Tag: Obasanjo

 Any honest writer or analyst will acknowledge that President Goodluck Jonathan’s national political career was a creation of former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. At a time the President meant little politically outside his Bayelsa State base, Obasanjo located him and attached him to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in the 2007 presidential race. That appeared the peak the Otuoke-born Jonathan would go. But, fate intervened and today, he is President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

It would seem then, perhaps as Obasanjo himself envisaged, that Jonathan would be incapable of creating an independent platform and would therefore run to his godfather at every opportunity for advice (more of instructions). However, that was not to be. The man has come of age politically. He has been weaned off the milk of the godfather and is demonstrating that he is not only in office but in power and in charge to the discomfiture of his mentor. Things have fallen apart between the two men and their political structures.

For some time now, Obasanjo has been throwing jabs at the President, whose official and unofficial image makers have been fighting back. Early this week, while receiving a group of women leaders from the Southwest at his residence in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital Hilltop mansion, the former Head of State accused Jonathan of squandering oil cash, adding that the President was carrying on as if no one could hold him accountable. He urged the people to vote wisely next month. He has joined issues with the President on the security policy and depletion of the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

His attacks on the President have raised some posers: What role will Obasanjo play in the 2015 election? Is he really a factor? Could he contribute meaningfully to the direction towards which the pendulum would swing? He has, of recent, consistently hit at his ward, describing him as incompetent in managing the country and especially the economy.

Most resounding is the divergence in the views of both men on the political direction. Obasanjo wants Jonathan to play the statesman after one official term in office. Although constitutionally permitted to sit on the throne for eight years split into two terms, the former Head of State says the North deserves to be allowed to complete the Yar’Adua term. Always attempting to present the picture of a nationalist, Obasanjo wants the North appeased. Jonathan and his kinsmen think this is out of order. They argue that the North should wait for the Southsouth to exhaust the legal opportunity of a second term before the North could assume power again.

In the argument, only a token attention is paid to competence. When Obasanjo was made President, he did not have the support of his Yoruba kinsmen. He was the choice of the North and the East. Overwhelmingly, the aggrieved people of the Southwest wanted Chief Olu Falae, who was the candidate of the Alliance for Democracy/All Peoples Party. As a chieftain of a party that has a dominant standing in the Southwest said: “In what ways did the Obasanjo presidency benefit his people more than the others.” It could be differently asked: “Why should any section of the country benefit more from a particular government simply because one of its sons is in power?”

There are men whose personalities excite controversy and passion. They fear no one and would drop the bombshell anywhere.

Obasanjo has cut for himself the image of one who “speaks truth to power”. Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka sees him differently. He considers him a man versed in the art of appropriating others’ achievements. But many point at his attacks on past leaders to justify the image that he is not afraid to speak to power.

When Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, a four-star General, ran national affairs, Obasanjo was a regular critic of the administration. He wasted no time in suggesting that the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) lacked a human face. He was equally disdainful of that government’s political agenda. He founded a body to promote good governance as that regime began to show the reluctance of its leader to quit office. At the time, he was regarded by many as a spokesman for the voiceless majority.

Under the late Gen. Sani Abacha administration, the most brutal regime in the history of the country, Obasanjo joined the Abacha-must-go movement, even some maintain till date that he was duplicitous in so doing. He later paid the price as he was slammed in jail for a phantom coup plot. It was a sheer device to take him out of circulation and buy peace for the government. Eventually, when the maximum ruler permanently exited the stage, Obasanjo was freed and found himself in the seat of power in 1999.

Since he left power, he has remained active in tackling his successors and presenting himself as a compassionate leader; a patriot. He chose a public forum to denounce his direct successor, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua. He called on the then ailing leader to save the country heartache by quitting the stage. In doing so, he spilled the beans, making public the private discussions he had with the late President, his health status and literally mobilising the public against the man who was presented as a sit-tight ruler, holding the nation to ransom. It was vintage Obasanjo. He showed he could both sting and bite. He cleverly omitted the part he played in scheming out others who were hale and hearty and had banked on emerging through the due process.

As another election approaches, what does Obasanjo really want? As Obasanjo’s ship of state tottered on the high sea, Obasanjo’s verbal bullets rang out with the usual devastating effect. As he made pronouncements to rattle the military president, he schemed behind the scenes for what he considered most beneficial to his interest. He wanted an interim government which many felt he had wanted to head. Now, again, there are reports that he would not, at almost 77, be averse to leading such a government, even if that would be a way of achieving the proverbial third term. He is yet to come out with the idea. Knowing who he is, this might not take long in coming.

Truly, the Egba man is brewing something that should be on the shelf any moment from now.

Statesmen on parade

Election time is a period when politicians choose to show the stuff they are made of. Everything they do is dictated by interests, declared and undeclared. But, elderstatesmen are expected to moderate views and actions in the general interest. The more discerning members of the public believe the utterances and suggestions of men who had played the game at the zenith before they bowed out fully or partially. They are usually old and wizened by age. They understand the country and will do anything literally to protect its corporate existence. In Nigeria, the elderstatesmen were either politicians or former military rulers. While sometimes featherweights electorally, they still have influence on public affairs. Such elderstatesmen include Obasanjo, the only person to have been privileged to rule the country twice- once as a military Head of State, and later as a democratically elected President for eight years. Others are former military rulers Yakubu Gowon, Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar.

In the civilian arm of the ruling elite, former President Shehu Shagari and his deputy, Dr. Alex Ekwueme could play some role too. Although both men are reticent, with Shagari being more of an establishment man who supports any government in power. Dr. Ekwueme, who started this dispensation seeking to upgrade his political profile by becoming the first President of the Fourth Republic, soon after recoiled somewhat into his shell. His influence has been limited with very little like other political elite from the Southeast. However, he has grown bolder in recent times mobilising his people to realise that the future could be bleak if the corporate existence of the country is not guaranteed through competent management. This declaration appears to be gaining some ground as the usual political monolithic front of the region is breaking. The Ohanaeze meeting, convened to decide what direction the region will take in the next few weeks, rejected a move to endorse the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate. This is seen as a sign of what to come.

The positions of Abukakar and Babangida are not particularly discernible. While, on the one hand receiving Jonathan in his Minna Hilltop home at the end of 2014, suggesting support for him, his aides were quick to indicate that Babangida was merely being courteous. He followed that with a veiled criticism of the Jonathan administration as very corrupt in an interview he granted the official organ of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).He said if the level of corruption going on now is compared with his time, public officials in his time were angels and saints.

There are suggestions that the former rulers and military chiefs may be meeting behind the scenes to forge a common ground in saving a country deemed to be failing. How far will they go? Will they succeed? Unfolding scenarios will dictate what happens on February 14.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo will today meet with all Iyalodes (traditional women leaders) and other women leaders in the Southwest.

The meeting, which is slated for his hilltop Abeokuta home, is causing panic among Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders.

Though the agenda for the meeting was unknown yesterday, the notice of meeting sent out by the Iyalode of Egba, Alaba Lawson, said the women “are to assemble at Commerce House, Igbehin Hills, near Ibara Police Station, Abeokuta by 9am to go in a convoy to Baba’s house for the 10am appointment”.

It was learnt that knowledge of the meeting has caused ripples within the PDP with the belief that the former president is not favourably disposed to the re-election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan.

The PDP leaders, it was learnt, believe that the meeting was aimed at garnering support for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

A PDP source said:  “As much as we are not privy to the meeting’s agenda, we are convinced that it cannot be anything than political and since baba’s body language as far as PDP is concerned is against our plan to have President Jonathan back in office, we are worried..”

The controvery triggered by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s latest book – My Watch – may linger for long. Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, who is one of the personalities criticised in the book, has taken exception to the scathing remarks about him by the ex-President. In his reply entitled: Watch and pray, Watch and prey!, the literary icon accused ex-President Obasanjo of abusing the exhortation by Jesus Christ.

I HAD fully attuned myself to the fact that our Owu retiree soldier and prolific author is an infliction that those of us who share the same era and nation space must learn to endure.

However, it does appear that there is no end to this individual’s capacity for infantile mischief, and for needless, mind-boggling provocations, such as his recent ‘literary’ intrusion on my peace.

Perhaps I ought to interrupt myself here with an apology to some mutual acquaintances – ‘blessed peacemakers’ and all – especially in this season of ‘peace and goodwill to all men’. Please know that your efforts have not been entirely in vain.     I had a cordial exchange with Obasanjo over the phone recently – engineered by himself, his ground staff and/or a chance visitor  – when I had cause to visit his Presidential Laundromat for the first time ever.  During that exchange, I complemented him on making some quite positive use of landed property that was acquired under morally dubious circumstances, and blatantly developed through a process that I denounced as ‘executive extortionism’. That obscene proceeding has certainly set a competitive precedent for impunity in President Jonathan’s recent fund-raising shindig, editorialised in The PUNCH (December 23, 2014) as  “Impunity Taken too Far”.

So much for the latest from that direction – we must not allow handing-over notes between presidents to distract us for too long.

To return to our main man, and friendly interventionists, you may like to note that I went so far as to engage him in light banter, stating that some of his lesser sins would be forgiven him for that creative conversion of the landscape – a conversation that he shortly afterwards delightedly shared with at least three mutual acquaintances. I promised a follow-up visit to view some mysterious rock script whose existence, he informed me, was uncovered by workers during ground clearing.

The exchange was, in short, as good as ‘malice towards none’ that any polemicist could hope to contribute to the ongoing season of peace and goodwill.

Obviously that visit will not now take place, any more than the pursuit of vague notions of some creative collaboration with his Centre that began to play around my mind.               That much I do owe you from my report card.

Perhaps you will now accept that there are individuals who are born incorrigible but, more importantly, that some issues transcend one’s personal preferences for harmonious human relationships even in a season of traditional goodwill.

The change in weather conditions sits quite well with me however,  since we are both acquainted with the Yoruba proverb that goes:  The child that swears his mother will not sleep must also prepare for a prolonged, sleepless infancy.  So, let it be with Okikiola, the overgrown child of circumstance.    One of the incessant ironies that leapt up at me as I read Obasanjo’s magnum opus was that we are both victims of a number of distasteful impositions  – such as being compelled again and again to seek justice against libel in the law courts.

I felt genuine empathy to read that he still has a pending thirty-year case instituted by him against his alleged libelers! Judgment was delivered in my favour regarding one of the most nauseating only this year, after surviving technical and other procrastinations, defendant evasions and other legalistic impediments for nearly as long as his.

That leaves only a veritable Methuselah on the court list still awaiting re-listing under the resurrection ritual language known as de novo.

Unfortunately, not all acts of defamation or willful misrepresentation are actionable, otherwise, my personal list against this newly revealed fellow-sufferer would have counted for an independent volume of the Nigerian Law Report since our paths first crossed during the Civil War.  My commitment to the belief in the fundamental right of all human beings ‘Not to be lied against’ remains a life obsession, and thus demands, at the very least, an obligation of non-commission among fellow victims.     I must therefore reserve a full, frontal dissection of Obasanjo’s  My Watch for later, most especially since the work itself is currently under legal restraint and is not readily accessible to a general readership.

So, for now, let me single out just one of the most glaring instances of this man’s compulsive career of lying, one sample that the media can readily check upon and use as a touchstone – if they do need one – in assessing our author’s multi-faceted claims and commentaries on people and events.

I refer here to the grotesque and personally insulting statement that he has attributed to me for some inscrutable but obviously diversionary reasons.

In the process, this past Master of Mendacity brazenly implicates an innocent young man, Akin Osuntokun, who once served him as a Special Adviser.

Instead of conferring dignity on a direct rebuttal of an ignoble fabrication, I shall simply make a personal, all-embracing attestation: I despise that species of humanity whose stock-in-trade is to concoct lies simply to score a point, win an argument, puff up his or her own ego, denigrate or attempt to destroy a fellow being.

However, even within such deplorable species, a special pit of universal opprobrium is surely reserved for those who even lack the courage of their own lies, but must foist them on others.

When an old man stuffs a lie into the throat of an age-mate of his own children – omo inu e! – we can only pity an irredeemable egomaniac whose dotage is headed for twilight disgrace.           D.O. Fagunwa, the pioneer Yoruba novelist, was a compulsive moralist. I suspect that he may have exerted some influence on our garrulous General, resulting in his pupil’s tedious, misapplied and self-serving deluge of moralising. It seems quite likely indeed that the ghostly, moralistic hand of Fagunwa reached out from the Great Beyond, sat his would-be competitor forcefully before a mirror and bade him write what he saw in that image.

I invoke Fagunwa because, at his commemorative colloquium in Akure in August last year, I drew my audience’s attention to a remarkable passage in Fagunwa’s Igbo Olodumare. The passage had struck me during translation and stuck to my mind. I found it uncanny that the original creative moralist, Fagunwa, had captured the psychological profile of a being whom I have been compelled by circumstances to study as an eerie creation, yet this was a character Fagunwa was unlikely to have encountered in real life at the time that he produced that work.

The section comes from an account of a visit to the abode of Iku (death), the terrifying host to Olowo-aiye, the narrative voice of the adventure.  Iku, the host, had been admonishing his guests through the histories of seven creatures who were not permitted a straightforward passage to heaven or hell, but were subjected to admonitory punishment at the halfway house to the abode of the dead.

The most horrendous tortures were reserved, it would seem, for the last of the seven such ‘detainees’, and I invited my audience to ponder if they could identify any prominent individual, a public figure whose life conduct seamlessly fitted into Fagunwa’s portrayal, which went thus: “The seventh…. is not among those who set out to improve the world but rather to cause distress to its inhabitants. It was through manipulations that he attained a high position.

“Having achieved this however, he constantly blocked the progress of those behind him, this being a most deplorable act in the eyes of God, and rank behaviour in the judgment of the dwellers of heaven – that anyone who has enjoyed upliftment in life should seek to be an obstacle for those who follow him. This man forgot the beings of earth, forgot the beings of heaven, in turn, he forgot the presence of God.

“The worst kind of behaviour agitated his hands – greed occupied the centre of his heart, and he was a creature that walked in darkness. This man wallowed in bribery, he was chairman of the circle of scheming, head of the gang of double-dealing, field-marshal of those who crept about in the dark of night.

“With his mouth, he ruined the work of others, while he used a big potsherd to cover the good works of some, that others might not see their attainments. He nosed around for secrets that would entrap his companions, and blew them up into monumental crimes in the eyes of the world. He who turns the world upside down, places the deceitful on the throne, casts the truthful down – because such is a being of base earth, he will never stand as equal among the uplifted.”

My co-occupants of the High Table, in side remarks, and those who came up from the audience afterwards to volunteer their answer to the riddle, without exception named one individual and one individual only, even as I remained non-committal. Indeed, one or two tried to put up a defence of that nominee, and I had to remind them that I had named no one! Fagunwa wrote largely of the world of mongrelised creatures but, as I remarked, his fiction remains a prescient and cautionary mirror of the society we inhabit, where beasts of the forest appear to have a greater moral integrity than those who claim to be leading lights of society.

In this season of goodwill, we owe a duty to our immediate and distant neighbours: CAVEAT EMPTOR!  Let all beware, who try to buy a Rolex from this indefatigable watch peddler.

His own hand-crafted, uniquely personalised timepiece has been temporarily confiscated by NDLEA (National Drug Law Enforcement Agency) and other guardians of public health but, there is no cause for despair. Such has been the fate of the misunderstood and the envied, avatars descended from the heavens before their time, the seers, and all who crave recognition.

Our author invokes God tirelessly, without provocation, without necessity and without justification, perhaps preemptively, but does he really believe in such an entity? Does our home-bred Double-O-Seven believe in anything outside his own Omnipotency? Could he possibly have mistaken the Christian exhortation – ‘Watch and Pray’ for his private inclination to “Watch and Prey? This is a seasoned predator on others’ achievements – he preys on their names, their characters, their motivations, their true lives, preys on gossip and preys on facts, preys on contributions to collective undertakings…..even preys on their identities, substituting his own where possible.

Well, hopefully he may actually believe in the inevitable end to all vanities? So, let our Great Immortal, the Unparalleled Achiever, Divinely appointed Watchman even on the world that is yet to come remember Fagunwa’s  Iku, the ultimate predator whose visitation comes to us all, sooner or later.  Chei! There is Death o!