Jonathan was too small for the Presidency – Obasanjo
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that
former President Goodluck Jonathan from his first days as President showed he was too small for the office, saying he, Obasanjo, acted more as an opponent of Jonathan than a supporter of Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the 2015 presidential poll.
Obasanjo, who said Jonathan deceived him that he
would not give Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke the
petroleum portfolio in his cabinet was deceived into
believing that he could use money to buy the 2015
presidential election.
Obasanjo in the book, Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President was defeated in Nigeria, written by former presidential spokesman, Segun Adeniyi, also revealed that Jonathan was gripped by the fear that Buhari, as president, would jail him or lead him to an early grave.
himself quoted as saying he could not be held
accountable for provocative remarks made by some of his supporters, even as former Senate President, David Mark, is also quoted in the book as alleging that he forewarned the former president about the alleged conspiracy against him in the north but to no avail.
Obasanjo in the book is quoted as saying that following Umaru Yar’Adua’s death in 2010, he endorsed Jonathan for the 2011 presidential election principally to solve the problems of minority agitation in Nigeria.
The former President said: “I saw the emergence of
Jonathan as an opportunity to solve the problem of
minority agitation. The three majority ethnic groups in Nigeria can always sort themselves out but not so for the minority. A good example is my state here in Ogun.
“Despite the best of intentions, nobody from Ogun West has been able to become governor because of this minority issue and it will take a conscious effort to
make it happen. So, it was in the context of that I had to plead with prominent people in the North to allow
Jonathan run for a term.”
But in a tone laden with regrets, Obasanjo pointed out that there were certain things Jonathan did that fell below his expectations as a former president.
“There were certain decisions taken by Jonathan very
early in his administration that pointed to the fact that
the office was bigger than him and one of them was the appointment of a petroleum minister,” he said.
According to Obasanjo, he cautioned Jonathan not to
appoint Diezani Alison-Madueke to such a sensitive
sector but the president ignored his counsel.
“Jonathan gave me the impression that he was not
going to give her the portfolio but at the end he did and we can see the consequence. He, of course, knew what he was doing,” Obasanjo stated.
The former president also hinted at what riled him
against Jonathan and why he parted ways with him in
the run up to the 2015 election, a development which
has given the impression that he was actively working
in support of Buhari’s candidature. But Obasanjo
denied any direct support to Buhari.
He said: “I didn’t join them in supporting Buhari; I
joined in opposing Jonathan so Buhari was just a
beneficiary of my opposition to Jonathan since my
position was AOBJ: meaning Any Option But
Jonathan.”,
Obasanjo explained that Jonathan and his handlers
believed that they could buy the last election and that
they were so arrogant about it that the PDP would print only one nomination form for him and him alone. He said: “If he was wise, he would have yielded the ticket to somebody else in the PDP.”
The former president, who also criticised the role
played by the military in the last election, said he
suspected that Jonathan was not really afraid about life after office but Buhari, his successor.
“I believe the President’s concern or fear is not about
life after office per se, because he and I have had
occasions to talk about this both seriously and jovially.
I believe the President’s fear is particularly motivated
by the person he sees as his likely successor, that is
General Buhari. I believe the people would have been
telling him that Buhari is a hard man; he would fight
corruption and he (Jonathan) may end up in jail if not in the grave,” Obasanjo narrated in the book.
The book also placed the defeat of Jonathan at the
2015 poll on the utterances of those close to the former president, among them being his wife, Patience.
Governor, Babangida Aliyu, accusing the former first
lady of insulting the North with incendiary language,
thereby alienating them from Jonathan during the
election.
It quoted Mrs. Jonathan as making a denigrating
remark against Almajiri in the north, by saying “Our
people no dey born children wey dem no dey count.
Our men no dey born throw way for street; we no dey
like people from the other side”, an apparent reference to the concept of Almajiri common in the north.
Reminded in the book that some persons close to him, especially Chief Edwin Clark and Asari Dokubo, we're rather vocal and provocative in their utterances,
Jonathan wondered why he should be held accountable for their personal opinions.
The former president retorted: “Okay, let us agree for
the sake of argument that Chief Clark and the others
were offensive, what about those from other ethnic
groups who were also making incendiary statement
about my person with insinuations about people who
wear bowler hats?
“I am not defending whoever may have crossed the line among Ijaw people but let us be fair, why should I be held accountable for that and you would not hold other leaders accountable for what politicians from their own ethnic groups also said?"
On why Jonathan lost the election, former Senate
President, David Mark, said that he saw the defeat
coming and had pointed out the unrealistic voting
projections made by the party about the North to the
former president and the conspiracy against him but he was not taken seriously.
He said Jonathan should have seen the handwriting on the wall and done something about what was pointed out to him but no action was taken.
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| Senator David Mark |
pointed out to him and the party that the projections
being made by some people around the president about what the voting pattern in the north would were wrong.
“I could see the conspiracy and the gang-up building up in the north against the aspiration of Jonathan but my voice was drowned out by those who took it for granted that a sitting president, and one from PDP, could not lose,” Mark said.
The former Senate President also mentioned that the
former Vice President, Namadi Sambo, was also aware that Jonathan was not strong in the North but
apparently had little to say in the campaign to re-elect
Jonathan.
“Some people were deceiving the president with the
kind of false scenarios they were painting for him. The
VP could see the conspiracy but I don’t know how
much influence he had on the campaign. Why Jonathan couldn’t see it until it was too late is what I find difficult to understand,” Mark pointed out.
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