Transcript CNN International interview with Nigeria's President Obasanjo and USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido Nwangwu on Democracy and Security Issues

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COUNTDOWN TO NIGERIA'S 2007 ELECTIONS: "Obasanjo does not interfere in my job as INEC chair; ..April 2007 elections will hold...." Only in USAfricaonline.com and CLASSmagazine: USAfrica EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with INEC CHAIRMAN Prof. Maurice Iwu in Abuja, Nigeria.

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USAfrica INSIGHT
Presidential Succession and National Stability following 2007 Nigeria
By Dr. CHIDI AMUTA 

Special to USAfricaonline.com, CLASS magazine, USAfrica The Newspaper, Houston
The Black Business Journal  and the global e-list/blog IgboEvents

April 5, 2007: The job description of the next president of Nigeria (from May 29, 2007) has been clearly outlined by the existing threats to national security and stability. The fear that unites Nigerians and interested external observers alike is that the Nigerian federation is in perpetual danger of unravelling under the weight of its inherent contradictions. That sense of ominous foreboding came to the fore in the recent confrontation with Nigeria's two-term president, retired Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo's tenure elongation gamble. The fear then was that the tenure elongation project, if allowed to carry through, would unleash all the latent pressures on national cohesion and produce a nasty upheaval of a scope that would dwarf most bloody conflicts in today's Africa.  

These pressures have persisted and have become even more fearsome in spite of the termination of the tenure elongation ploy. An undeclared insurgency war in the Niger Delta, separatist rhetoric and recurrent flirtations with separatist anarchy in parts of the South East, sectarian disquiet in parts of the north as well as a looming sense of social upheaval occasioned by excruciating hunger and grinding poverty among vast stretches of the populace make this place extremely unhappy and a fertile ground for multiple conflagration.  

By and large then, Nigeria's 2007 presidential election is, to my mind, first a search for a strong leader who has both the experience and proven capacity to take charge of Nigeria and permanently put to rest the fears and schisms that constantly threaten the survival of the nation. Put simply, the priority issue that ought to inform the search for and choice of the next president is national security and stability in their fullest meaning.  

The reason is that recurrent fears of national disintegration and perennial insecurity rank perhaps highest among the fears that torment most Nigerians high and low today. The sense of physical insecurity is only aggravated by dire economic hardship. And that fear has heightened in the last seven years more than ever before in our national history. An overrated pretender regime has used the masquerade of democratic legitimacy to ruin whatever semblance of order previous dispensations had managed to cobble together.  

The consequences have been every where in evidence through out the last seven years. Frequent outbursts of sectarian violence, the easy and frequent recourse to primordial schisms, the use of violence and intimidation to drive political interests, selective political assassinations etc. All these have only been magnified by a near total collapse of the machinery of enforcement of any semblance of law, not to talk of order. Impudent insurgency complemented again and again by the amateurish reprisals of a gangster state have prompted repeated travel warnings by concerned foreign countries. 

And today, we have on our hands a nation in the throes of terminal asphyxia, haunted by a spectre of clear and present unravelling. But providence would once again seem to have intervened through the very auspicious scuttling of the tenure elongation gambit of Mr. Obasanjo. And yet, in the blessing of the defeat of the tenure elongation project lurks even more frightening possibilities. 

Having been roundly trounced in his bid for a life presidency, the matador of Owu has quickly appropriated and privatised the collective democratic responsibility of choosing his own successor. The septuagenarian mascot has mandated the very governors of his ruling party most of whom he had marked down for mass imprisonment to hurriedly fish among their ranks for a successor to his throne. He initially, in a hardly disguised display of  reflexive vendetta, excluded certain sections of the country from the contest to produce the next president. Tragically, each of these gestures holds in its bowels the potent seeds of further instability and insecurity. Not to mention the arrogant presupposition that it is the right of the ruling PDP and its prime pontiff to select and anoint a succession of presidents in perpetuity.

While conceding that you cannot easily write off an African incumbent in the choice of his successor, the truth however is that the historic burden of deciding who assumes the presidency next may be slipping out of Obasanjo's hands as the days roll by. An incumbent who could not secure tenure elongation for himself may not be the best guarantor of the job for a successor. Without doubt, the forces that froze his thirst for self perpetuation remain on permanent sentry to smash any undemocratic manipulations to impose a president of his choosing on Nigerians.  

Already the incumbent has, in the obsession with self perpetuation laid all the booby traps that render current flirtations with selective succession dead on arrival. The third term gambit has united some of the most fearsome gladiators from the northern precinct. Coming from an eight year sojourn in political Siberia, this behemoth of military clout and moneyed muscle is literally massed at the city gates of Abuja, ready to invade. Worse still, the incumbent in the absolutist belief in his 'divine right' to rule in perpetuity left strewn on his path numerous land mines of omission and commission that are likely to return to haunt his reluctant retirement.  

There are human rights issues: Odi, Zaki Biam, Anambra etc. And there are untidy ghosts that may return from the recent past to ask questions as well: Bola Ige, Marshall Harry, Dikibo etc. There are also nagging issues of book keeping: the NNPC accounts, the foreign reserve debate, the untidy withdrawals from the excess crude account etc. There may be nothing in these issues, at a factual level, but an inexperienced successor can buckle under pressure of public opinion to ask Obasanjo to mount the rostrum and address these issues himself, thus aggravating the national security situation.

Given this huge credibility overdraft, the choices for the incumbent are limited. All that public talk about searching for who will continue with the reforms is political correctness scripted for public consumption. The real search, to my mind, is for a towering national figure who can guarantee the Owu warrior a painless exit, a restful retirement and access to an executive jet to travel the world in his favourite club of elder statesmen. This is perhaps the best that Obasanjo can hope for and strive for in the present circumstances. 

Our quest therefore must focus on the task of collective self preservation through the choice of a leadership that understands national security and can carry the entire nation along to confront the myriad social and economic issues that confront us.  

First, the next president must possess the strength of character to take charge of Nigeria and protect every inch of its territory from the forces of instability. He or she must have an unmistakable knowledge and firm grip of the command and control machinery of the nation's security and armed forces while commanding their respect. This would permanently discourage flirtations with undemocratic ideas of political change in the barracks.  

More importantly, the next president must understand Nigeria, its complexity and the true character and aspirations of its people. Through that understanding, the ideal leader must be able to strike those compromises upon which liberal democracy in a multi ethnic state depends to survive and thrive. That leader must possess the requisite experience through having been actively engaged with our tortuous march through an untidy history. Experience and a track record of performance are needed to address the social and economic headaches that aggravate national instability. The solutions we seek are urgent and clear cut, leaving no room for an apprentice president. 

Above all, the new leader must recognise and respect the diversity of views, talents, dispositions and aspirations that make Nigeria different from any other country. In embracing the imperative of urgent modernisation and deeper reform of our economy and society, he must also embody that compassion without which the state ossifies into a heartless machinery of policies and programmes, indifferent to the well being of the commonest denominator of our national humanity. 

Thus, the search for an appropriate president for 2007 is also, incidentally, a search for a different Nigeria from what currently obtains. We need a more secure, kinder, gentler and modern state. This is an inclusive state that leaves no one out of the process of development and democratic participation.
Dr. Amuta, Lagos-based Executive Editor of Houston-based USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica multimedia networks, is author of the book, 'The Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism'

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