Foreign Policy and Leadership in Nigeria

Obasanjo and the Challenge of African Diplomacy

Steve Itugbu

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786722331
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Steve Itugbu, for many years a foreign policy aide to Obasanjo, draws on an extensive corpus of official documents, interviews, unpublished material and first-hand experience to explore the president's multi-faceted personality in depth. In so doing, Itugbu demonstrates that Nigeria's foreign policy has suffered through a combination of personalisation - that is subjugation to the will of Obasanjo - and the failings of bureaucratic structures. The book focuses specifically on Nigeria's decision not to intervene in Darfur in 2004, which is shown to be attributable to Obasanjo's politicking and inherent focus on shoring up his own position. Ultimately, an important opportunity for the African Union to set a precedent for humanitarian intervention was missed - a pattern which has since repeated itself across Africa. Such personalisation is common in the region, and the book therefore acts as a case study for better understanding the problems facing foreign policy making, diplomacy and leadership in Africa.
Throughout, Itugbu provides a reasoned and thorough analysis of the complex and interconnected issues facing Nigeria and Africa today, and the prospects of resolving these in the future. This behind-the-scenes account of the mechanics of Nigerian foreign policy is essential reading for all students, researchers and policy makers working on Africa.

CHAPTER 1

OBASANJO, NIGERIA AND THE AU

An historical account of Obasanjo’s life and time in government is imperative, and implicit in his ascendancy is the rich cast of individuals and panoply of factors that have impacted on Nigeria’s position in the international arena. Also important is the moral dilemma which motivated the intervention in Darfur, Sudan, making extensive use of historical evidence and detailing the conflict as the first of its nature after the transmutation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the African Union (AU). Importantly this explains the security dynamics of the continent, highlighting dispute resolution among member states and the framework used.

Obasanjo’s early life

Olusegun Obasanjo was born on 5 March 1937 in the village of Ibogun near Abeokuta, Nigeria, into a Baptist family. Obasanjo, the first of nine children and one of only two to survive, alongside a younger sister, was educated at Baptist Boys’ High School, Abeokuta and in military institutions in the United Kingdom, India and Nigeria. Early accounts portray Obasanjo as a youth rooted in his Yoruba culture who also identified as a nationalist. Though too young to have taken a significant part in the nationalist movements during the colonial period, he played an active role from independence.¹ His time as a young officer on the cusp of independence enhanced his commitment to nationalism because he loved the camaraderie within the military corps in comparison to that among politicians; he considered politicians unreliable.²

Obasanjo in the military

Obasanjo enlisted in the Nigerian Army in 1958 after attending high school. He received training at the Mons Officer Cadet School, Aldershot, UK and Royal College of Military Engineering, Poona. He also undertook military training at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London in 1974.³ Prior to all this, Obasanjo also trained at the Regular Officers’ Training School at Teshie in Ghana. On his return to Nigeria in 1959, he was posted to Kaduna as an infantry subaltern with the Fifth Battalion, which was Nigeria’s best. Obasanjo, after his commission into the Nigerian Army, participated in the UN Peacekeeping Force in the Congo between 1960 and 1961, serving in the eastern Kivu province with headquarters at Bukavu. His experience in the Congo enabled him to compare the effects of colonisation by two colonial powers – Britain and Belgium – and this heightened his pan-African fervour.⁴

Obasanjo served in various capacities and steadily advanced through the ranks in his two-decade military career, serving in key positions, one of which was his appointment as General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3 Marine Commando Division in May 1969, where he was particularly noted for inflicting severe damage to the Biafran insurgency that ended Nigeria’s civil war.⁵

In his autobiographical work, Obasanjo described this tumultuous period in Nigerian history, especially where, within the space of six months, he claimed to have

turned a situation of low morale, desertion, and distrust within my division and within the Army into one of high morale, confidence, cooperation, and success […] a nation almost torn asunder and on the brink of total disintegration was reunited and the wound healed.⁶

Obasanjo’s 3 Marine Commando Division rose from eight brigades and 23 battalions, to 32 battalions. Some of the brigades and battalions were commanded by inexperienced captains and lieutenants. As a result, the top command suffered, leading to the neglect of important military matters. Some formation commanders were away from their commands for weeks for social reasons. There was even a case where one commander spent most of his time reading for a law degree.

In his account, Obasanjo claimed he was the war’s most successful divisional commander.⁷ He also wrote with ebullient self-confidence, taking General Murtala Mohammed to task for his failure to cross the Niger at Asaba in 1967, and further criticising the manner in which Mohammed gave up his divisional command. For Obasanjo, the issues at stake were not ambiguous: his opponents were rebels. In his book, Biafra appeared in quotation marks.⁸

Until the publication of his books, he received little publicity for his actual role in ending Nigeria’s civil war. In the mind of the public, the 3 Marine Commando Division was only linked to its first commander, Benjamin Adekunle. While General Yakubu Gowon occupied centre-stage at the end of the war, Obasanjo’s final campaign as the commander was, unfortunately, given a news blackout and so he had to return to routine soldiering. Also annoying to Obasanjo was the fact the first extensive account of the war came from the Biafran axis when its army commander, Alexander Madiebo, published his account in 1980 and failed to mention Obasanjo. But Obasanjo’s version in My Command became even more provocative because he was angry that his contribution had been overlooked. He wanted to re-launch his image, which remained unpopular within the Yoruba race given the manner of Shagari’s victory in the 1979 elections.⁹

Obasanjo’s two books, My Command and Nzeogwu, generated rebuttals from his contemporaries in the military. Obasanjo’s documentation of military rule was found to be written in a manner ‘somewhat more pleasant than it is in reality’ to achieve a re-construction of national history from the perspective of the military ruling class. The rebuttals concentrated on the perceived gaps in Obasanjo’s civil war narratives.¹⁰ In fact, ethnic schism, still prevalent, was what triggered the civil war, although Obasanjo never wavered in his commitment to nationalism. For this reason he blamed the origins of the civil war on narrow ethnic politics of the kind the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) pursued between 1979 and 1983.¹¹

In the post-civil war era, Obasanjo moved to the Royal College of Defence Studies from where he was recalled to Nigeria in the later part of 1974 to take up the post of Federal Commissioner for Communication, and later for Works and Housing under Gowon before the latter was overthrown.¹²

In 1975 Obasanjo served as second-in-command to General Murtala Mohammed as attempts were made by the regime to restore public confidence in government. To achieve this, the junta dismissed more than 100,000 civil servants, police and members of the armed forces, the diplomatic corps and the judiciary for malpractice and corruption.¹³ Mohammed was assassinated in 1976 by military officers who were disgruntled by his sweeping, harsh policies.¹⁴ General T.Y. Danjuma, Alhaji M.D. Yusuf (the police chief at the time) and other top officials persuaded Obasanjo to assume leadership in spite of the damage the assassination had inflicted on Obasanjo’s mental and physical health.¹⁵ Obasanjo succeeded Mohammed on 15 February 1976.¹⁶

Obasanjo, who retained the trust of the military, pledged and continued the transition programme towards a civilian government originally set for 1979 by Mohammed and also agreed to continue the reform of the public service sector. Obasanjo’s regime drafted a new constitution that was adopted in 1979 which was similar to that of the US, with provision for a president, a senate and a house of representatives.¹⁷ Members of the Constituent Assembly (MCA) who deliberated on the new constitution favoured the American model of a strong president capable of promoting unity and peace among the ethnic groups of Nigeria. The MCA also wanted specific guarantees inserted into the constitution to protect the independence of the press even though many were opposed, arguing that would be dangerous for Nigeria’s stability.¹⁸ In this way, Obasanjo essentially adhered to the timetable proposed by Mohammed in 1975 and made possible the return of the military to their barracks.¹⁹

Obasanjo reinvigorated Mohammed’s political transition programme and foreign policy.²⁰ This was reaffirmed by Obasanjo’s commitment to sustaining Mohammed’s foreign policy momentum, particularly with regard to decolonisation in Namibia and Zimbabwe and radically modifying South Africa’s apartheid. Furthermore, he also hosted the World Conference for Action against Apartheid in August 1977.²¹ Obasanjo’s policy thrust was in response to the UK having given permission to British Petroleum (BP) to start exporting North Sea and non-embargoed oil to South Africa and was ‘also designed to scotch Mrs Thatcher’s hopes of returning Zimbabwe-Rhodesia to legality in the way she wants’. On Zimbabwe, Obasanjo also damned the UK’s inflexibility by nationalising BP and threatening a boycott of British exports. The UK later backed down and supported the processes leading to independence, free elections and majority rule in Zimbabwe.²²

Obasanjo Farms

Obasanjo retired from the military to establish a large-scale farm, Temperance Farms Limited (which later became Obasanjo Farms) in his home state in 1979.²³ He considered farming to be a fitting occupation and he wanted to use this commitment to agriculture and food production to set an example and encourage others to follow the same path. Obasanjo’s choice of land, although controversial, had deep roots in his Yoruba past. The land at Ota was close to his birthplace and it was 60 km south of Abeokuta and 40 km north of Lagos. The original settlers of the area were the Awori who also founded Lagos. The influence of the area became diminished in 1842 after it was colonised by the Egba people, which included Obasanjo’s ethnic group, the Owu.²⁴

After the farm became functional, Obasanjo became an open critic of President Shehu Shagari’s government. He considered Shagari unfit to be president, suspecting that Shagari might have been pushed into power by those who wanted to use him. He also accused Shagari of being too weak to check the abuses of close friends and aides. But Shagari severely resented Obasanjo’s accusations and insisted that running a democratic government, which required strict adherence to the constitution,²⁵ was different from military dictatorship.

As his focus shifted to the economy, Obasanjo’s criticism of Shagari was unrelenting. Shagari later revealed that Obasanjo constantly expected him to consult him on governance, seemingly obsessed with the idea of having been a super-administrator, a super-diplomat and a military genius. But Obasanjo was right to criticise because at that time the economy had gone into a crisis precipitated by fluctuating oil prices.²⁶ Relations between both deteriorated further until Shagari’s government was overthrown in another military putsch which brought Major-General Muhammadu Buhari into power in 1983.

President Olusegun Obasanjo

Obasanjo re-emerged several years later to be elected Nigeria’s civilian president in 1999 and also secured re-election in 2003. In 1999 Obasanjo pledged to restore the confidence of the international community and the faith of Nigerians in Africa’s most populous nation and West Africa’s economic power base. This became necessary given that 15 years of military rule had left Nigeria with a critical trail of corruption, a deepened religious and ethnic violence and the possible dismemberment of the nation.²⁷

Prior to his election, Obasanjo was known to have demanded the termination of President Ibrahim Babangida’s regime for the annulled 1993 presidential elections that had increased Western diplomatic pressure on Nigeria.²⁸ Obasanjo was later jailed by General Sani Abacha’s regime for alleged coup-plotting.²⁹ Abacha nearly executed Obasanjo on this trumped-up charge of treason, but this was later converted to 15 years in prison.³⁰ Co-accused Shehu Yar’Adua died in prison under mysterious circumstances. Both Obasanjo and Yar’Adua belonged to a wide grouping of military and civilian opponents of Abacha who were convicted in dubious trials.³¹ Obasanjo was released unconditionally after Abacha died. The death of Moshood K.O. Abiola, who many believed had won the annulled 1993 presidential election, opened a new window to the new military leader, who was ‘willing to take steps towards the long-awaited re-civilianisation of politics’.³² Abacha’s successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, released Obasanjo, outlined a short political transition timetable and drafted a new constitution in 1998 which retained the US political model. It was this new political transition that gave birth to the Obasanjo civilian government in 1999.

It was protested by some that Obasanjo’s emergence as president in 1999 was a well-crafted payback arrangement for his democratic programme in 1979 that manoeuvred the northern-dominated National Party of Nigeria (NPN) into power. The decision by the military to support Obasanjo and the northern ruling clique was, therefore, seen as a guarantee against the demands for redress or retribution. Critics argued that what occurred had been orchestrated by the military’s impunity-driven electoral charade³³ because the selective pardon granted to Obasanjo to participate in the political sphere was not extended to similar political prisoners.³⁴

Obasanjo shocked many when he joined the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and announced a $1.5 million donation to the party’s electioneering campaign fund. The shock arose from the fact that he was able to raise such a colossal sum of money even though he had just been released from Abacha’s jail. He later stated that the money was donated to him by friends. These were former generals and so the conclusion of some was that he had become the military’s candidate.³⁵ Obasanjo later won the election because the PDP was consistent, better organised and well financed. In addition, the All People’s Party/Alliance for Democracy (APP/AD) alliance was also in shambles as major party members decamped to the opposition.³⁶ Obasanjo’s opponent in the 1999 elections, Chief Olu Falae, challenged the outcome of the election but lost the appeal.³⁷

Meanwhile, prior to 1999, Western governments’ responses to General Sani Abacha’s dictatorship were timid despite the considerable posturing by the US and the UK on measures to compel Nigeria’s military regime to comply with international norms of governance. The West was reluctant to impose any framework that would ‘jeopardise or disrupt bilateral relations with the most populous nation on the African continent despite the considerably tenuous mixture of quiet diplomacy and limited sanctions; it is evident that Washington does not quite know what to do about Nigeria’.³⁸

Obasanjo’s election in 1999 therefore eased tension within Nigeria. Even though he was considered an ally of the West, he faced immediate domestic challenges, which included addressing the question of the military in Nigeria. As a retired general, there was the view that he was better positio...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Obasanjo, Nigeria and the AU
• 2. The Impact of Darfur
• 3. The Ethical/Philosophical Motivation Driving Obasanjo’s Diplomacy on Conflicts in Africa
• 4. Investigating Obasanjo and Darfur
• 5. Analysing the Interviews: Using the Public View as Commentary on the Inside View
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Back Cover