One day, we will analyse Obasanjo and discover that there’s nothing altruistic about him.
I used to think that he really meant well for Nigeria, but I was very wrong.
The man only cares about his ego, pride, and feelings, not necessarily the wellbeing of Nigeria and Nigerians.
He’s the worst architect of problems of Nigeria alive.
Those of you hoping that he will genuinely support your favourite as a redemption act,are on a ‘long thing ‘.
Everything Obasanjo does is about Obasanjo and for Obasanjo.
It’s hard to swallow for me, but that’s what it is – Akin Iyanda (Facebook 24 January, 26)
“I do not see how a split opposition into PDP and ADC can prevail in 2027.What is more,the North believes President Bola Tinubu is the only one from the South who can complete the eight years in 2031 and hand over to the
North in the spirit of zoning which accounted for why Bola Tinubu defeated Atiku in 2023 in the North.
The odds favor president Bola Tinubu for 2027″ – Toni Sani, elderstatesman, and former Secretary, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).
Try everything I could, I can no longer remember how many articles I have written about former President Olusegun Obasanjo, dating back to the late 70’s when I held a Sunday column in each of the Tribune and the Sketch newspapers during the editorship of my friend, the erudite journalist, Banji Ogundele, and the inimitable, and suave, Uncle Jide Adeleye respectively.
My Writings on General Obasanjo reached a crescendo much later when he, as the Nigerian President chose, of all people the highly respectful Ekiti people, as his whipping boys, sparing no scurrilous epithet in describing us. He even said we read our books upside down.
I did not let him go scot free as so scathing were my articles on him that one of his armour- bearers could not help responding. It must be said, to his credit, however, that he didn’t say a word, that is, if he read them.
All that, however, is now ancient history as what concerns Nigerians today are his present peccadilloes
because, as is his wont, Baba is back in his weird old ways.
Ahead every Presidential election since the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) ignominiously lost the presidential diadem in 2015, President Obasanjo has, predictably, never made a right, or wise move regarding the presidency.
Since he always wants to destroy whatever it is he cannot control as Iyabo, his daughter, once told the world in a public letter, he woke up one day in 2018, as if from a bad dream, attempting to sell to a Nigerian Public that has long left him behind, what he called a ‘Third Force’, aka Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM).
Keen on hoodwinking Nigerians, he presented it as a political movement aimed at mobilizing Nigerian youths to take over power by challenging the dominance of the two major political parties, cleverly framing it as an alternative platform for national development.
The man who did everything to concoct a Third Term for himself even advised then President Muhammadu Buhari to not contest the 2019 election.
Forever considering himself the wisest ever Nigerian, there was no way he could have known that Nigerians knew that all he really wanted was a President he could control from the shadows.
He had first tried it with President Umar Yar’ Adua, the man he never allowed to conduct his own campaigns, but the
gentleman successfully pushed him back when he told bemused Nigerians that the election that brought him to office was rigged.
Never one to smell the coffee, Baba Obasanjo came out much more frontally during the 2023 election cycle, enthusiastically pushing the candidacy of Peter Obi, one time Anambra State governor.
There was no trick in the book he did not try in wanting to railroad the efette politician to the presidency.
But Nigerians knew better and refused the Obi gambit.
2027 beckons and Baba is at it again, “brokering alliances and stirring the pot”, of Nigerian politics, as somebody recently put it. The latest move sees him pushing for a joint presidential ticket between Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso under the African Democratic Congress (ADC) – a party Alhaji Atiku Abubakar deliberately floated for his own last presidential bid and for which he had since handpicked its key officials, in readiness for his usual try at every presidential election since ’93.
Trust President Obasanjo to always want to foul the waters. He hates Atiku that much.
Since this is, however, still largely in the realm of rumour, even though exploratory committees are already being set up according to Mallam Kwankwaso’s spokesperson, l would rather await further developments before dovoting any quality time to it.
In the meantime, therefore, let us go all the way back to my signature article in exposing President Obasanjo’s antics while pretending he loved Nigerian youths to bits. That was when he wrote the following romantic letter to them, the clever man who can sell a poke for a pig:”My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame”. “Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so. If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good and you will have no one to blame but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you”.
“Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be. And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’ (Your turn”.
Please don’t ask him what he did for the Nigerian youths when he was President for 8 years.
The article was titled ‘2023: President Obasanjo’s
Decoys and Nigerian Youths’ and was dated, 15 January, 2023. It will now be significantly edited for space constraint.
And please bear in mind that he sees his latest effort towards the next election as strictly a strategic move to oust President Bola Tinubu from office since he has never been able to live down the fact of another Nigerian President of Yoruba extraction, especially, during his lifetime.
Happy reading.
Wole Olujobi, in his withering
‘2023: Obasanjo And The Legend Of Tenea’ article approximated former president Olusegun Obasanjo to “Oedipus orientation in consummate complexity”.
Raised and reared to preserve a kingdom, Oedipus, a grand patron of hubris, fell into a complex interplay of fate and pride to become an albatross to the kingdom he sought to preserve”.
Let us quote him at some length.
“Sophocles in his play ‘Oedipus Rex’ presents a gripping narrative of a man at the mercy of fate, but who pride would not allow to rediscover himself until he suffers irredeemable consequences”.
“The ancient legend of Oedipus, the mythical king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, in several of his sojourns, lived in Tenea, a mythical lost city in Greece, according to Greek mythology”.
As recently as 1984, one of Greece’s top archaeologists, Eleni Korka, a Greek-American, made the biggest discovery of her 40-year career: the mythical city of Tenea, which was built by Trojan prisoners of war sometime around 1100BC. After a laborious excavation by Korka and her team, the abandoned Tenea City, in ruins, was discovered to harbour golden carvings and other precious, high levels of art that could turn the fortunes of the delerict city of Tenea for good.
As it is with both Oedipus and Tenea, so it is for Nigeria and General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd)as Nigerians again prepare for the February 2023 election)to elect their President.
After long years of misrule that left Nigeria in ruins, conscious efforts were made to find a leader to turn the nation’s fortunes around for good.
And so like archaeologist Korka, Nigerian military ‘archaeologists’ led by Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdusalami Abubakar dug through the length and breadth of the country and landed on one of them, namely, Olusegun, Obasanjo, a retired General, a man who had litetally decayed in General Sani Abacha’s gulag like the ruins of Tenea.
Pronto, he was dusted up, and crowned Mr President with Nigerians believing they had won lottery”.
But what forlon hope it will all turn as what they found was not gold, but a crippling albatross in the class of Oedipus: a fortune turned awry, who opened the floodgate to complex problems that stalk Nigerians till today, even in their sleep”.
By the time he handed over power after a determined but futile effort to transmute to a Life President, 16 Billion dollars, among others, had been wasted on electricity that produced only darkness, 100B dollar National patrimony had been sold off in sweet heart deals for less than 20B dollars by the trio of himself, Atiku and El Rufai, his Vice and the man in charge of Privatisation respectively, just as court proceedings in the Mandilla Power project is currently being told that the former President allegedly instructed the minister in charge that the N6B cost should be sexed up with an additional N11B.
This is why I often wonder whether President Obasanjo usually, momentarily forgets about himself when writing those his scathing letters about the presumed failings of others.
I digress.
In his letter to the Nigerian youth, he painted a rosy picture of Nigeria, something the country wasn’t under him. He also gave the impression he left power of his own volition, forgetting that the National Assembly had to rescue Nigeria from his attempted life presidency project.
It is apposite to state here that President Obasanjo has all the rights, human as well as legal, to endorse any presidential candidate of his choosing, but it is obvious that he cannot give Nigeria what he does not have, that is, good and corruption – free governance.
He should, therefore, be advised to refrain from this 4- yearly attempt to deceive Nigerians into buying his apostasy about the right leader for Nigeria. All he is doing is self – promotion, and Nigerians wish him well. However, if his primary intention is to fight Atiku to the death, and thereby, ensure he does not achieve his
Marabout – inspired, life long ambition, he should please look for other means, rather than, periodically, taking Nigerians for a ride.
In the meantime, I advise undecided youths, and other Nigerians, who may want to truly know President Obasanjo, and his schemes, to make out time to read an:”Open Letter to My Father, by Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, PhD dated December 16, 2013.
If they learn nothing at all, they should, at least, come to the realisation that in the Obasanjo Obi- Kwankwaso conjecture, they should not deceive themselves into another Waterloo, reminiscent of the Obasanjo-Obi 2023 gambit.
