Four men were gathered around
the table, each of them reeking
of power, affluence and
influence.
“Gentlemen, I thank you for
coming to my meeting,”
President Goodluck Jonathan
said. “I know the notice was
short, but Patience insisted that I
should call you. And Oronto
agreed with her.”
Olusegun Obasanjo shuffled
impatiently in his seat, tossing
the bulbous left arm of his
agbada over his shoulder. “This
is what I don’t understand,” he
said in his accustomed drawl.
“Do you have to conduct the
affairs of State according to the
wishes of a woman?”
The other two men looked away
as Jonathan’s gaze of
embarrassment came around.
“No, Baba, she is more than a
woman. She is always right. She
is more of a man. I mean, she is
so intelligent she is now a
Permanent Secretary.”
As Obasanjo moved to say
something, Bamanga Tukur
cleared his throat. “Gentlemen,
the important thing is we are
here, to work in the best interest
of the party, to make sure we
don’t lose any ground to those
people who call themselves All
Progressives Congress. I have
promised to dribble them like
Messi, hahaha…” he laughed.
Obasanjo caught him off. “I was
wondering why you said that. I
know you were never a soldier.
But if your best weapon is a rifle,
do you broadcast that to the
opponent before the start of a
battle?”
“But the fear of Messi…”
“Messi, my foot! Why can’t you
wait until Messi has scored two
or three times? Or for eight or
nine years? Why did your Messi
not dribble in Edo State, where
we lost disastrously and a
common Labour leader made our
party look like Boy Scouts?”
That was when Tony Anenih
began to rise to his feet. “I knew
you were going to start attacking
me. I know you…”
Jonathan put his hand on that of
Anenih, who was sitting to his
right, restraining him. Anenih sat
down, but he continued to speak
across the table at Obasanjo. “I
knew you could not resist the
temptation to…”
Obasanjo burst into laughter. “I
was not even thinking about
you,” he said to Anenih,
gesturing towards Tukur. “I was
talking to Messi here. He wants to
dribble somebody, but he can
barely walk without help. Come
to think of you, where were you
two dribblers, Maradona and
Messi, when we were being
disgraced in Falklands…I mean,
Edo? And now you want a third
term!” He had turned to
Jonathan.
The three other men looked at
each other; then they glared at
Obasanjo. “Third term?” they
said in unison.
Then, Jonathan, by himself,
repeated: “Third term? You were
the one who wanted third term
in 1999!”
“That is not true,” Obasanjo
retorted, banging on the table.
“In 1999, I contested for my first
term. I know people doubt
whether you really have a Ph.D,
but sometimes I even doubt
whether you wrote your WAEC by
yourself: you speak a funny
English and reason like a market
woman.”
“Sorry Baba, I meant in 2006,”
Jonathan said, appearing to be
deep in thought.
“I said, ‘Not true!’ In 2006 I
merely expressed interest in the
extension of my ongoing term to
enable me finish some work.
That was no third term. I was not
going to run for another term.”
Jonathan’s brow appeared
tortured by thought. He was
grinding his teeth. “Okay,” he
said, finally. “But what were you
going to finish, Baba? I thought
you had done everything. You
gave contracts for roads and
agriculture and defence. You set
up EFCC. You helped Anenih with
his N300 billion problem. I think
you helped most Nigerians.”
Anenih’s eyes were blazing with
anger as he looked at Jonathan,
and once again he began to rise
from his seat. But Obasanjo
would not let him speak. “Yes,”
the former President said. “I did
help a lot of people in 2006,
especially you. I helped you after
the Joint Task Force
recommended you for
prosecution by the CCB for false
declaration of assets. But I pre-
empted that and made you Vice-
President!”
“But…!!!”
“But nothing!” Obasanjo
shouted. “You even recently said
you are struggling to build your
house in your village. All these
make you look bad, and make me
look terrible because when you
were indicted, the evidence
included choice property in
Yenagoa and Abuja, as well as a
lavish seven-bedroom duplex in
Otuoke as far back as 2001 that
we never took back from you.
How can you in 2013 as
President say you are struggling
to build a house in the same
village? Does the house include a
staircase to heaven?”
“Baba, it is just a…”
“You must understand why I am
angry. Last year, you said in an
interview, ‘When I hear people
saying corruption, corruption, I
shake my head…’ Do you think I
did not know you were talking
about me?”
Tukur, alarmed as the meeting
ran out of control, raised his
hand, like a kindergarten kid
about to ask a question in a
noisy class. But Obasanjo ignored
him.
“Look at the people you have
surrounded yourself with!” he
screamed, pointing at Tukur and
Anenih. “People like Doyin
Okupe,” he said. “You dig out
relics and make them kings. Can
Mr. Fix-It, who lost the election in
his own hometown, Uromi, to fix
a hole in his own pocket, talk less
of Abuja? The man has expired,
but first you make him chairman
of the Port Authority, and then of
the BoT. Why don’t you just make
him chairman of the
presidency?”
“I am the chairman of two
powerful offices because the
entire country trusts me and is
depending on me!” Anenih said,
scratching his head.
“They trust you? Name one
person who trusts you…and do
not mention Josephine, because I
will call her right now!”
Anenih was struggling with his
temper. “You cannot telephone
my wife,” he grumbled, his voice
dropping.
“Try me!” he challenged. “I can
even call Patience from here,
except that I do not understand
her English. You have to admit, all
of you, that in all those years it
was I who made the party and
the government workable and
feared. But now, nobody
respects us. And APC is coming
for us.”
The three other men exchanged
glances and spoke across the
table. “We respect you, Baba,”
they intoned. Of course we
respect you.”
And then Anenih found fresh
courage. “But you must respect
us too. We are not children.”
“Yes, nobody is a child,” Jonathan
said.
“Sometimes you are all worse
than children,” Obasanjo said.
“Chaos in the national chairman’s
home State. In Bayelsa, even the
president’s kinsmen are
criticizing him for granting
pardon to a man convicted for
corruption. And then you outdo
yourself by challenging the
Americans and the British to a
wrestling match!”
“But your own people in Ogun
criticized you too,” Jonathan said.
“Your daughter jumped a fence
running from EFCC. You lost
elections.”
“Yes. But I never scored an own
goal. And my team never lost
when I was on the pitch. You
don’t even have an economic
plan.”
“I don’t need one. I have Ngozi.”
“True, she is more than a plan,
she is a miracle,” Obasanjo
sneered. “Don’t forget you have
Diezani too. Do you think it was
by coincidence I was my own
Minister for Petroleum Resources
for eight years?”
Tukur took off his hat and laid it
on the table. It was suddenly very
hot. “Gentlemen, please let us
return to the agenda for this
meeting. Our great party is under
serious threat.”
Anenih nodded. “And we can
start to rebuild the party from
this very table,” he said. “The
foundation of this problem is the
threat to the structure of PDP.”
Tukur nodded. “We must support
the national executive,” he said.
“We must allow the executive to
function as the party’s most
powerful body.”
“No, no, no,” Anenih said. “That
is a gross misunderstanding. The
national executive does as it is
told by the BoT. We cannot go
forward by going back. The tail
does not wag the dog. The NEC
and the Presidency are guided
and led by the BoT.”
“Yes, that is true!” cried Mr.
Jonathan, as if snapping out of a
stupor, and then, “No, that is
not!! As President, I am in
charge.”
Obasanjo rose to his feet,
gathering his papers. “What you
have all said, and the mess you
have made of the party, is proof
of my point. Without me you are
lost. I want you all to go back and
re-examine whether you want to
succeed or fail. And remember
that failure means that some
people here may well go to jail. F-
A-I-L, J-A-I-L, everyone should
memorize that. But I have to be
in control. You have to sort out
who is responsible to whom. The
one at the top will answer to me
in my new role as BoT Chairman
Emeritus!”
Co

OBJ said you know what, we soldiers look after ourselves.
you civilians, God help you.