Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo will officially be 80 in March and there are many
who think he is hyperactive for his age. He is probably one of the busiest
former
presidents with a schedule that combines half a dozen foreign travels
each month with countless domestic trips filled with meetings, speeches and
plenty of mischief in between.
He has
visited President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Rock four times and I know a
publisher who has threatened to carry a placard on Obasanjo’s fifth visit –
that is, if he even gets to hear of it.
Like him or
hate him, you ignore Obasanjo at your peril. What he says is just about a good
political bellwether as when he says it. Every president from General Ibrahim
Babangida to former President Goodluck Jonathan carries Obasanjo’s stripe in
his butt. Buhari’s may just have been delivered: When Obasanjo asked the Igbo
to run for the presidency in 2019, I asked myself where that was coming from.
It wasn’t as if he was hosting Ohanaeze or the association of Igbo traders in
Ogun State and needed to say something to please them. He was not even on a
visit to any South East state. He was hosting the Ogun State chapter of the
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Abeokuta. Pitching for an Igbo
presidency when Obasanjo, a regular visitor to Aso Rock, knew that Buhari was
just approaching midterm, seemed awkward. What does Obasanjo know? I began to
connect the dots. Just a few days earlier, Buhari had travelled abroad on
“medical checkup” and annual vacation. The circumstances of his trip were
rather unusual. In a news report announcing the trip, for example, Vanguard of
January 19, 2017, reported that “the President had since the week been
performing the functions of his office mostly at his official residence located
within the precincts of the Presidential Villa, rarely spending dutiful hours in
the office.” Governor Ben Ayade of Cross Rivers, who visited the week the
President travelled didn’t know where Buhari was when he arrived at the Villa.
He thought the president was in the office only to be turned back at the office
gate and directed to his residence. Was it likely that Obasanjo knew more than
he was letting on when he advised visitors from CAN led by Bishop Tunde
Akin-Akinsanya that Igbos should prepare for 2019 one week after Buhari
travelled on health grounds? Things became even more complicated after the
Presidency issued a statement to explain why Buhari would no longer return
after ten days (not counting weekends) as had been earlier announced. And I’m
not necessarily talking about Buhari’s death rumour or Obasanjo’s claim that he
had been a victim of such rumours at least 12 times. I’m talking about the
contest between the president’s right to privacy and the public’s right to
know. In an attempt to manage a delicate situation by saying as little as
possible on why Buhari could not return on Sunday, the Presidency committed
several blunders. What was the point in saying Buhari was held back by “a
cycle” of further tests after ten days when any adult, especially above the age
of 50, who has ever reported ill to a hospital knows that ticking off a cache
of tests and receiving information about when the results would be available
are among the first things provided after admission? Long before the president
travelled, pictures of him in the press said more than a thousand words, so why
frame him as a modern day Eisenhower? Why give the impression that the
president was in Nigeria House, putting his feet up and having photo ops with
special guests from Nigeria and yet he was too busy to wave at scores of
ordinary Nigerians who were dying to hear his voice just outside the door?
Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, is right that Buhari is a victim of his
transparency. It was precisely because of his credentials as an honest man who
means well for the country that he was voted to power. He symbolises a
different approach to governance and was not shy to speak his mind
occasionally. In March 2010, after late President Umaru Yar’Adua had been
hidden from the public for nearly three months, for example, Buhari rebuked the
Federal Executive Council for failing to initiate Yar’Adua’s impeachment on
grounds of incapacitation. Of course it’s a stretch to compare Buhari’s health
status with Yar’Adua’s at this time, but the cat-and-mouse game over his health
status has not done his anti-corruption posture and moral stature any good.
Even if he returns by the next flight – and we pray he does hale and hearty –
his reputation has taken a major blow from the mishandling of his medical
leave. When Buhari was voted to power nearly two years ago, voters knew as damn
well as the candidate did, that at 74, age had taken its toll and managing his
health was going to be a concern. Yet, he won. Voters preferred him to a
younger opponent who seemed incapable of doinig the job even if he was 20 years
younger. A presidential source has said what is happening today is a long shot
from what happened to Yar’Adua. We hope and pray so, not just for the sake of
the president but also for the sake of the country, which we love. One Yar’Adua
era trauma is enough But the present auguries
are a needless reminder of that best forgotten era. When we hear things like,
“I speak with my brother everyday,” “the president is hale and hearty,” “I’m in
touch with Buhari’s doctor,” “the president is waiting for one more test
result,” and yet not a word from the man himself, that is disturbing. And then,
to complicate matters, Obasanjo on the eve of his 80th birthday and formal
opening of his presidential library, makes a pitch for an Igbo president. I
don’t like the smell of this coffee: It’s an inconceivable contradiction that a
president who ran on a ticket of openness and transparency should be hidden
indefinitely behind the veil of an ailment he did not bring upon himself. And
the only government work these days is how to manage an open secret –
containing what most people think they know Obasanjo knows about Buhari. What
is going on?
Azu Ishiekwene is the MD/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview and
board member of the Paris-based Global Editors Network
*Vanguardngr*
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