Former president Olusegun Obasanjo was in Bauchi last Sunday to commission road projects constructed by the Governor Bala Mohammed administration. As part of his itinerary, he visited the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Rilwanu Suleiman-Adamu, whom he lathered with his usual sanctimonious talk about his successors’ poor leadership ability. By now, whenever the former president waxes eloquent about his administration’s ‘flawless capacity’, his hosts have learnt both to accommodate him and to even sit grimfaced through his harangues. There were a number of inviting subjects the former president could speak on, but he chose in his inimitable style to dwell on using himself as a benchmark against which his successors should always be judged.
His statement at the palace was ostensibly to promote the relevance of community policing, but even that innocuous topic had to be exploited for his advantage. He said: “The best form of security is community policing because everyone knows his/her neighbours within the community. With that, it is very easy to identify the bad eggs. The situation of insecurity in Nigeria today is so bad, unlike during our terms in office when we prioritise the security of lives and properties across the country. We need to do something urgently about this. During our service to the nation, we did everything collectively, our decisions were taken together to have a uniform focus. My brother, Ahmed Adamu Mu’azu, is seated here, and he will bear me witness. Whatever we achieved then was a collective effort. We need peace, unity, and collective support in this country if we must move forward. Things can be right and good again in the country, all we need to do is to get united and do things collectively.”
More than any living or even dead past Nigerian president, Chief Obasanjo has perfected the art of presidential lecture circuit, the kind Western leaders have turned to cash cows for decades, if not centuries. He is the most invited former president, and he has done admirably well not to decline most invitations. Even where they are unsure he would grace the occasion, he surprisingly honours their invitation. He is strong, vibrant, frank to a fault, and no matter what anyone says, he will still continue honouring invitations until he transitions, a destination he has prophesied is still a long way off. It is not clear what his going rate is, but whatever it is, his hosts can afford it, for he adds value and lends respectability to their gatherings. Fortunately for him and his hosts, he rarely attacks his hosts or speaks ill of them. That would demarket his brand and make invitations to be few and far between. And with inflation biting hard in Nigeria, and naira value plummeting, the hard working ex-president cannot afford to trifle with his economic interests. What is more, his main goal is not even financial. Being Nigeria’s most accomplished narcissist, a man and leader who loves to hear himself speak and others listen, he covets the therapeutic effect of circulating on the political scene and newspaper front pages as well as staying medically fit by his travels instead of mummifying in anonymity.
Not too long after he left office in 1979 and handed over to his preferred successor, he started to sound sanctimonious, first comparing himself in his little books to the man he didn’t wish to succeed him, Obafemi Awolowo, first Premier of the Western Region. Then, soon after the mid-term of the Shehu Shagari administration, the Owu chief also began to question his successor’s governing paradigms and policy orthodoxies. It was not clear that he understood that as a practical military head of state who relied more on instincts to rule and common sense to govern, he was not in a great position to compare himself ideologically with his successor. Nevertheless, two or three more military regimes after his, the former president happened upon his epistolary masterpieces through which he excoriated one head of state after another until he came to grief during the ghoulish rule of the Sani Abacha military regime. He learnt no lessons, however. In 2007, he again foisted a successor, Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan, upon the country and when the duo spurned his meddlesomness and unsolicited advice, he turned exceedingly nasty, plastering his victims with unmentionable epithets.
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It is, therefore, not out of character that he has begun once more, under the Bola Tinubu administration, to indulge his fantasy for comparison. He is reputed to have some metaphysical grasp of political realities, and may have seen the failure of all his best efforts to prevent the election and inauguration of the Tinubu presidency as implying the need for caution, but he will continue to launch the kind of scud missile he shot at the administration when he visited the Bauchi palace. The security and economic situations he faced in 1999 to 2007 pale in comparison with the current crisis, but Chief Obasanjo has never claimed to make scientific comparisons. More frequently, he limits himself to the street drivel that has become standard fare in political discourse. Energised by the social media, both the drivel and his comparisons get more mileage than they really deserve.
The former president made two major points at the Bauchi palace last Sunday. Firstly, he spoke about how his administration ‘prioritised security of lives and properties across the country’, probably insinuating that the present administration does not. The Tinubu government may not have achieved the kind of results it hopes, but it stands logic on its head to say the reason for any shortcoming is one of low priority. Secondly, Chief Obasanjo also spoke about how his administration did ‘everything collectively…to have a common focus’. There is nothing today to suggest that there is a lack of common focus in the battle against insecurity. It remains to be seen whether in 2027, the former president will return to his hunting ground as a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) godfather instead of limiting himself to the innuendoes he has embraced and disseminated since he left active politics.
