On the third force

Last January, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo wrote his famous letter to President Muhammadu Buhari in which he spoke about a coming “third force” and among other things, asked President Buhari not to seek re-election.

The move was received by a majority of Nigerians with a lot of enthusiasm. Even those who are not usually enamoured by the ex president’s political narcissism conceded that he made sense, regardless that the message was coming from the wrong messenger. Still, there were some who saw neither the message nor the messenger.

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Overall, the attitude of Nigerians to Obasanjo’s missive was informed by the fact that, entirely on their own, the citizens had been nursing grievances against President Buhari and his administration.

Nigerians expressed their disaffection with the administration openly – in market places, beer parlours and even in worship places – but it didn’t get to the right places(s). So, when President Obasanjo wrote his letter, they were happy because they felt that their murmuring may eventually reach the right ears.

Besides, Nigerians also came to believe that because of the preeminent position of Obasanjo, he had done his home work thoroughly and that it was only a matter of time before his “third force”, which he so much talked about in his letter, would unveil a concrete plan of action for the ouster of the poorly-performing President Buhari.

But more than seven months on, that expectation by Nigerians from Chief Obasanjo seems to have been eroded.

As it is today, perhaps only just a few Nigerians still believe that beyond mere jibes at President Buhari, Chief Obasanjo can provide the needed leadership to prevent the former from getting re-elected next year. Thus, regardless of the fact that the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), naturally keyed into Chief Obasanjo’s propositions on Buhari and has been trying to woo him on its side, there is a general skepticism over this romance. Not a few believe that it is a romance that will take the PDP to nowhere, and that, in fact, the latter will become even more confused as the days go by if it decides to rely entirely on Chief Obasanjo’s fabled wisdom.

Earlier this year, Chief Obasanjo mouthed a neither-APC-nor-PDP mantra while canvassing his “third force” idea. Today, not only is there no third force but also the former president is now the chief consultant to the PDP whose membership card he tore publicly sometimes in 2014 at the height of his opposition to the re-election of the party’s then presidential, candidate, Goodluck Jonathan. This is a contradiction which he is yet to explain to Nigerians.

It would, of course, be wrong to query the PDP for trying to consummate a rapprochement because, apart from that fence mending is the nature of politics, itself, no party in Nigeria worth its salt would ask an Olusegun Obasanjo to go to hell, for whatever it is worth. Unfortunately for the PDP, however, there are signs that this voluntary consultancy services being rendered to it by Obasanjo may cause some discomfiture for it.

Ethelbert Okere,

Owerri.