Presidency’s Dilemma Over Nwabueze’s Remark, Atiku’s Shocker

It is not news any more that the erudite professor and  expert on constitutional law, Ben Nwabueze (SAN), came visiting Aso Rock last week with his colleagues in the Patriots to confer with President Goodluck Jonathan on how to chat a new course for the country. The outcome of that visit shook the political scene and pundits of Nigerian political equation say its memory will remain fresh like wind in the minds of many Nigerians. Right inside the Presidential Villa, the legal luminary spoke categorically, advising the president not to contest the 2015 presidential election if he wanted to occupy an enviable place in the history of the country.

“I still believe that the problem of this country is national transformation. You can’t combine national transformation with contesting election. The two are so different because once you get involved in election campaigns, you undermine your authority to lead the nation for national transformation, and I said if I were the president of Nigeria, I would restrict myself to serving the nation, transforming the country in creating a new Nigeria, in creating a new society”, Nwabueze had stated when he addressed State House correspondents after group, the Patriots had met with the president. For avoidance of doubt, however, he made it clear that President Jonathan is eligible to seek re-election but said it was up to him (president) to choose between the two options. If he was in Jonathan’s position, he said he would decline to contest the 2015 election, pointing out that the president would become an instant hero if he restricted himself to national transformation.

As clear as that admonition appeared, some people are asking questions about the ‘true’ motive of the former minister of education. You may ask, what is it in such a lucid enjoinder by a prominent citizen of a country to his president that is not clear? What is the difficulty in understanding the simple truth that Jonathan would indeed become a hero should he announce to the nation today that the 2015 presidential election is not for him afterall? His popularity will instantly increase more than 100 fold and he will be placed well and above many of the nation’s leaders before him.

The Prof. may be right; his estimation is indeed the public perception in this part of the globe where leaders (African leaders) are notorious for their penchant to cling to power at all cost. But in our kind of politics, in which the survival of the fittest is the law is more of the norm and where comments and opinions are guarded in order not to be misinterpreted, misconstrued and then misrepresented and of course victimised, Nwabueze may have stared the hornet nest.

Worst still, in a political topography where a visible line drawn between two political camps- the ruling party and the opposition- the professor’s pronouncement may have also given credence to the political propaganda of one camp to the detriment of the other. The thinking is that, telling President Jonathan not to contest could be easily misinterpreted to mean what he did not mean, which could be paying off for the opposition.

Another fear from the camp of the ruling party about Nwabueze’s position is that, barely a week after he asked the president not to contest, his client, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar led seven governors of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to stage a walk out on the party’s special convention at the Eagle Square. Recall that Nwabueze was Atiku’s lead counsel at a time and this line of thinking would be understood. He led about 25 other senior advocates of Nigeria (SANs) to fight Atiku’s political battles against former President Olusegun Obasanjo via the court. For President Jonathan’s men, Nwabueze may be playing the script of Atiku, his political associate as well as client.

And to demonstrate how anything relating to Atiku is handled with the utmost suspicion in the country’s political arena, Obasanjo who was absent at the PDP’s convention quickly went to the Presidential Villa to pledge loyalty to his political godson who not too long ago was purported to be maintaining a frosty relationship with him. For the Ota farmer, the worst sins of Jonathan could be condoned, far better than the best of a repentant Atiku. Obasanjo may have developed goose pimples when he heard of how Atiku took off with seven governors of the PDP to form a parallel PDP within the party. He may have reasoned that this ‘traitor’ called Turakin Adamawa is at it again.

On Sunday, Obasanjo had first met behind closed doors with Jonathan for close to two hours in his official residenc before the president proceeded to meet with about 18 of the PDP governors, including four of the seven governors that formed the splinter group called the “New PDP”. Some observers suspect that Obasanjo may have facilitated the meeting between President Jonathan and the party leadership on one hand and the PDP governors on the other, all in a bid to bring the faction back under the torn umbrella of the ruling party.

The Presidency too has said it is still on the drawing board, trying to farthom the correlation between Nwabueze’s comment and Atiku’s action. A source in Aso Rock told LEADERSHIP that the Presidency believes strongly that these two political characters can’t be acting in isolation given their relationship as associates. To this effect, the Specially Adviser on Political Matters to the President, Ahmed Gulak on Monday said, “I am surprised because Atiku is supposed to know more than another person that there is no party like PDP. He left PDP and went to ACN and he came back to PDP, because he discovered that outside PDP there is no party. So, he had to come back and he was even given the waiver to contest the primaries election in 2011. Atiku should be grateful to PDP. Atiku is indebted to PDP and the best way to continue to pay the debt is to protect PDP”.

On Nwabueze’s comment, Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue said the pronouncement was baseless and unsolicited. Wondering what informed Nwabueze’s opinion that the president shouldn’t contest, he said, “constitutionally, the president has the right to contest; and so, I don’t know what laws anybody could use to disturb him from contesting if he wishes to do so. I don’t know of any reason Nwabueze gave, whether it is based on the constitution or it is based on any other law. But you know that the constitution is the grand norm of the country. So, the constitution overrides any other law. I don’t think there is an issue with that. If the president decides to contest, he has the constitutional right to do so and legitimately he will do so”.

Bayelsa State governor, Seriake Dickson also waded into the laboratory of this disputation when he also described Nwabueze’s pronouncement as unsolicited. He said “the unsolicited comment by Prof. Nwabueze, which he is very well entitled to are, of course what they are- some personal views and opinion. But let me quickly say that those views, however, well intended are premature; firstly because the president for now has not expressed an intention to re-contest.

“But I am very happy that the erudite Prof. acknowledged the president’s legal right and constitutional liberty to re-contest if he so wishes. But having said that, ultimately in the end, the decision whether or not to contest is that of the president. If you ask me my own views as to whether he should or shouldn’t contest, I can venture an opinion even though it is premature for now. I believe that the president is concentrating sufficiently on the transformation agenda based upon which he was elected. The country is steadily changing for good. All sectors of our nation’s life are receiving due and proper attention and the signs are there.