The influential chairperson of Nigeria’s ruling party has submitted his resignation under pressure from President Olusegun Obasanjo, after warning the head of state that his government is becoming unpopular and might be toppled in a coup.
Audu Ogbeh told reporters on Monday that he will quit as chairperson of Obasanjo’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with effect from February 28. He added that he is quitting under pressure from Obasanjo.
ThisDay newspaper quoted Ogbeh as saying: “I am not in any contest for power with the president.”
Nevertheless, his departure comes amid increasing squabbling within the PDP. This has exposed vote-rigging by the party in the 2003 general elections and has undermined Obasanjo’s image as a model democrat.
Political commentators say many of the internal disputes that are tearing apart the PDP are connected to a power grab by rival candidates jockeying for the party’s nomination in Nigeria’s 2007 presidential election.
Obasanjo served a first stint of power as military head of state from 1976 to 1979, when he handed over to an elected civilian government.
He returned to power through the ballot box in 1999 after 20 years on the sidelines of national politics and was re-elected in April 2003. However, Obasanjo is constitutionally bound to step down after completing his present four-year term in 2007.
The president’s row with Ogbeh began when the PDP chairperson wrote to him in early December, asking him to take action to curb growing chaos in Anambra state in south-eastern Nigeria.
There, Chris Uba, a local businessman and close ally of Obasanjo, was accused of burning down public buildings and attempting to kill the state’s PDP governor, Chris Ngige, in November while police officers stood by and watched.
Uba had backed Ngige for governorship in the 2003 elections, but the two men subsequently fell out.
The businessman accused the newly elected governor of reneging on a promise to give him a big say in choosing the state Cabinet. Uba subsequently tried to embarrass Ngige by declaring publicly that he had personally rigged the vote for the Anambra state governorship so that Ngige would win.
Warning Obasanjo that the federal government has become unpopular as a result of such goings-on, Ogbeh recalled in his two-page letter that Nigeria’s previous civilian government, in which he himself had served as a minister, was toppled in 1983 at a time when its public image was very poor.
“I am afraid we are drifting in the same direction again,” Ogbeh said in the letter. “In life, perception is reality and today, we are perceived in the worst light by an angry, scornful Nigerian public.”
In an angry, 10-page riposte, Obasanjo accused Ogbeh of wishing for a coup and finally showing his true colours. While recounting his own efforts to mediate the crisis in Anambra, Obasanjo revealed that both Uba and Ngige had admitted in his presence that they rigged the governorship vote in Anambra to put the PDP in office.
He likened them to “two armed robbers that conspired to loot a house” and ended up fighting over the loot.
Ogbeh told ThisDay that following the exchange of letters he has been subjected to harassment by state security officials who accused him of embarrassing the president.
The PDP chairperson said his residence in Abuja has been placed under round-the-clock surveillance and on one occasion his grown-up daughter was prevented from coming to see him by security agents who said he could not receive visitors after 6pm.
Even when Ogbeh came out to identify her daughter, the security agents continued to deny her entry into his residence, the newspaper said.
Several Nigerian newspapers reported on Tuesday that top security aides of Obasanjo prevailed on Ogbeh to resign on Sunday after the president declared he will no longer work with him.
Ogbeh’s resignation appears to be part of a growing power struggle within the PDP between factions that support rival candidates for the party’s presidential nomination in 2007.
Obasanjo himself is widely believed to favour General Ibrahim Babangida, who backed his own bid for the presidency in 1999.
Like Obasanjo, Babangida is a former military head of state. He ruled the country from 1985 until 1993, when he was deposed by General Sani Abacha in a coup.
Opposing him for the presidential nomination is Obasanjo’s Vice-President Abubakar Atiku, who is keen to have a shot at the top job.
Atiku’s faction is widely regarded as being the most powerful in PDP. It includes a majority of the PDP’s 28 state governors.
“Two attempts by Obasanjo’s supporters to unseat Ogbeh at two recent party executive meetings failed because Atiku’s camp backed him,” one top PDP official said. “That’s why they used the security agencies to harass him into quitting.”
The PDP’s sweeping election victory in 2003 has been marred by recent revelations of massive rigging and outright falsification of results.
Last month, the Court of Appeal upheld Obasanjo’s election but cancelled the results for Ogun state, his home area in south-western Nigeria, where it ruled the results had been falsified. — Irin