Obasanjo Had No Succession Plan — Atiku

CHUKS OHUEGBE

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar yesterday faulted the claim of former President Olusegun Obasanjo that he was not suitable to succeed him as president in 2007, saying that Obasanjo had no succession plan.

Abubakar also said that the former president wanted to be the Robert Mugabe of Nigeria, if his third term bid had succeeded.

Atiku accused Obasanjo of imposing a crisis-prone last- minute succession by bringing in a “medically challenged Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to succeed him as a means of punishing Nigerians for rejecting his life presidency ambition”.
He added that Obasanjo’s allegations were diversionary, noting that he was “unbelievably shocked by the distortion of truth by Obasanjo who is supposed to speak honestly like a statesman”.
Atiku served as the vice-president in the Obasanjo presidency that spanned 1999 to 2007.

In spite of denials from Obasanjo that he never wanted to succeed himself in office in 2007, a recent book entitled “No Higher Honour” by former United States of America secretary of state Ms. Condoleeza Rice quotes Obasanjo to have lobbied former President Bush of the US for support in his third term bid, which the book says Bush advised against

The former US secretary of state was quoted on page 638 of her memoir as saying ,“In 2006 when President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria sidled up to President Bush and suggested that he (Obasanjo) might change the constitution so that he could serve a third term, President Bush told him not to do it.” In Bush’s words “You have served your country well. Now turn over power and become a statesman.”

But Obasanjo told a national newspaper over the weekend that his former deputy (Atiku) destroyed his own chances of succeeding him in 2007. He said that Atiku was unreliable and lacked the vision, orientation and experience to step into his shoes.

Reacting to these allegations, however, the former vice-president said his problems with Obasanjo had nothing to do with these charges. Instead, Atiku recalled, his opposition to Obasanjo’s third term ambition was the beginning of his travails.

Atiku maintained that Obasanjo had no succession plan from day one, and that he wanted to be Nigeria’s Robert Mugabe.

The former vice-president also accused Obasanjo of handing over power to the late Yar’Adua reluctantly as a face-saving measure following the collapse of his third term ambition on the floor of the Senate on May 16, 2006.

The Turaki Adamawa explained that he opposed tenure elongation of Obasanjo on the grounds that the constitution should not be amended for the sake of granting one man’s life term ambition rather than public interest. On the claim by Obasanjo that he didn’t discuss third term ambition with anybody, Atiku recalled that the former President sent two senior cabinet ministers to him to deliberate on a draft constitution.

Curiously, Atiku said, the draft was silent on term limit, which made him smell a rat and that his courage to confront Obasanjo over this controversial plan was the beginning of his troubles with his former boss and the subsequent plots to frustrate his ambition to become president.

Atiku praised Nigeria’s past leaders including General Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, statesmen, legislators, past chief justices and the media for coming together to pull Nigeria from the brink and ensuring an orderly succession to the presidency by the then vice-president, Dr. Jonathan Goodluck.

“Without this, Nigeria would have been plunged into yet another major crisis arising from the actions of one man,” Atiku said.

On the allegations of incompetence and unreliability made against him by Obasanjo, former Vice President Atiku said Obasanjo is the last person to lecture any Nigerian on reliability.

With the recent revelations by former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, Atiku  advised his former boss to defend himself on this latest moral challenge to his reputation before he could question the reliability of others.

Atiku also dismissed as preposterous the allegation against him by Obasanjo that he is inexperienced. He challenged Obasanjo to disclose any responsibility or task that he assigned to him while in office, which he didn’t discharge competently.

Rather than losing his head to underserved flattering newspaper attention, Atiku said Obasanjo should apologize to Nigerians for dragging our politics into disrepute because of his disregard for fair play or the basic rules of democracy.

He accused Obasanjo of being obsessed with the myth of indispensability and the false notion of being the cleanest person. According to Atiku, even President Jonathan and the late Umaru Yar’Adua are not safe from Obasanjo’s self-righteous attacks on other leaders.
 Leadership