Obasanjo is losing political grip - Tahir

Ishola Michael, Bauchi - 24.03.2008

The emergence of Vincent Ogbulafor as the National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the supposed popular choice of former Governor Sam Egwu of Ebonyi State, who was the candidate of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was a clear indication that the former President is fast losing his erstwhile political influence.

This was the view of Ibrahim Tahir, a Minister of Communication in the Second Republic, who said, “I am not sure that the emergence of Vincent Ogbulafor as the National Chairman of the PDP can be described as a coup against former President Olusegun Obasanjo because you have to look at the long genetic tape, the past of Vincent Ogbulafor and his orientation and politics before you can determine whether something like a coup against the former President has indeed taken place or whatever.”

He also said “the only thing I will say though is that the candidate of the former supremo did not win, it is something to be thought as a potential for falling in line with the tradition of former number ones, which is what I call the dowager position from the experience of China when the Emperor died, leaving an infant as king and there his mother willed the power and she was known as the dowager Empress and out of this grew a lot of theorizing about the dowager problem. And what Olusegun Obasanjo represents is a classic case of the dowager problem, somebody whose time is over, now power is gone but he still doesn’t want to let go, he still wants to be in charge of everything.”