By Omotayo Ishola
SIR: Since fate catapulted him to the pedestal of power as military head of state in succession to Murtala Muhammed in 1976, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had been a recurring political decimal in and outside power. He has neither been at ease with himself nor with Nigeria on account of his irredeemable failure as someone who became the head of state but could not lay a lasting foundational success for the Giant of Africa’.
This had been the psychological trauma troubling the ‘’Ebora of Owu’’ which he might possibly carry to his grave except divine purgation. In my opinion, the trouble of Nigeria started with General Gowon’s inability to process a progressive leadership for the country after the civil war partly because of his own inherent weakness, which the northern cabal in his cabinet exploited.
Had Gowon been true to his trust and handed Nigeria leadership to any of stars in his cabinet, Obafemi Awolowo, Anthony Enahoro, Joseph Tarka, Aminu Kano, Wenike Briggs or Okoi Arikpo, Nigeria would not have had a fiery Murtala Muhammed, cynically cunning Obasanjo, a mediocre Shehu Shagari, a nepotistic Muhammadu Buhari, a willy Ibrahim Babangida, a brutal Sani Abacha and cavalier Abubakar Abdulsalam, and the playboys of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan.
Obasanjo in and outside power and many of his myopic books and seminars papers have always tried to cover his weakness and failure at leadership post where the likes of Awolowo, Moshood Abiola, Wole Soyinka and Bola Tinubu would make incomparable landmarks according to Dr. Omololu Olunloyo in a different context.
John Maxwell, the reputable leadership authority of international hubris said ‘’You are not an outstanding leader until you have outstanding successors’’. While one can count the meritorious performances of Adekunle Ajasin, Lateef Jakande, Bola Ige, Bisi Onabanjo, Ambrose Alli, Jonathan Odebiyi and Abraham Adesanya as successors to late Awolowo, and Babatunde Fashola, Akinwunmi Ambode, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Kayode Fayemi, Ibikunle Amosun, Rauf Aregbeshola, as successors to Tinubu, where are the worthy and credible successors of OBJ since 1976?
What are the lasting legacies of an ‘OBJ’ as two-time head of state for Nigerian youth to imbibe and emulate? Obasanjo, more than the northern cabal, saw to it that Awolowo did not become an elected president of the country. In his reminiscences before his demise, Chief Michael Ani who chaired the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) that conducted the 1979 general elections remarked that he was already preparing the ballot for run-off election for presidency between Awolowo and Shagari before destruction came from ‘SMC’ led boy Obasanjo to halt it and announce Shagari.
Thanks to both Professor Jide Osuntokun and Professor Soyinka on Obasanjo’s chicanery, Chief M.K.O Abiola demonstrated the Yoruba ‘omoluabi’ pathos when Obasanjo had an accident on the way to the North while he was scheming for U.N secretary-generalship. What was Obasanjo’s payback to Abiola?
He collaborated with the annulment, advocated an interim nonsense and declared with devilish gusto that Abiola was not the messiah for Nigeria.
Obasanjo is unlike prominent Nigerians of Yoruba hue like Awolowo, Abiola, Soyinka and Tinubu who acknowledge their human weakness and are ready to forgive and forget; the imperial ‘Ebora Owu’, a self-confessed born-again Christian, has no discernible Christ-like character of forgiveness and magnanimity. Nigerian youths are much more forward-looking than a disgruntled so-called elder statesman whose past continues to haunt his present and the future even in his autumn.
Great statesmen across the world are usually restrained, circumspect, reflective and matured in speeches and actions. Awolowo’s airport speeches were usually loaded with analysis of the economy and the way out of the doldrums, not primitive jealousy of a sanctimonious priesthood of a failed former head of state. The youth in February 25, 2023 will make their decisive choice not on the red-herring of a former president who could not preside over a prosperous Nigeria than to hand-down poverty, insecurity, pan-Nigeria illusion and a hater of his own ethnic group. Let ‘OBJ’ write his story of woes to the marines. The youths and Yoruba know their outstanding leaders.