The political chase game has started once more in the wake of last Sunday’s meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The stakes are high; so high and fiercely contested. The hall is crowded, so crowded and so full of characters – great men and distinguished women; men of character and men of questionable means; charlatans and all manner of pretenders. The chessboard is no less rowdy, capricious and tempestuous as the gladiators each claim to have engendered the rapprochement between the two men and must therefore share the spoils of peace.
But as the race to take credit for the rapprochement rages on in various quarters, Huhuonline.com can authoritatively report that the cease fire was initiated by the wife of the President, Dame Patience Jonathan and the daughter of the former president. It was facilitated by a member of Jonathan`s inner circle, who has the President’s ear. Although the public presence of the Chairman, Zenon Oil and Gas, Mr. Femi Otedola, at the meetings is suggestive of his involvement, the game of politics is played more by unseen hands than seen hands. It is the battle of the spirits and the willing.
In the wake of recriminations between Jonathan and Obasanjo that had degenerated into a public circus, Patience Jonathan, in the company of a close Jonathan relation took the opportunity of an impromptu meeting with one of Obasanjo’s daughters in Lagos to seek ways of ending the schism that had generated so much bad blood between her husband and his erstwhile predecessor.
A close presidential source who was privy to the negotiations told Huhuonline.com that it was at that informal meeting that Patience Jonathan expressed the desire to meet with Obasanjo and requested for an audience with OBJ in his farm residence in Otta. But after concertation, the former President whose itinerary coincided with a trip to Lagos said he was disposed to meeting the First Lady in Lagos.
Subsequently, the First Lady and the President`s close confidante met with Baba at a house in Marina. At this meeting, Patience Jonathan is said to have genuflected and held Obasanjo’s toga as a sign of respect and difference, pleading with Baba that Jonathan was his (Baba’s) son; and that Jonathan owes everything from being Bayelsa State Governor, vice-President of the Federal Republic and finally President, to Obasanjo. She admonished Baba to absolve her husband of whatever transgression he might have committed to have invited Baba’s anger.
In his down-to-earth and manner of fact way, Obasanjo without mincing words, reportedly told the First Lady that her husband has turned the Presidency to a laughing stock, and has failed to discipline either his staffs or the ministers. The source who attended the Lagos meeting, quoted Obasanjo as describing the Presidents staffs as “a bunch of idiots” who are only interested in primitive material accumulation and self-aggrandizement. The former president said, the current set of ministers were “jokers” and concluded by saying if this is how Jonathan wants to continue to run Nigeria, he (Jonathan) is on his own; and he was not ready to stand with him in 2015. Baba reportedly expressed bitter disappointment that Jonathan has flooded his cabinet only with his personal friends, most of whom were appointed “for old times’ sake” and really do not care about Jonathan’s transformation agenda. Baba however added that he will stop balking at the President, if he gets his act together.
On a personal level, Obasanjo was also reportedly miffed at attempts by Jonathan to render him politically irrelevant by kicking him out of the PDP. Observers are quick to point to the fact that Baba’s daughter; Iyabo Obasanjo was not allowed to retain her Senate seat and she became the target of criminal investigations and a police manhunt, which embarrassed the former president. Worse even, to ridicule Baba, the PDP was made to lose in Obasanjo’s ward during the Presidential elections, although Jonathan won Ogun State. For someone like Jonathan who owed everything he’s got to Obasanjo, “this was a mark of contempt and disrespect which Baba could no longer tolerate,” the source added.
Upon relating Obasanjo’s grievances and terms for cessation of verbal attacks to President Jonathan, GEJ summoned a meeting of his closest aides, including his chief of staff, principal secretary, chief security officer and his brother. After reviewing the situation, Jonathan and his aides opted to make peace. It was also at this meeting that it was agreed that a church service would be the most ideal venue to bury the hatchet.
From what has been reported so far, Baba, accompanied by his two daughters and son, Juwon, drove together with oil magnate, Chief Femi Otedola from the Hilton hotel to the Presidency where Obasanjo and Jonathan attended mass at the State House Aso Rock Chapel and as a sign of the fence-mending between the two leaders; Obasanjo took the second reading at the church service. Obasanjo later accompanied Jonathan to the Sunday school and had lunch with the President before leaving the Villa later in the afternoon, with Jonathan seeing him off in his car.
Although nothing officially filtered from the meeting, indices from Aso Rock and Jonathan’s body language indicated to political watchers that the President has lost the battle in the ongoing power tussle within the ruling Peoples Democratic party (PDP) and decided to sue for peace. But by accepting to make peace with Baba on the latter’s terms, Jonathan secured Obasanjo’s badly needed support for his ambitions for 2015.
Huhuonline.com understands that Baba extracted concessions from Jonathan to give him unfettered access and control of the ruling PDP party machinery which he had controlled, first as president and later PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman in exchange for his silence. Little surprise therefore that a day after their meeting, OBJ went on the offensive getting the chairmen of the 37 PDP state chapters, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to take sides with the 23 governors’ stance that Mijinjiwa Kauguma be retained as chairman of the Adamawa PDP. Meeting in Abuja, Monday under the chairman of the forum of state chairmen, the chairmen unequivocally backed the action of the governors endorsed by 10 members of the National Working Committee as the only way to maintain peace in PDP.
The PDP national chairman Alhadji Bamangar Tukur, ostensibly with Jonathan’s support, had earlier inspired a move dismissing the Adamawa state chairman; provoking a crisis that led to a stalemate in the election of a new BoT chairman to replace OBJ. But the PDP governors mobilized 10 NWC members, including the embattled national secretary, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to overturn the party’s earlier decision recognizing Ambassador Umar Damagun as chairman of the state chapter.
OBJ is also said to have advised Jonathan to purge his cabinet of non-performing Ministers with questionable loyalty to the President. To which end, Jonathan proceeded on Monday to swear in two ministers but failed to announce the portfolios the duo of Prof. Chinedu Nebo (Enugu) and Alhaji Kabiru Turaki (Kebbi) will oversee. The delay in announcing the portfolios for the two ministers who are coming in as replacements for the former Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, and former Minister of Defence, Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed, strengthened speculations of an imminent cabinet reshuffle that will see some ministers swapping positions.
Jonathan, after the swearing-in of the two ministers, directed the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, to assign portfolios to the new ministers. Huhuonline.com however learnt that the president, who is scheduled to leave the country today for the United Kingdom and France, was yet to issue a directive to the SGF on which portfolios to assign both men.
The President on Tuesday night departed Abuja for London and Paris where he is expected to confer with the British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron and French President, Mr. Francois Hollande on matters of vital interest to Nigeria, Britain and France.
A statement by Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati indicated that the talks with the British Prime Minister in London are expected to focus on the expansion of trade and economic relations between Nigeria and Britain as well as the enhancement of cooperation between both countries on the war against terrorism.
In Paris, President Jonathan will confer with President Hollande and French Government officials on the ongoing deployment of Nigerian and ECOWAS troops to Mali to support the current military action against insurgents and terrorists in Northern Mali.
On Friday, President Jonathan will be the guest of honor at a fund raising dinner gala organized by the Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation in Park Lane, London. A cross section of Nigeria’s economic and political glitterati are expected to join Obasanjo and Jonathan, as it marks the first public outing of the President and his predecessor, since the cease-fire.
“The special evening will bring together President Obasanjo’s closest friends and Foundation supporters for a gala dinner featuring the President and notable guests discussing the importance of the Foundation initiatives and building on the President’s heart-felt commitment to advance human security. All fundraising will go to supporting the Foundation initiatives of Feed Africa, Youth Empowerment, Education for Girls, and the Health initiative for non-communicable and water borne diseases,” according to a statement on the Foundation website.
