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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has announced that he has no special candidate in the build-up to the 2023 presidential election, rather, he only has a national agenda. This is in reaction to the allegation of some citizens that he has a preferred candidate for the 2023 presidential election. The man Obasanjo has governed Nigeria for a cumulative period of 11 years, 3 years under the military, and 8 years under democracy. No other Nigerian may be privileged to govern Nigeria for a cumulative period of 11 years because there is a constitutional limitation for a term of eight years for anybody that wants to become the President. When Obasanjo, therefore, mutes the idea of a national agenda, he is eminently qualified to do so. He has become the greatest stakeholder of the Nigeria project. If anything happens to the corporate existence of Nigeria, all the past leaders will automatically be turned to villains whose legacies will be terminated. The emerging leaders of the succeeding separate republics will refer to the former leaders of Nigeria as the cause of all the woes of this country and wipe out the memory of their remembrance just to take away the mind of the people from missing their abandoned republic. This is why immediately any leader becomes the President of Nigeria, irrespective of his religion or ethnicity, he becomes recruited into the national agenda, which is preserving primarily the corporate existence of Nigeria, because if the foundation of the country is destroyed, there is nothing even the righteous can do. We must have a country first before having economic growth and prosperity.
It’s in the light of this background that Obasanjo is trying to build a consensus of his brother former heads of state around a national agenda that will rescue the ship of state from collapse. He met with two other heads of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar and General Ibrahim Babangida, who have proved to live above board in pursuing national agenda whenever the country comes to a precipice. All of them may have made their mistakes in the past, but none of them allowed the mistakes to destroy the country. When President IBB cancelled the June 12 presidential election, won by MKO Abiola, and discovered that the decision was threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria, he did the most honorable thing expected from a statesman, he stepped aside and took a man from the same Geo-Political Zone as Abiola, Ernest Shonekan, to form an interim government to replace his government. This temporarily reduced the tension and brought the nation back from extinction. In 1999, when it has become obvious that power must shift to the South or Nigeria will collapse, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, as Head of State then, encouraged the formulation of political parties with the aim of shifting the power of the presidency to the South, particularly the South-West, where the late MKO Abiola came from. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, all the presidential candidates from all the political parties came from one Geo-Political Zone. It worked like magic as the agitation for the actualization of June 12 presidential election was won through that process. President Obasanjo was the beneficiary of that arrangement as he was brought out from prison and made President by the major political forces prevalent then which included this circle of former heads of state. You can see how Obasanjo remained at the epicentre of the national agenda whenever history beckons.
President Obasanjo, since coming into power, has used the position of the President to calm frayed nerves in Nigeria whenever the tension becomes deafening. When he completed his second term in office, despite the inroads made by Southern presidential aspirants in PDP, like Frank Odili, to take over the Presidency in 2007, Obasanjo, realising that if the North were shortchanged in the position of the Presidency, after voluntarily ceding the post to the South in 1999 in the interest of peace and national cohesion, that this might affect the sense of belonging of northerners and may make them lose interest in the Federation, decided to honour the agreement of power shift from South to North and this was how the tension was doused in 2007. President Umaru Yar Adua from North-West inherited the fulfillment of this national agenda. President Obasanjo also utilised the opportunity to calm the agitation in the Niger Delta by bringing President Goodluck Jonathan from the South-South to become the Vice-President of President Yar Adua from where he inherited the position of President after the untimely death of President Yar Adua in office in 2010.
Let us face it, the two major political parties have failed. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) built the foundation of this failure and the All Progressives Congress (APC) is building a skyscraper of failure on top of the foundation. PDP allowed Boko Haram to take over the North East and foisted their flags in about 17 Local Government Areas in Borno State, while APC allowed bandits, terrorists, kidnappers, insurgents, militants, separatists and unknown gunmen take over the whole country and are stealing oil, massacring people in mosques, churches, markets and indeed everywhere. Jail breaks are frequent and the President can no longer even protect himself as his convoy comes under attack. Bandits collect taxes from the citizens even from the President’s State. They, not only collect taxes, they, according to Gov Masari of Katsina State, now openly collect the wives and daughters of their fellow men for their sexual satisfaction. These men, voluntarily, submit their wives and daughters to them in order to save their lives. The latest victims of the kidnapping attack on the Abuja-Kaduna bound train have spent 158 days in the forest with no end in sight and their government is doing nothing to rescue them. In APC’s government, almost every Governor is crying out loud for self-defence.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike for 204 days with all their students condemned to a life of perpetual idleness which has made them the devil’s workshop of yahoo yahoo dealings, occultic influence, banditry and armed robbery. This strike stems from a botched agreement entered between ASUU and the incompetent PDP led government in 2009 and inherited by a more incompetent APC government in 2015 with no solution in sight till date. Nigeria has been a mono-economy based on Oil and both PDP and APC governments have done nothing to change the situation. We are still importing refined petroleum products from 1999 till date. Naira has depreciated to N710.00 to $1. This failure is replicated in all the sectors of the Nigerian economy and has not attracted any solution from both parties with the resultant effect that we don’t have power, energy, fuel, security, stability etc. We can’t travel freely by land, air and rail. Nigeria is today facing an existential threat as the present government has borrowed itself out of existence as all its revenue cannot even service its debts. The two major political parties are even in disarray as the desperation, selfishness and pride of both presidential candidates have caused intractable disunity amongst their members. The natiional agenda today is the election of a presidential candidate in 2023 that will rescue Nigeria from collapse.
Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation. There’s no doubt that we must factor in the idea of balancing our ethnic and religious diversity in the composition of our government. However, once the ticket is well balanced, in accordance with the relevant laws, we must choose the best that will deliver peace, order and good governance to us. These three Heads of State have laid out their national agenda for 2023. President Ibrahim Babangida openly advocated for a more youthful presidential candidate in 2023. This his patriotic call was predicated on the level of the political, economic and social decay these political parties have sunk Nigeria into, which requires youthful energy to counter. He publicly declared he will not support any candidate that is 70 years or above. This rules out Atiku and Tinubu in the equation. President Obasanjo observed since 2019 that the two political parties have failed Nigeria and the need to look towards a third force for solutions. Unfortunately, in 2019, he couldn’t find any qualified politician to galvanise the third force into a formidable movement that could uproot these failed two political parties. He tore his membership card of PDP and never joined any other party. He is not partisan today and all that matters to him is the survival of Nigeria. This rules out APC and PDP. Abdulsalami Abubakar wants a presidential ticket that will guarantee peace and progress for Nigeria. This also rules out PDP and APC because it is not within the intendment of the Constitution of Nigeria that any ethnic or religious group should dominate others as is happening now with APC and PDP. The present President is a Fulani Northern Muslim who is completing his 8th year in office. PDP chose exactly a Fulani Northern Muslim to replace him, even when its Constitution forbids such an abnormality. APC chose a Muslim-Muslim ticket even when the Constitution frowns at forming associations that do not cut across religious barriers. It’s only the Labour Party and the candidacy of Peter Obi and Datti Baba Ahmed that fits into the youthful, balanced and qualified ticket for the presidential election of 2023, being religiously and ethnically balanced, with power shift and rotation adequately recognised. The two political parties actually left these elder statesmen with no option than to adopt the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, as their consensus candidate and their national agenda. In all honesty, these statesmen are simply patriotic and altruistic in their pursuit of this national agenda and should be commended.
Hurray!!! Global Square is three. We give all the glory to God. We thank all our readers for their encouragement and support. Their reactions can be summarised in the submission of a great Nigerian when he wrote to me, “Dear Kenneth, I wish on behalf of Council of Elders Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide to express our deep appreciation to you for your weekly feature in Sunday edition of Sun newspapers. Your articles pay glowing tribute to your high intellectual capacity, vast knowledge of Nigeria problems and a deep patriotic disposition in analysing and handling Nigerian problems. Keep it up and God bless you. Best Regards, Chief Dr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu CFR, OFR, MFR (AHAEJIAGAMBA NDIGBO) Chairman, Council of Elders Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.” We use this opportunity to wish Ahaejiagamba a happy 80th birthday and may God continue to grant you wisdom and good health to enjoy the fruits of your labour in peace.
