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President Olusegun Obasanjo

The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is believed to be the ?most powerful president in the world? because of the enormous powers he wields under the much-criticised 1999 constitution. While this tag may be arguable, no one can deny the fact he is one of the most respected African rulers today.

As the Chairman of African Union, spokesperson of G-77 and chairman of CHOGM, he commands respect globally and has considerable influence outside Africa when matters about the continent are being discussed. His profile has also risen with the sustained campaign for debt relief which appears very likely to yield positive results. At home, he is more or less an emperor, with incredible powers to appoint people into hundreds of ministries and parastatals. Virtually all the instruments of power are under his control. He has used this to maximum effect, forcing his opponents to bow down before him or be crushed.

This has no doubt helped in entrenching his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), such that anyone who does not belong to or support the party is not likely to succeed politically and economically. The decampments to the ruling party are unprecedented in the nation?s history. He controls the party machinery by whatever means. With an absolute control over the police, the opposition often get a few slaps on the cheeks when they want to organize protest marches. The National Assembly is under his grip, and talks about impeachments often fizzle out very early in the day.

A few instances illustrate his majestic hold on power:
when Governor Orji Kalu fell out with him, the operating licence of Slok airline was withdrawn; when the former party chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, wrote a letter to him to draw his attention to the Anambra mayhem, Ogbeh was pounded to dust and flushed down PDP?s toilet; many members of the National Assembly who spoke too loudly against him in the 1999-2003 set never got a chance to come back to the legislature; and recently when he launched his library project, most of the people who doled out millions of naira, secretly expressed fears that if they had refused to participate, nobody could predict the consequences.

Along with the president, other men command influence and dispense favours: vice president Atiku Abubakar and indeed all fomer heads of state: General Yakubu Gowon, Alahji Shehu Shagari, General Muhammedu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida and Chief Ernest Shonekan.

This Day
June 2005

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May we be strengthened with the ability, willingness and capabilities to be good ambassadors of Nigeria contributing to its uplifting, rather than its detriment. - Cxsm