A leopard cannot change its spots.
This age-long apothegm utterly beggars the cacophonous vituperations of former President Olusegun Obasanjo about other Nigerians, especially the nation’s leaders – past or present – except himself.
For a personality that ought to stay peacefully in the glasshouse of respected statesmen, Obasanjo has been throwing stones all his life at fellow citizens as a fancied self-entertainment.
The former President thinks he laid a foundation of exemplary leadership as a military and civilian leader. He is inclined to blaming every administration and other leaders for not measuring up. But, an x-ray of his leadership style reveals otherwise.
The all-knowing General, civil war commander, former military Head of State, ex-President of Nigeria, Ekerin Egba, Ebora and Balogun Owu, and seasoned letter writer, is yet to overcome the shock of last year’s presidential election.
His anointed candidate, Peter Obi, could not fly during the poll. Therefore, anything done by the winner and President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is a precursor to a “failing state,” which exists only in the imagination of the self-appointed monitor of Nigeria.
Delivering a keynote address at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, the former leader, combative as ever, blamed the one-and-a-half-year-old Tinubu’s presidency for the nation’s cumulative woes.
In the lecture, titled: ‘Leadership failure and state capture in Nigeria,’ OBJ, as fondly called by some people, said the country’s pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, injustice, incompetence and all forms of iniquity confirmed Nigeria’s failing state status under the President.
The General deliberately closed his eyes to the courageous steps and bold reforms of the Tinubu administration. He cleverly manufactured fables and tissues of lies to dent the image of a government tackling the mess created by the previous leadership.
Obasanjo posed as a scholar and pontificated on good governance. He uncritically confused “state fragility” with “state failure,” creating panic.
At issue is governance legitimacy, which is dictated by the people’s perception of the government’s capacity for role fulfillment and the unhindered exercise of sovereignty and authority over the nation’s territories.
A failed state implies the extreme weakness of the political or economic system and the colossal loss of control by the government. A state does not fail suddenly. There is a spectrum of fragility. There are abnormal circumstances that may ultimately culminate in failure, including wars, comprehensive weaknesses of the military and bureaucracy, as well as the prolonged, unmitigated collapse of social order throughout the country. States can move from fragility to failure if there is no remedy; if the government and the people are helpless, and if disintegration is inevitable.
However, at a time Tinubu is recording more successes in steering Nigeria away from “state fragility,” what Obasanjo could see through his self-fabricated lenses is only “state failure”.
The General stirred the hornet’s nest through his highly inflammable statement. Assessing the nation’s electoral system by his yardstick, he also called for the removal of the current leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to restore integrity and sanity. Would he want Professor Maurice Iwu, the former INEC chairman who conducted the most controversial election that resulted in the longest electoral litigation, to return?
The former president, as some observers would say, is entitled to his personal opinion, even if his view is laced with bile.
If previous governments, including the ones Obasanjo headed, had laid good examples, the country would have been much better.
But what are the legacies of OBJ, Africa’s statesman and self-acclaimed democrat who some observers have also described as a symbol of imaginary purity?
Obasanjo presided over a very ‘secure country where the chief legal officer, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, was murdered. Throughout the life of the administration, there was no clue. The killers remain at large.
He conducted the best presidential election which produced President Umaru Yar’Adua, who confessed that the poll that brought him to power was severely flawed.
At the tail end of Obasanjo’s administration, allegations of a third-term agenda filled the air, and the report of the Constitutional Conference was sacrificed on the altar of deceit.
Under his leadership, the hand of the centrist Federal Government was heavy on the sub-national units, as underscored by the seizure of allocations to states and councils.
Is the administration not also remembered for turning the anti-graft bodies into a veritable weapon for witch-hunting, intimidation, and oppression of perceived foes?
What about the Odi bloodletting? What about Zaki Biam? Did his government not receive condemnation of the international community?
Too numerous acts of political aggression were peculiar to his regime. No one was insulated from his venom. His life outside power has not been dull. But his pastime is a subjective assessment, most times, of the state of the nation.
Confronted with the awful memory of electoral horrors, Obasanjo’s do-or-die statement confounded most Nigerians. Yet, in 2019, he feared what his administration did to the opposition. Ahead of the poll, the Ota farmer regressed into a curious defence mechanism, alerting the international community to an imminent rigging that should attract punishment by powerful Western countries.
Also living up to expectations as a crafty actor, Obasanjo alleged that a former Vice President was buying Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) from prospective voters at N10,000 per voter. The Doctor of Theology said the vice president could not be a man of God, urging the General Overseer who inducted him as a priest to terminate his priesthood.
In another outburst, Obasanjo, in a letter, said Muhammadu Buhari should not run for presidency. He inspired the formation of a political party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which could not attract a huge following. Later, he turned his back on the youths by abandoning his push for a generational shift. He has been dreaming of what he called a third force in the nation’s polity; whatever that means.
Highly inconsistent, the man who opposed Atiku Abubakar in 2003, 2007, 2011, and 2015 suddenly woke up from slumber in 2019 and became Atikulated.
Less than a month before the 2019 presidential election, Obasanjo resumed his old tricks of maligning, intimidating, and blackmailing candidates, reminiscent of what he did to Atiku in 2007 as the flag bearer of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
In 2007, Obasanjo left the stage with a perception that has continued to hunt him in public life. As president, he was the lord of manor whose word was law. Power drew the wool over his eyes. As the PDP leader, he was the party. In eight years, the PDP as the ruling party had four national chairmen. That leadership instability in the party was, to a large extent, his making. He cleverly pushed away the pioneer chairman, the late Chief Solomon Lar. Later, he subjected his successor, Chief Barnabas Gemade, to the same ordeal, making him curse the party. Also, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who succeeded Gemade, had a bitter experience. When former Anambra State Governor Chris Ngige was abducted under the former president, he did not haunt the perpetrators of such a heinous constitutional breach.
Under his watch, a gale of impeachment hit the polity. The victims were former Governors Joshua Dariye (Plateau State), Senator Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo), Ayodele Fayose (Ekiti), and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (Bayelsa). The impeachment did not follow the laid-down procedures. The court later reinstated Dariye and Ladoja.
In Rivers State’s PDP, Obasanjo objected to Rotimi Amaechi’s choice as the candidate the party’s delegates should choose, saying the selection had a k-leg. Senator Ifeanyi Araraume suffered the same fate in Imo State. The party lost to the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) candidate, Ikedi Ohakim.
Obasanjo successfully plotted the removal of former Senate President Chuba Okadigbo, who succeeded his ousted anointed candidate, Evan Enwerem.
When former Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, defected from the PDP to the Labour Party (LP) to contest the governorship election in Ondo State, Obasanjo threatened him with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He said: O su s’aga (he defecated on the stool). But the people of Ondo ignored the former president.
In 2004, President Obasanjo withheld allocations to the local governments in Lagos State, following the creation of an additional 37 local council development areas (LCDAs).
Earlier in 2003, he orchestrated an electoral earthquake in the Southwest. Governors Adeniyi Adebayo (Ekiti), Lam Adesina (Oyo), Olusegun Osoba (Ogun), and Adebayo Adefarati (Ondo) were the casualties. Only Tinubu of Lagos State survived the electoral terrorism. There was panic when INEC initially indicated on its website that the PDP had won Lagos.
Although Obasanjo secured a second term, it is instructive to note that at the Supreme Court, where the final verdict was given on the 2003 presidential poll, the judges were split. Some jurists were not convinced that he defeated his challenger, Muhammadu Buhari of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP), at the poll.
In 2006/2007, Obasanjo foisted on the ruling party a personal succession agenda. Presidential aspirants, including Dr. Peter Odili, Donald Duke, Ahmed Makarfi, and Adamu Abdullahi, were edged out of the selection process. His anointed candidate, the late Umar Musa Yar’Adua, was imposed on the party.
In 2007, Iwu’s INEC operated from Obasanjo’s armpit. Losers were declared as winners during the governorship polls; PDP candidates were the beneficiaries. The mandates were later restored in the court. Affected states included Anambra, Edo, Ondo, Osun, and Ekiti. That rigging is responsible for the scattered off-season governorship polls in the country today.
Although Obasanjo has become an emergency advocate of judicial independence, he demonstrated a lack of respect for court orders. Emergency holidays were even declared to frustrate the move by courts to deliver their judgments on sensitive cases. Court orders were disregarded.
The history of Nigeria is incomplete without a mention of Obasanjo. He was the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Third Marine Commando when his juniors, including Lt.-Gen. Alani Akinrinade (retd.) and Brig. Godwin Alabi-Isama brought the rebels to their knees. In his book, ‘Military Leadership in Nigeria,’ General James Oluleye said: “[Yet] Obasanjo claimed he won the civil war by solo effort.”
He craved political relevance as a military officer. The agitation for political power resulted in the pressure on former military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, to make him Minister of Works and the late Gen. Murtala Ramat Mohammed the Minister of Communications.
In 1979, Obasanjo made history again. He handed over to civilians. He became a moral voice of sorts.
Twenty years after leaving power, he bounced back as a civilian president in 1999. However, many observers believe that he had lost the steam by 2007 when he handed over power to Yar’Adua.
Outside power, he embraces the pastime of attacking other leaders, some of who had made greater contributions to national development than him. Today, some of these leaders are celebrated by Nigerians more than him.
Obasanjo had mocked Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the first Premier of defunct Western Region, for not becoming the president of Nigeria. In his book: ‘Not My Will,’ he described the late Dr. Nnamidi Azikiwe as a leader who fell from his pre-eminent national position and carried on with life in his old age as a tribal chieftaincy holder, the Owelle of Onitsha.
Obasanjo also described the late President Shehu Shagari as colourless; Aminu Kano as a placard-carrying protester, and Waziri Ibrahim as a rich but unserious contender. Buhari and Idiagbon, to OBJ, were autocratic rulers and Ibrahim Babangida a fool.
Ahead of the return to civil rule in 1999, he once asked what has ‘Jack’ (General Yakubu Gowon) left behind in Aso Villa that he wanted to go and take. To OBJ, Moshood Abiola was not the messiah Nigeria needed. The option of an interim government, instead of the June 12 election de-annulment, was regrettable but understandable, according to Obasanjo.
Out of over 200 million Nigerians, nobody else is clean, honest, and knowledgeable enough. Only OBJ is.
