Obasanjo's Squad Will Derail Jonathan's Presidency If He Fails To Fight Back - Chido Nwangwu

Based on Obasanjo’s military antecedents, power attitude and drawing from my reading
of his history as a leader, he will Not — for lack of a better word — “forgive” Jonathan despite his references to God and Christ, and to the great Nelson Mandela the same week as
a forgiving leader.

To be sure, Obasanjo does
not have the forgiving spirit of Mandela….http://usafricaonline.com/2013/12/19/why-president-jonathan-should-fight...USAfrica, December 19, 2013: To fully make sense of Obasanjo’s December 2, 2013 letter to Jonathan, you should follow the key point of my analytical deduction which I refer to as
Obasanjo’s unspoken historical burden; namely, for the 3 times where he exercised partisan power and influence in Nigeria’s presidential election history, he has faced unpleasant twists, unexpected and
unsatisfactory outcomes: 1979 (he supported Alhaji Shehu Shagari, NPN, removed in a military coup in 1983); 2007 (he personally
picked an ill Alhaji Umar Yar’Adua, PDP, who died after 3 years of ineffective presidency as
the 13th Head of State on May 5, 2010) and he also picked Yar’Adua’s VP, Goodluck Jonathan who became acting President on May 6.  On April 18, 2011, he was declared
winner of the presidential election with the very active campaign support of Obasanjo.

But Obasanjo insists that Jonathan is not good enough and deserves the December 2 acidic, public denunciation of his presidency
and worse, of this same man who has been, according to my key sources in the presidency
in Abuja, very respectful and deferential toward Obasanjo.

Based on Obasanjo’s military antecedents, power attitude and drawing from my reading of his history as a leader, he will Not — for
lack of a better word — “forgive” Jonathan despite his references to God and Christ, and to the great Nelson Mandela the same week as
a forgiving leader. To be sure Obasanjo does not have the forgiving spirit of Mandela…. (I’m
completing in February 2014, the book MANDELA: IMMORTAL ICON & The Power of Forgiveness. By Chido Nwangwu).

I’m not surprised at Obasanjo’s militaristic strategy of maximum assault and attack to severely damage his target.

No matter how finely presented the speeches he makes in the name of democracy, he’s a dyed-in-the-wool soldier for whom the opposition to his set goals no longer require philosophical exegesis and debates but the whiz-bang of ear-shattering confrontation fit for enemy combatants.

Hence,  I believe that Gen. Obasanjo’s caustic, open letter was
calibrated to belittle the credibility of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria and severely advertise his lack of
personal respect for the same Nigerian leader Dr. Jonathan. And, he makes it clear that he does not have to respect the man or his
presidency!

As a student of politics Nigeriana and analyst of the various emanations and power plays by
Obasanjo I’m not surprised that he’s going for Jonathan’s jugular. Obasanjo fights to the
finish! The good thing about his fighting you
in politics is that you will know.
But, somehow, Jonathan’s handlers and
strategists are yet to show an effective, better
grasp of the unfolding events and, realistically
and without sentiments , “engage” Obasanjo
& Co.

Otherwise, the man who has the most to lose,
President Jonathan, should, operationally,
awaken to the unfolding strategic goal of the
letter from former President Obasanjo: a
forced, embarrassing end to the Jonathan
presidency!

There are, mainly, three sets of reactions to
the harsh, condescending, caustic and in
some cases brutally frank letter of December
2, 2013, to Nigeria’s President Goodluck
Jonathan from his “political godfather”,
former President retired General Olusegun
Obasanjo.

The first group of Nigerians dismisses
everything said and written by Obasanjo as
utter “nonsense”, total “bunkum”, possibly
good advice coming from the “wrong source”
and, lest we forget, from “a shameless
hypocrite.” Worse things and poisonous
adjectival arrows have been deployed by the
trumpeters for Jonathan to aim at the medulla
oblongata of the former army officer who,
himself, categorizes politics in the language of
war and martial brutality led by garrison
commanders! Obasanjo has since the
December 10, 2013, deliberate leak of the
letter faced a media barrage and assault by
Jonathan’s garrison commanders. To boot,
since Obasanjo, they say, “loves to write open
letters”, one letter with a truck load of insults
was fluently “forged” with his famous
daughter Iyabo’s name appended as the
author of the most comprehensive and
contextual letter of insults from a daughter to
her father.

The second group are the Nigerians who insist
that Obasanjo hit the name on the head; they
add he has done President Jonathan a wake
up favour by running a laundry list of
Jonathan’s failings and alleged inadequacies.
These Nigerians add that Obasanjo deserves
another level of respect for speaking up and
sharing with Nigerians what he now, really,
thinks about the man he hand-picked as
Nigeria’s vice President and my key sources
informed me he affirmed to be elevated as
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of
Nigeria.

These Nigerians say that Obasanjo is accurate
in assessing Jonathan’s presidency as a
failure which should get out of the way for
peace and security to emerge. And, for effect,
Obasanjo “cautions” Jonathan that he
personally copied some influential retired
Generals — especially the crafty power player
Ibrahim Babangida.
The extreme elements and beneficiaries of the
Obasanjo tenures (1976-1979) and
(1999-2007) in this group shout, hoarily and
foolishly, that “only Baba Obasanjo knows
how to rule this Nigeria” and spread other
psycho-political pathologies.

The third group of Nigerians — who might be
the majority — point out there are some
reasonable deductions from the two previous
groups/positions. They argue that Jonathan
is doing his best, yet he is complacent and
should do more especially on corruption.
Consequently, I think that Jonathan should
digest Obasanjo’s letter and harness the
meaningful aspects of his message and
discard the boatload of serial insults, unusual
condescension to a sitting president and the
slap on Ijaw peoples’ right to rally around their
first son. Although, some of the
spokespersons for Ijaw interests use the
language of power politics in vernacular and
without adequate discretion.
Jonathan should call a very small meeting of
effective men and women (from within and
outside government) with one request: how do
I save my presidency to make Nigeria better
for all?

He should demand optimal performance from
all his ministers, set a firm deadline for
verifiable results — in the same way Lagos
Governor Fashola’s results are evident — or
such minister(s) get sacked before May 2014.
Besides Obasanjo’s open warfare, the
opposition is gaining major grounds against
Jonathan. Especially, taking cognizance of
their December 17, 2013, over-turning of
Jonathan’s ruling PDP majority in Nigeria’s
House of Representatives into the APC’s
advantage via defections.
On balance, the trillion dollar question is
simple: is it too late to rescue the Jonathan
presidency from the combined onslaught of
the Obasanjo squad and the assorted
maneuvers of the opposition All Progressives
Congress (APC)?
The answer is blowing in the wind….
•Dr. Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of
Houston-based USAfrica multimedia networks.
Follow him on Twitter @Chido247
The views expressed in this article are the
author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the
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