Obasanjo: Lest We Forget…

In recent times, former president Olusegun Obasanjo has been struggling to transmute into the conscience of the nation. He has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of incompetence and his government of crass corruption. He has taken the president up on the issue of Boko Haram, occasionally offering conflicting advice. On that, Reuben Abati, the presidential spokesman, has said that the former president is confused. Most of what Obasanjo accuses the Jonathan government of are true but only in Nigeria would an Obasanjo be talking at all, if we still remember our most recent history.

In a CNN interview last week, Obasanjo passed himself off to the world as the Nigerian man of integrity. In previous interviews with the local media, he had behaved even more arrogantly. When Nigerians laugh aloud at some of the things he says, the former president probably sees that as a public approval of his comments and actions. But knowing the nature of sycophancy in Nigeria, it is not unlikely that a few clowns have  been urging him on and praising him as the “only person capable of telling truth to power in Nigeria”.

But, lest we forget, if Obasanjo had not happened on us between 1999 and 2007, there is no way we would have been in this precarious position today. I know a couple of Nigerians who are naively attempting to compare Obasanjo and his successors, and are attempting to conclude that Obasanjo was a better leader than both presidents Umaru Yar’Adua and Jonathan, but that is foolishness because every bad thing that has happened to Nigeria since 1999 is directly traceable to Obasanjo’s roguery. Obasanjo might have finally seen a government that is more corrupt than his own but it is the corruption legacy he left in place that his successors are taking after. They are only bolder than he was but it is the same principle.

We must never forget that if Nigeria has the most useless leadership recruitment process in the world today, it is Obasanjo who made it so. And we must also remember that it was not always so. Even within his own party, the PDP, he stood against every effort to throw up genuine and credible leadership in the interest of the nation. Everything Obasanjo did in government, he did for personal interests. This even included the very constant heartless increases in the pump price of fuel which, under his presidency, went up 500 per cent.

After the collapse of his third term agendum during which he shared bribes in the National Assembly, he ensured that he rigged the presidential election for Governor Umaru Yar’Adua who was too ill and too incapacitated for the job. Umaru did not show any interest in the job because he knew his health challenges. Obasanjo’s duplicity also threw up Governor Jonathan who showed neither inclination nor interest in the job. Jonathan at the time would rather not be promoted away from his Bayelsa governorship throne. Obasanjo’s stratagem was that, with a very sick President Yar’Adua in Aso Rock, he would continue to call the shots from his Ota farm. He actually attempted to do so in the few days after his presidency until he discovered that, even though Umaru was ill, he was no pushover. That was when political office jobbers and favour seekers besieged Ota instead of Aso Rock. But it didn’t take long for Obasanjo to know the kind of person Yar’Adua was, especially when he couldn’t influence him to intervene in his daughter Iyabo’s arrest by the EFCC. Many who knew Umaru well have said that if the president had lived long enough, Obasanjo would have ended up squarely in jail. Jonathan is yet to show such grit and independent-mindedness. It won’t be long though before the former president would be served his just desserts.

No one should be hoodwinked by Obasanjo’s new vocation as a critic. In any other civilised country today, he would be busy repenting in jail and not talking. We must never forget that if the House of Representatives uncovered a theft of N2.6 trillion in the name of fuel subsidy under President Jonathan, the same House also uncovered a theft of N2.4 trillion ($16 billion) under President Obasanjo in the name of providing electricity to Nigerians. If Niger Delta militants have become kings under President Jonathan, we must never forget that it was under Obasanjo that Niger Delta militants were first recruited to rig elections. Most importantly, we must never forget the serial political assassinations under Obasanjo that virtually disappeared when he was forced out of Aso Rock. It was under Obasanjo that Bola Ige, Aminosoari Dikibo, Saudatu Rimi (Abubakar Rimi’s wife), Ogbonnaya Uche (OGB), Marshal Harry, Barnabas Igwe and his wife, Funsho Williams, Godwin Agbroko, Professor Chimere Ikoku and many others were brutally murdered, but all the suspects were freed. It was also under Obasanjo’s watch that Dr Chuba Okadigbo, the ANPP presidential running mate, was gassed to death during a protest, and gunmen attacked Chief Sunday Awoniyi at his residence in Abuja. And let no one forget the mass killings at Odi and Zaki Biam and the mass killings, which should qualify as genocide during the 2003 general elections in the south-west and south-east in his do or die enterprise (rigging elections) there. 

We should not forget the several plane crashes that killed people including many children which only stopped when Femi Fani-Kayode became aviation minister; the electoral law which he Obasanjo personally forged, and the destruction of state institutions for personal gains. Very recently, Obasanjo shamelessly said if he had wanted, he would have rigged the Kano State election against Governor Ibrahim Shekarau. Obasanjo even gloats about his crimes against the nation. Obasanjo dished out more oil blocks (most of them dubiously to his cronies acting as fronts) than all heads of state before and after him put together. 

On Monday, May 28, 2007, which was the day before Obasanjo finally vacated Aso Rock, I wrote on this page that we must never forget that “Obasanjo was here”. I advised every Nigerian to hang a portrait of the man on the walls of their rooms so that they would always remember that there was once a very dangerous man called Olusegun Obasanjo in our presidential villa. Anyone who has not heeded that advice should do so now. 

Surely, it is only in Nigeria that such a character would still be talking. Yes, President Jonathan’s government has become our cross today but we should not forget how we got here.

EARSHOT
The Confusion In The PDP

All the confusion in the ranks of the PDP, which is likely to even get worse, is simply because the party has never allowed its officers and candidates to emerge through free and fair elections. There is no single party leader that emerged via an election and, as long as the party is governed through mischief and injustice, the end result would be an implosion that would further worsen the instability in the country. There will always be fight when thieves come to share their booty. Fortunately, I do not see how the PDP can avoid an implosion.

 Written BySAM NDA-ISAIAH