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UK report wants Obasanjo to quit
By Felix Ofou
Group Politics Editor
London has teamed up with Washington and other champions of democracy in Nigeria and elsewhere to tug at the conscience of President Olusegun Obasanjo to leave office honourably in 2007.
Despite the rapport between the President and British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, there are indications that Downing Street would not support attempts to prolong his tenure.
It is the same stand taken by United States President, George Bush.
It also gels with the views of indigenous human rights activists such as Wole Soyinka, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana and social critics Abubakar Umar and Balarabe Musa.
All are up in arms against extending Obasanjo’s tenancy in Aso Rock for whatever reason.
The resolve of Britain not to back his alleged third term bid is probably based on a security report compiled by Whitehall (the centre of the British Government) on Nigeria for the attention of Blair and Queen Elizabeth of England.
Three key government departments – the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development (DFID) compiled the report.
It advised that Britain should focus on strengthening democratic institutions in Africa’s most populous country rather than base its hopes and focus on an individual; a development it feared, may give impetus to thoughts of an extension of Obasanjo’s term beyond 2007.
The report, dated June 2005, is titled “Nigeria: A Whitehall Strategy”. It is 16 pages long.
It cautioned Britain on its relationship with Obasanjo as an individual, saying to continue to do so may be fatal to its long term interest. It sought immediate change in strategy.
“Our engagement with Nigeria at present is highly personalised around Obasanjo. Yet his second term comes to an end in 2007, and it would arguably be bad for governance in Africa and bad for Obasanjo if he changed the Constitution to stand for a third term”, the authors stressed.
“That said, it must be (government) policy to support Nigerian policies rather than individuals and our focus must therefore be on sustaining Obasanjo’s legacy rather than pinning all our hopes on him as an individual”.
Even as the President has said that he would not seek a third term, the report insisted that such a possibility could not entirely be ruled out, as prevailing conditions may make him change his mind.
“Obasanjo is in the last two years of his second four-year term. The main opposition party is deeply weakened. Obasanjo does not want to change the Constitution to run for a third term but might just be pressed into doing so in late 2006 as the lesser evil. We judge this unlikely, though possible”.
The report highlighted the role and achievements of Obasanjo in Africa.
“(His) influence across Africa, not least as Chairman of the African Union is benign. He was a star on Zimbabwe at CHOGM. He is active on Sudan. He personally reversed a coup in Sao Tome, and he stiffened other Africans to demand a recent return to constitutionality in Togo.
“He is a major supporter and partner in the Commission for Africa, and a founder member of NEPAD. Nigeria, with South Africa, is a serious candidate for an African permanent seat at the United Nations”.
But the Whitehall experts are unmoved by the tall credentials: “Despite Obasanjo’s evangelical tone, governance and accountability remain extremely poor in Nigeria, and corruption extremely strong. These sap the energy of both the Nigerian system and the efforts of individual Nigerian leaders”.
The report underscored the need to strengthen democratic structures in Nigeria ahead of the 2007 general elections.
“We should work with other donors to support better elections in 2007 and cultivate actively over the coming two years those who may be Obasanjo’s successor. We should use the UK development programme to continue to back the reform agenda, and the reformers at the national and state levels and try to build a broader constituency for reform”.
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