Power shift: From Ota farm,Otuoke to Kaduna

Obasanjo and Buhari

Kaduna has become what former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Ota farm was since Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) became the country’s President-elect, writes FISAYO FALODI

Kaduna has become a Mecca of sort to politicians and other interested stakeholders who have been thronging the city to congratulate the President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Retd.), on his victory in the March 28 presidential election. Groups and other prominent individuals are not left out in showing their solidarity to the winner of the election described as fair and credible by observers, international and local.

Buhari, who defeated the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, was said to have started calling the shot from Kaduna in what pundits believed was a move to strategise on how to form the next government.

Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, is the seat of power, but it is believed that the country home of any President in office usually commands heavy traffic as people seeking one favour or the other throng the place. Buhari hails from Daura, Katsina State, but preferred to stay in his Kaduna home pending the May 29 inauguration of his government.

Sixteen years ago, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo, who was then a prominent farmer in Ota, Ogun State, had just returned from prison over a coup plot attempt against the military regime of Gen. Sani Abacha. He joined active politics to contest for the Presidency on the platform of the PDP in the 1999 general elections against Chief Olu Falae of the Alliance for Democracy.

Following his assumption of office as President, Obasanjo’s Ota home became a centre of attraction to politicians, members of the business community, traditional rulers, civil society and student groups, among others. This, experts said, was natural as people would gravitate towards any President or leader in power for myriads of reasons. While some will want to be around such a leader for appointments and political gains, others want to be seen as being friends of the President.

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As President between 1999 and 2003, Obasanjo was believed to have wielded a lot of influence and power at home and abroad. Obasanjo’s administration won the support of Western power for strengthening Nigeria’s renascent democracy. He also won international praise for the country’s role in crucial regional peacekeeping missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

He was re-elected in 2003 in a tumultuous election that was said to be characterised by violent ethnic and religious overtones. His main opponent, Buhari, who contested on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, challenged the outcome of the election in court, but lost the bid to have Obasanjo’s victory nullified.

Some of the achievements which endeared many to Obasanjo, according to experts, include increasing the country’s Gross Domestic Product by six per cent, helped partly by higher oil prices; ensuring that Nigeria’s foreign reserves rose from $2bn in 1999 to $43bn on leaving office in 2007; securing debt pardons from the Paris and London club amounting to about $18bn and paying another $18bn for the country to be debt free.

As the 2007 general elections were drawing nearer, politicians, who believed that Obasanjo could be very busy in Aso Rock, Abuja, increased their visits to Ota especially during weekends in order to get his blessing for the purpose of picking PDP tickets for elective offices.

Through Obasanjo’s firm grip on the PDP, a former Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, emerged as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2007 general elections, in spite of his poor health.

Yar’Adua’s victory in the poll shifted human traffic from Ota to Katsina. Politicians and contractors, who wanted to remain relevant in the scheme of things, turned their attention to Yar’Adua’s country home.

But Yar’ Adua had yet to spend the mandatory four years in office when power suddenly moved to Otuoke, Jonathan’s home in Bayelsa State, due to the then President’s poor health.

While Yar’Adua was seeking medical attention abroad and after many weeks of waiting for him to resume his official duty, the Senate adopted the doctrine of necessity, the extra-legal action, to save Nigeria from imminent crisis. The Senate’s action created the platform for Jonathan to become acting President, but Jonathan was sworn in as the substantive President on May 5, 2010 after Yar’Adua’s death.

Like he did for Yar’Adua, Obasanjo invested his energy in the emergence of Jonathan as the PDP presidential candidate in the April 16, 2011 presidential election, which he won against Buhari of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change.

The 2011 general elections were trailed by violence in which many people were killed and property valued at several billions of naira destroyed.

No sooner than Jonathan’s government was inaugurated that Otuoke became the beautiful bride of construction firms and interest groups that wanted to remain the friends of the government.

A construction giant, Gitto Construzioni Generali Nigeria Limited, which felt that an old church building in Otuoke was not befitting of a President’s village, seized the initiative to cement its relationship with Jonathan by building a new 2,500-seat church in the town.

Though seen by some people as bribe, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Reuben Abati, said that the church gift was part of the Corporate Social Responsibilities of the construction firm.

“A contractor who has worked and continues to work in Bayelsa State and other parts of Nigeria thought it fit, in fulfillment of its corporate social responsibility, to facilitate the renovation of the small church in the President’s home town of Otuoke,” Abati had said,

President Jonathan lost his re-election bid to Buhari in the March 28 presidential election.

As usual, Buhari’s victory in the poll has now shifted the people’s attention to Kaduna, where he has been receiving eminent visitors.

The journey that necessitated the power shift to Kaduna started last year when the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ANPP, CPC and a section of the All Progressive Grand Alliance merged to form the All Progressives Congress, the party on which platform Buhari won the last presidential poll.

While political pundits believe that Buhari is in Kaduna to prepare for the inauguration of his administration holding on May 29, friends, politicians and stakeholders, including top businessmen, religious leaders and diplomats from within and outside the country have been thronging the city to congratulate him and also discuss critical issues that border on the continent.

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Representatives in West and Central Africa, Mohammed Ibn Chambas and Prof. Abdoulaye Bathily, were said to have visited Buhari in Kaduna where they discussed the threat of Boko Haram insurgency.

Early in the week, Obasanjo and President of Ivory Coast, Alassan Quattara, also met with the President-elect. Though details were not made available, Obasanjo’s meeting with Buhari was said to have lasted for several hours at a private residence in Unguwar Rimi, Kaduna. But Quattara said his visit to the President-elect was mainly to congratulate him on his victory. He also promised that his country and Nigeria would work hand in hand to ensure stronger integration of West African region.

For Buhari to succeed in his yet to be inaugurated administration, observers are, however, asking him to seize the opportunity created by the visit to ask questions on competent and technocrats he might appoint as ministers.

The convener of Save Nigeria Group and founder of Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, asked the President-elect to shun issues such as zoning and religion if the right people must emerge.

Bakare, who spoke at the Wema Bank 70th commemorative lecture in Lagos early in the week, said, “We just have to wait for few weeks to see how things would go. I pray that the north that has been out of power for some time will not say, ‘now it is our turn,’ whether we would see round pegs in square holes and begin to attract incompetent people. The most competent, the fittest and people with capacity and ideas should be the ones to go for.

“It would look beautiful to put things together if you have the mind to do it and if you have the right people to occupy these places, regardless of their religion, regardless of their agenda and what part of the country they are from, as long as they are able to deliver what would bring us out of this backwardness.”

A social commentator, Mr. Dare Adeiya, could not agree less with Bakare. He told Saturday PUNCH that Nigerians would want Buhari to hit the ground running shortly after the inauguration of his government on May 29.

Adeiya said, “Buhari may have promised Nigerians many things, including total eradication of poverty in the land, but he should pick those that are most pressing among them for implementation. Youth unemployment and building of infrastructure demand urgent attention.

“In fact, I am expecting him to use the few weeks he has before the inauguration to consult with relevant people and organisations so as to ask questions about those he will appoint as ministers and advisers in his forthcoming administration.

“The President-elect can, as well, seek advice from some of the people that have been visiting him in Kaduna on how to move Nigeria forward.”

A lecturer with the Department of Local Government Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Francis Fagbohun, described the frequent visit to Buhari as normal things, but asked the President-elect to sieve good materials from pretenders.

He said, “Now that the President-elect has become the bride that every politician would want to associate, he should resist the urge to surround himself with those that will not tell him the truth. Buhari is a leader of all, but he needs to scrutinise very well, especially when appointing his ministers. He needs people who are nationalistic in their thinking, not those with parochial interest.”