The influential chairperson of Nigeria’s ruling party — the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) — has submitted his resignation under pressure from President Olusegun Obasanjo after warning the head of state that his government was becoming unpopular and might be toppled in a coup.
Audu Ogbeh said he would quit on February 28.
His departure comes amid increasing squabbling within the PDP and has exposed vote-rigging in the 2003 general election that has undermined Obasanjo’s image as a model democrat.
The row began when Ogbeh wrote to the president in early December asking him to take action to curb growing chaos in Anambra state in south-eastern Nigeria.
There, local businessman Chris Uba, a close ally of Obasanjo, was accused of burning down public buildings and attempting to kill the state’s PDP Governor, Chris Ngige.
Uba embarrassed Ngige by declaring publicly that he had personally rigged the vote in Anambra.
Warning Obasanjo that the federal government had become unpopular as a result of such goings on, Ogbeh recalled in his two-page letter that Nigeria’s previous civilian government 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 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 Anambra crisis, Obasanjo revealed that both Uba and Ngige had admitted in his presence that they rigged the governorship vote in Anambra to put PDP in office.
He likened them to “two armed robbers that conspired to loot a house” and ended up fighting over the loot.
Ogbeh claims he has been subjected to harassment by state security officials and that his Abuja residence had been placed under round-the-clock surveillance.
Political commentators believe the internal PDP disputes relate to jockeying for the party’s nomination in Nigeria’s 2007 presidential election when Obasanjo is constitutionally bound to step down.
Obasanjo is widely believed to favour former military ruler General Ibrahim Babangida, who backed his own bid for the presidency in 1999.
Opposing him is Vice-President Abubakar Atiku, whose powerful faction had scuppered “two attempts by Obasanjo’s supporters to unseat Ogbeh at two recent party executive meetings”, a top PDP official told Irin.
The PDP’s 2003 election victory has been marred by recent revelations of rigging and outright falsification of results.
Last month the Court of Appeal upheld Obasanjo’s election but cancelled the results for his home state, Ogun in south-western Nigeria, where it ruled the results had been falsified. —Irin