Atiku, please don’t betray us

By Ilobi Austin

Two very significant–programmed or otherwise, events happened in the country: Nigeria; in the week that Mr. Obama assumed office as the leader of the free world, which quickly took the historical event out of the front burner and returned us to our existential reality: that we have no inheritance whatsoever in the kingdom of America, our feverish support, notwithstanding.

It seems that for the government, to cure us of our addiction to everything Obama and end the incessant contrast between our home-made democracy, which works to answers and theirs and which, since the election of Prof. Atta Mills as president in “ordinary Ghana” never seems to end without somebody throwing into the mix, something from the Ghana end, it was necessary to announce a five naira discount from the price of petrol while leaving kerosene and diesel out! The effect of this has been, resounding. At least the debate in the street is no longer about Obama but the correctness of five naira for a product that have shaved off over a hundred dollar from it going price.

But the one that really rattled the political class was the reported visit of the former amiable vice president, Atiku Abubakar to his former traducer, Chief Obasanjo, for the purpose of a so-called reconciliation engineered by some faceless “big people” who were working hand in glove with Oyinlola to end the so called hostilities between both men.

But a mind tells me that my former vice president is not telling me and the rest of his supporters, the whole truth. Note that these same influential people that have been made to take the credit or blame for hypnotizing him into sleep-walking his way into Ota farm could not get him to withdraw his lawsuit against the sitting president, no doubt, a much more important and nation saving enterprise than even a bloody war with the old man. Verdict! The story does not sell with us-it is not a hard sell in any way, but a no sell.

It is a no sell because majority, beyond the injunction of the different religion that both men professes- love, sees virtually no profit in it for him that they can place their fingers on and it is very doubtful if a man with the kind of buccaneering spirit found in Obasanjo can subject himself to any form of external commandment that is not made in his own image and likeness when till date, he has kept his “enemies” from his past as just that and according to his first wife, even sort to roundly humiliate some of them by attempting to fish in their pound.

And to be sure, none of these enemies for life of President Obasanjo, a proven connoisseur in the business of paying off old debt, caused him the lose of something as important as the leadership of Nigeria. So, what would make him exempt the man that caused him this priceless position not too long ago?

For those of us with ear to the ground, the story we hear has nothing to do with future elections, because most ordinary people, drawing from their previous experience, believes that that is already in the bag for the Peoples Democratic Party, but that the reconciliation is needed for the purpose of withdrawing and sharing some jointly owned assets stashed somewhere that cannot be appropriated without the consent of the other.

This angle from the street I have dismissed not because I know Turakin very well but judging from the ferocity with which he was hounded by Obasanjo during his murderous reign, such arrangement would have been invaluable in doing in Atiku. All it would have required would have been a simple editing of the facts to suit the purpose.

Whatever made the reconciliation imperative, the people of Nigeria hopes it does not include any plan to distract the current administration, it mediocre performance notwithstanding. But by way of reminder, let him remember that the man he has gone ahead unilaterally to square off with did the same thing with the late Dr. Okadigbo, Chief Ogbe, Ibori, and yet, nothing but more trouble came out of it.

And it will be too soon, too much and too commonplace, after the former governor of Abia state blew both hot and cold on the same man by misleading us that he was fighting to get him out of the presidency only to turn around and vote for him during their party convention, leaving Ibori in the cold. There must be some body whose words and principles must not be dictated by the events of the time. Atiku, please be that person. You have already started it.

ilobi Austin writes from warri. visit Newsroom for more articles