Face off: Ex-President’s Way or The Highway: The true, incredible story of Obasanjo and Jonathan

For a man who enjoyed so much support to become Nigeria’s President and Commander-in-Chief, he did not need a letter from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, his former benefactor, to appreciate the discount his administration is suffering. Fortunately for him, the messenger has poisoned the message with highly concentrated bile. However, the wise paradigm for Aso Rock to engage is a careful re-assessment of the basis of governance with a view to doing the altruistic needful in its own interest. This is the compelling argument in this piece.
On that night of December 22, 2002, it was a meek, very meek, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who bore his now familiar demure demeanour visage in one corner of the expansive chamber inside Aso Rock Presidential Villa. A deputy governor, it was not particularly easy for him to mix freely with the crop of governors who were in attendance. The meeting was a crucial one to determine the plausibility of then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s suitability for a second term of office. Mind you, Obasanjo had, just three months earlier, survived a very crucial impeachment plot against him. Therefore, the meeting of that night was to fashion out a zoning formula that would ratify an eight-year tenure for the South and another eight-year tenure for the North. Of the 51 persons in attendance – all Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leaders – 47 voted for the proposal, two abstained and two voted against it.
Jonathan was one of those who voted for zoning to help Obasanjo out. That was in 2002.
Fast forward to December, 2009, some seven years later: Once Obasanjo was allowed the privilege of seeing then ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in Saudi Arabia, and not minding the commitment family members extracted from him before allowing him the rare access, it was a haughty Obasanjo who railed at the sick president, calling on him to resign.

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