Obasanjo: Jonathan said he won’t run in 2015

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that President Goodluck Jonathan should not seek re-election in the 2015 presidential election because he voluntarily gave up the right to contest even before he was voted in for the first term.

In his newly released autobiography titled ‘My Watch’, Obasanjo recounted the horse-trading that made it possible for President Jonathan to get the broad-base support that earned him victory in the 2011 presidential election.

The book suggested that there is the danger that “the dust will not settle until the dramatis personae leave the stage”.

In the 56th chapter of the book, said to be written in the first quarter of 2014 before Jonathan declared his re-election bid, the former president said the incumbent president would mortally paint himself as an untrustworthy man if he sought to run for a second term.

Obasanjo wrote that most of the northern governors that he talked in the lead up to the 2011 polls pointed out that Jonathan wanted to pursue an agenda to satisfy himself and his immediate constituency. “But I was told by Governor Suswan that after talking to some of his colleagues in the North it would be easier for them to support Jonathan, on the condition of one term with the inherited mandate he had used.

“I was in Benue State to attend the marriage of one of my assistants, Vitalis Ortese, when Suswan gave me this information. I went to Jonathan to cross-check, and he told me that he was a strong believer in a oneterm president of six years. He enumerated its advantages as he saw them. He then said to me that by the time he would have completed four years of his own term, with the inherited mandate of Yar’Adua, he would have almost completed six years, which would be the idea he would like to promote.”

However, as at the first quarter of 2014, Obasanjo stated that “Yet, the signs and measures are unmistakably clear” that Jonathan would seek re-election.

“Let me at this juncture say that even if legally and constitutionally Jonathan could go for a second term, morally, ethically, he cannot because he voluntarily gave that up even before he was voted in for the first term. I hope he was not playing a game of deceit then. If he reneges, on whatever grounds, he would have mortally impaired himself as an untrustworthy man; deceitful, selfish, and unreliable, and who would say anything to achieve his interests. He would be a leader not to be trusted. Of what use will a leader be without the trust and confidence of his people?” he asked.

The former president gave the upsides for the country and for Jonathan should he stick to his promise not to run in the 2015 election. “He will then be seen as one on whom the nation can rely. By keeping his word, Jonathan would raise himself above the level of the pedestrian praise-singers and relations who by their actions, words and deeds have done him more harm than good. He may also be doing some good for the party, which he had not led too well or, better still, led into decay, division, disorganisation, and disrepute.”

He accused Jonathan of sacrificing party’s interest for personal gain, setting governors of the party against each other, supporting candidates of other parties against PDP candidates citing the governorship elections in Lagos, Edo and Ondo States as example.

Obasanjo further disclosed that the president was “harassing credible leaders of the party and seeking to replace them with criminals and dubious characters in order to further presidential interests.”

He said: “A political party, and its leadership, that condones corruption and engages discredited people to abuse and insult genuine, authentic and objective critics is a political party on the path of ruin and destruction.

“The leader must not only lead the party, but must be seen and understood to be leading the party against all other forces and tendencies. The situation where the president surreptitiously invited Bola Tinubu, lifting him at night by presidential aircraft from Lagos to Abuja to hatch a plan for Bola to support one PDP presidential candidate at the expense of all other PDP candidates for any office in Lagos, can only be described as obscene, unethical, corruption-ridden and a show of bad leadership.

“In Edo, Oshiomhole was adopted and supported against the PDP candidate. It was the same with Ondo where, in spite of the cloud of circumstances that surrounded Mimiko’s first election and which was revealed to the presidency and the attorney-general, nothing was done so as not to hurt Mimiko, whose services to hold Labour Party for the president had been signed, sealed and delivered.

“Others like Gbenga Daniel shouted from the rooftops to his supporters in Ogun State to abandon the political party, PPN, which he formed to fight for his successor-to-be, and join Labour Party, as he was instructed by the presidency, which was working on getting him out of EFCC corruption charges. At one time, but for the hue and cry, the presidency had instructed EFCC to remove a vital document in Gbenga Daniel’s file in their custody, to assist getting Gbenga Daniel off the hook.

“All these cases were reported to the president and were known to him; but because they involve the president’s interests, directly or indirectly, no action has been taken. As a leader, once you start to choose certain evils to deal with and others to condone you incapacitate your leadership,” he warned.

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