appeared to have worn thin last week, however, when Buhari publicly accused Obasanjo of squandering some $16billion during his tenure on power projects that never materialised. Speaking when he received campaign allies on the platform of Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) in Abuja, the president recalled that Nigeria earned much revenue between 1999 and 2014 when the spot market price of crude oil averaged $135 per barrel at an output level of some 2.1million barrels per day, and yet the country has nothing to show for it.

He further told the supporters, led by Comptroller of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.), inter alia: “You know that rail was killed, and one of the former heads of state at the time was bragging that he spent more than $15billion – not naira – on power. Where is the power?

“Where is the power? And now, we have to pay the debts! This year and last year’s budgets that I took to the National Assembly were the highest in capital projects – more than N1.3trillion.”

‘It is to be seen whether Obasanjo’s antagonism that famously hallmarked the unraveling of past administrations in Nigeria’s recent history remains potent enough to upset Buhari’s chances of re-election’

Even though Buhari named no names, Obasanjo knew like everyone else that the president had him in sight with the $16billion power expenditure allegation and wasted no time posting his response. He accused the president of lacking facts on the power sector and only rehashing claims that had been disproved by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and a parliamentary ad hoc committee, both of which conducted probes of monies spent on the power sector.   

A statement by the former president’s media aide added: “For the records, Chief Obasanjo has addressed the issue of the power sector and the allegations against him on many occasions and platforms, including in his widely publicised book, My Watch… The so-called $16billion power expenditure was an allegation against Obasanjo’s administration and not his claim. The president (Buhari) also queried where the power generated is. The answer is simple: the power is in the seven National Integrated Power Projects and 18 gas turbines that Obasanjo’s successor who made the allegation of  $16billion did not clear from the ports for over a year and the civil works done on the sites.”

Other allies of the two leaders have since joined the fray on either side and bandying claims to advance the cause of their respective principal.

Before Buhari and Obasanjo traded those verbal tackles last week, indications were rife they were digging in for a showdown. The former president, for instance, has gone beyond mere public criticism of the Buhari administration, as he apparently restricted himself to with previous administrations. Besides the ‘third force’ coalition that he inspired, which lately collapsed into a registered opposition party contrary to an initial projection that it would be an ideological movement with no partisan alliance, Obasanjo is actively mobilising a front against Buhari’s re-election next year. As part of his efforts, he recently visited the leadership of Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, 20 years after such contact, to enlist support for his anti-Buhari crusade.

For his part, Buhari seems to have foreclosed a rapprochement with his former ally, at least before the 2019 elections. One recent indication of that was Obasanjo’s exclusion from the ceremony to open the new multi-billion naira head office of the EFC in Abuja, at which former leaders who had less relevance to the ant-graft agency were paraded. Recall that it was Obasanjo who set up the EFCC during his presidency, and he should have topped the list of former leaders invited to the office opening unless, of course, he shunned the invitation.

The 2019 poll will, without gainsaying, show up the winner of this raging ego war.