Tag: Obasanjo

Once in a while I find it difficult to resist the temptation of breaking my own rule of not publishing reactions to my column that are longer than 300 words. With apologies to my readers, today is one of such rather arbitrary exceptions. I am sure, however, that the reader will find the first two lengthy reactions to my column of last week on the subject above – along with the short ones – interesting,  even if some of them use rather disagreeable language. Please enjoy.

I refer to your “Obasanjo, Buhari and the rest of us”, in The Nation of Wednesday, August 24, 2016. In your disturbingly partisan column you spoke of the “Yoruba war for ‘June 12’ and its warrior-in-chief, Chief MKO. Abiola.” What a way to see the people and events of 1993 – 1998! What a cynical presentation of history!

Is Mr. Mohammed Haruna speaking for himself – and he has every right under heaven so to do – or is he speaking for the “North”? In either case, what a great shame!

Abiola transcended tribe, geopolitical zone, North/South “divide”, and religion to aspire to the presidency of NIGERIA. His alliances AND largesse went beyond Yoruba land, all the way up to the farthest reaches of the North. The same North through its “implacable” politico-military ruling class, in complicity with people of crass ill will against the Yoruba in general and the much-envied Abiola in particular, went ahead to annul Abiola’s election to the Presidency and ensured he died in detention.

The real tragedy of “June 12” (as you put it, which really means “The so called June 12”) is that people who were never friends of democracy were and are, the ones who have cornered the rewards, the influence, the affluence, the fame and fortune of democracy and civil rule. They have become powerful President, Vice President, President of Senate, Senators, Representatives, Ministers, Governors, and extremely rich potentates in the civil service and in industry, politicians, and party leaders.

As you have rightly noted, Obasanjo, a fellow Yoruba with Abiola – albeit a non-loving and unloved Yoruba – reaped most handsomely from the June 12 crisis with the self-serving approval of, and facilitation by, the politico-military ruling elite of the North. He has always reaped where he did not sow, as you rightly pointed out.

Obasanjo brought the ailing brother of his associate in military government, Major-General Shehu Yar’adua. President Yar’adua’s deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, Obasanjo’s chosen “Son”, took over upon the death of his principal. And as should be said, “the rest is tragedy”.

June 12, 1993 was a transcendental moment and fact of history; it is NOT “June 12”, and Abiola won the election fairly and squarely, NOT “presumed” to have won it.

Mr. Haruna, let us have a healthy respect for history. Let us cultivate the virtue of transcending ethno-centric cynicism and prejudice. Nigeria as we know it, is doomed if we do not.

• Abdul Akin Bello

Akure, Ondo State.

abidak09@gmail.com

 

It is with all sense of responsibility and modesty that I wish to comment on your above headlined article that appeared in the Daily Trust of 24/8/16.

You asserted that Obasanjo was the architect of the Jonathanian predicament because Osuntokun said, he it was who, against all protestation, single-handedly imposed the Yar’adua/Jonathan ticket on the ruling party for the 2007 presidential election and ensured it won. Meaning that you believed what Osuntokun said.

But both of you are wrong, deadly wrong. Because by the same analogy your never-do-wrong was responsible for the release from prison, presidential pardon, fielding of Obasanjo as candidate and his eventual winning of the 1999 presidential election. Also the intrigues that went with the 2007 election, from your boss show of interest to his withdrawal for his “junior brother” up to the role played by your other brother in midwifing the candidature of Yar’adua all point to one fact: conspiracy. Along the way in the run-up to the 2003 election, your good self, Dr. Mato, Bafarawa, Abdulmumini Aminu, all had insider roles to play in the frustrating game. And I believe all of you are culpable in bringing Obasanjo, Yar’adua and Jonathan.

May be Obasanjo was singled out because he opted out of the continuous conspiracy game?

I am happy that you didn’t disappoint me when you brought up the issue of your boss from nowhere to, as usual, praise sing him. But you were wrong to credit him with the provision of almost the entire oil infrastructure the country enjoys today. He had no hand in the establishment of all the oil refineries and laying of the network of pipelines and you know that. Yet you pretended. After all in an earlier article in Daily Trust you had conceded that your benefactor would carry his Aniya to the grave as-is.

Obasanjo might have collaborated to support Buhari as the only viable alternative to Jonathan to save Nigeria. But happily even you never contemplated that your mentor/benefactor made that list of collaborators that conspired to save Nigeria. What a pity!

According to Obasanjo, Buhari will overcome the challenges the country is facing. We believe him. Because Allah in his infinite mercy has thus far guarded and protected him from all human conspiracies and crowned his sincere effort with success and the presidency of Nigeria. Allah would not abandon him at this hour. He is on a mission successful.

• Umaru Buhari Safana,

umarubuhari@yahoo.co.uk

 

You have said it all as to President Obasanjo’s character. Your assessment is well known to many Nigerians. It is either Obasanjo or nobody else. Your concluding paragraph said it all. My earnest prayer and of many Nigerians is that President Muhammadu Buhari should succeed.

• Biyi Adesanya,

Ibadan.

+2348033243936.

 

Using your statistics OBJ still left USD 65 billion for ‘Yar’adua’s government after paying off our foreign debts. To me this was an achievement.

• Abdulwasiu Abiola.

 

For Nigerians who care to know Obasanjo, so far, is the worst enemy of Nigeria and Nigerians. Quote me.

• Jiday,

Abuja.

+2348058517684.

 

You are the worst, dishonest and ethno-bigot living Nigerian. You cannot launder Babangida no matter how hard you try.

• Tony Lokoja.

 

As always, great piece and truly illuminating. History has to be kind to IBB.

• Tim Mathias.

+2348065775957.

 

• So frank and so courageous!

gizago12@gmail.com

 

Brilliant write up! I hope he reads it. I also hope Buhari isn’t a fool.

• Sada,

+2348033850603.

 

I don’t think your subject matter today was necessary since Obj has denied the story saying he claimed glory for Buhari’s election. For me the Sunday Vanguard report you alluded to over-simplified a complex issue.

• Jimoh Salman,

Kuje.

+2348035041062.

 

Thanks for your write-up on Obasanjo. About 90% of Nigerians including his family don’t regard or respect him. You have written the truth and nothing but the truth about a man who should shut up.

• Chuma,

Imo State.

+2348057525085.

 

It has become your culture that every time you write, you will insult Uncle Jona. Obj cannot conduct credible polls just like Buhari who brought Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, who is telling us that he cannot guarantee credible election in 2019. Without Jona’s credible polls your PMB would not have been president. Please give him some respect.

• Emma Obodechi,

Abuja.

+2348035585109.

 

The smart card reader was a monumental failure. Ask INEC for necessary data. Kano recorded over 80% failure rate.

• Ariyo,

Abuja.

+2348030620882.

 

When Obasanjo came in 1999 I said if he gets it wrong we will be thrown back 50 years behind development. Truly he came and woefully failed and set the whole country on the current crisis we are undergoing. However, the truth of the matter is that Good

Last week former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was widely reported to have claimed himself and two or three other  “eminent” Nigerians brought General Muhammadu Buhari into power to salvage Nigeria from what looked like an impending doom under Buhari’s predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. He made the claim at a reception in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital.

Obasanjo did not name the other two or three Nigerians, but it is not unlikely that they included former army chief, Lt-General TY Danjuma, who is from Taraba and former Lagos State governor and currently the most pre-eminent Yoruba politician, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“Three or four of us from different parts of the country got together” he reportedly said, “and said to ourselves what do we do…We got talking and we knew we needed to do something.” Apparently that “something” was Buhari’s coming to power through the ballot box last year.

Himself, Danjuma and Tinubu are not known to be the best of friends, given their political differences and especially given the bitterness Danjuma has harboured against his former boss since Obasanjo seized half of his lucrative oil block, which he had been given by the late former military dictator, General Sani Abacha. So it is difficult to imagine how, when and where they “got together” – to use Obasanjo’s words – and decided to put Buhari in power. But then in politics nothing is impossible. Besides, Danjuma and Tinubu may not even have been the “eminent” Nigerians Obasanjo teamed up with to oust Jonathan.

Whatever the case, all three never hid their disappointment with Jonathan over his dismal record as president, even though it was Obasanjo alone of the three who felt strongly enough against his estranged godson to write him a long and bitter open letter, which proved critical in the fall of the godson from power. And having made up their minds that Nigeria was no longer safe in Jonathan’s hand, each decided to support Buhari as the only viable alternative to Jonathan.

Whether or not the fall of Jonathan was due to teamwork or the cumulative impact of individual efforts by Obasanjo’s “eminent” Nigerians, Nigeria was saved from tipping over into an abyss last year. Even then Obasanjo’s claim to the leading role in the rescue mission seems as dubious as it is one more evidence of the man’s predilection for reaping where others have planted – and of denying responsibility for any of his decisions that have gone awry.

His claim is dubious because, first, he was the architect of the country’s Jonathanian predicament, to begin with. As we all know and as his spokesman during his 2013 re-election bid, Akin Osuntokun, acknowledged in his Thisday column last week, he it was who, against all protestations, single-handedly imposed the Yar’adua/Jonathan ticket on the ruling party for the 2007 presidential election and ensured that it won.

“President Umaru Musa Yar’adua,” said Osuntokun, “was directly and specifically installed as president by Obasanjo and was presented as a fait accompli to Nigerians. As a matter of fact, it was the whole presidential ticket comprising Yar’adua and Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan that was so imposed.”

When Obasanjo imposed the pair on Nigerians, he knew that Yar’adua was not in the best of health and Jonathan had hardly proved his mettle, first as deputy governor and then as governor of Bayelsa State after he (Obasanjo) orchestrated the impeachment of Jonathan’s boss. Besides, Jonathan had the albatross of a wife implicated in laundering millions of dollars round his neck.

As he is wont to, the former president has since denied he knew Yar’adua was fatally ill when he decided to impose him as president. His excuse was that Yar’adua himself assured him he was as fit as a fiddle. To think the man really wants us to believe an applicant for any job, not to mention the one into a country’s Number One Office, never needed a health check!

Obasanjo must have known that a combination of Yar’adua’s ill health and Jonathan’s cluelessness was like a national disaster foretold. Yet he still went ahead to impose them on Nigerians.

In my article on the occasion of the former president’s official 76th birthday three years ago, I said Obasanjo was one of the most hardworking, intelligent, knowledgeable, globally well connected and decisive leaders Nigeria has ever had.

He was, I also said, the luckiest. Thrice at least, I said, he reaped where others had sown; first, when he received the instruments of surrender from the Biafrans in 1970 after another general, the late Benjamin Adekunle, had done virtually all the fighting in his war zone, second, when he succeeded Murtala Muhammed following his assassination in the failed February 1976 coup, and third, when he reaped the dividends of the Yoruba war for “June 12” after its warrior-in-chief, Chief MKO Abiola, died in detention in 1998. Obasanjo reaped the dividends of that war by returning to power as elected president in 1999.

Three years after the piece in question, I can now add one more item to his long streak of luck, thanks to a diligent story by Sunday Vanguard (August 14), even though its motive clearly was more to inveigh against Nigeria’s revenue allocation since 1967 than to shine the light on how the Niger Deltans themselves squandered the absolutely huge sums they were allocated during the period. I am, of course, talking about the oil wealth that has since made us all so lazy and fractious.

Save Jonathan, no Nigerian leader has received the huge oil revenue Obasanjo did during his eight-year presidency. Of the total 96.21 trillion Nigeria received as oil revenue between its discovery in 1958 and now, Sunday Vanguard said, Obasanjo received 27 trillion, nearly half the 51 trillion Jonathan received in his nearly six years in office. The highest any one had received before and after Obasanjo, except of course Jonathan, was 1.6 trillion under General Sani Abacha.

By comparison, the oil revenue former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, whom Obasanjo loved to criticise, received in all his eight years in office was like spittle: a mere 420 billion Naira. Yet Obasanjo’s economic legacy does not begin to compare with Babangida’s in its positive impact. If nothing else, Babangida at least built Abuja and almost all of the oil infrastructure the country enjoys today with that spittle.

Given Obasanjo’s many virtues I enumerated three years ago, I had personally expected a much better political and socio-economic legacy from him than what he left behind, especially as he loved to criticise not only Babangida but also all other Nigerian leaders.

Unfortunately for Nigeria, Obasanjo left behind a terrible legacy of political meddlesomeness in other arms of government and in his political party, huge deficits in infrastructure and a highly selective crusade against corruption. It was a legacy he ought to have known Yar’adua was not strong enough healthwise and Jonathan was not well equipped to fight successfully. Predictably the two, Jonathan especially, only made matters worse.

This is the legacy that Buhari must now grapple with. Obasanjo now claims credit for being in the forefront of those who have made it possible for the man to come to power last year. Yet three times before, he did everything possible to stop Buhari from becoming president. This obviously makes Obasanjo’s claim somewhat tenuous.

That Obasanjo may have changed his mind about Buhari was really more because events – including popular sentiments for Buhari’s moral perpendicularity and the Independent National Electoral Commission’s card reader, which made it well-nigh impossible to rig elections – had gone beyond anyone’s control, including Buhari’s, than because the former president was penitent for the sorry legacy he had left behind.

Obasanjo has said so far Buhari has not disappointed him and he trusts the man not to let down Nigerians. “I know,” he said at the Jalingo reception, “he will overcome the challenges the country is facing.”

Given the hard times Nigerians are currently facing, they can only say Amen to that. And then hope and pray that the wily old general truly meant what he said and was not merely flattering the president in order to blind him to a haymaker that may follow, something with which he has knocked down many a Nigerian leader after him.

The occasion was the Fourth Annual Ibadan Sustainable Summit at Le Chateau, Bodija, Ibadan, where he was the guest speaker. His topic was Leadership in Africa’s Quest for Sustainable Development.

“We had some people who were under 50 years in leadership positions. One of them was James Ibori. Where is he today? One of them was Alamieyeseigha, where is he today? Lucky Igbinedion, where is he today? The youngest was the Speaker, Buhari. You can still recall what happened to him. You said Bola Tinubu is your master. What Buhari did was not any worse than what Bola Tinubu did. We got them impeached. But in this part of the world some people covered up the other man.”