- How not to be a statesman
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, two-term elected president (1999-2007) is, in or out of power, the most disruptive of democracy since 1999. His new “Afro Democracy” underscores that rather dangerous disruptiveness.
At a parley at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State, on November 21, he declaimed liberal democracy and declared it a “failure” in Africa.
“The weakness and failure of liberal democracy, as it is practised, stems from its history, content, context and practice. Once you move from all the people to a representative of the people, you start to encounter troubles and problems,” he told his gathered guests.
“For those who define it as the rule of the majority, should the minority be ignored?” he asked. “In short, we have a system of government in which we have no hands to define and design; and we continue with it even when we know that it is not working for us.”
Perhaps the polity should hail Gen. Obasanjo as newfound champion of the cheated “minority”! But wasn’t his rule both as military junta head; and his elected presidency, which thrived on stolen votes (2003 and 2007 polls, under his watch, remain the worst since 1999), all about cheating the majority because those who captured power could do so and get away with it? Didn’t Obasanjo himself dub his sign-off election of 2007 “do-or-die”, for which he swore he owed no one any apology?
Regrettably though, after thrashing “liberal democracy”, Obasanjo could not espouse a more rigorous replacement other than just adding the prefix “Afro” to “Democracy” — like some confused playwright in Greek drama would throw in a deus-ex-machina, and kid himself the gods had resolved the conflicts in the plot to everyone’s satisfaction!
Had that funny idea been mouthed by a lesser personage, everyone would have laughed it to scorn. But such is Obasanjo’s nuisance value — or lack of it — that whatever he says (sense or nonsense) hits media headlines, which the former president often hugs as a sign that he is still relevant, and has not been left behind.
Such psychological dissonance — an extreme paranoia, obsessing over-relevance or irrelevance — must be tough! But such must be condemned if it threatens the very basis of our democracy.
Today’s democracy was anchored on confronting the political military for annulling the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Since its rebirth in 1999, it has enjoyed a fierce preservation, by the then opposition and civil society groups, despite the relentless assaults from anti-democratic forces, among whom Obasanjo proudly counted, with his despicable ill grace, as elected president.
Now in its 24th year — the longest time democracy would run since Nigeria’s independence — that fierce preservation must continue. That is why the polity must ensure Obasanjo’s eternal disruption does not plumb into outright subversion, and endanger our democracy.
Indeed, his presidential ill grace, fired by executive outlawry, could easily have ruined everything, had the Nigerian political military not exhausted their historical relevance– an unfortunate epoch Obasanjo himself was part of, though, to his credit, he handed power to a short-lived civil interregnum, under President Shehu Shagari (1979-1983).
Again, had the political military been as misguided in 1999 as they were in 1979, they would have stormed in with subversive patriotism, and yet again steal power. Such was Obasanjo’s gangling presidential outlawry, which subverted about every strand of the tender 1999 Constitution.
Indeed, within his eight-year tenure, President Obasanjo deployed his “federal might” to fire five governors, with less than parliamentary processes, imposing two state emergencies to boot! But for the courts that stood against his executive bullying, perhaps the entire exercise could have collapsed yet again.
The five governor-victims were: Joshua Dariye (Plateau), Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo), Peter Obi (Anambra), Chris Ngige (Anambra) and Ayo Fayose (Ekiti). Dariye, Ladoja and Obi were sacked via the notorious “simple minority” of their state assemblies — the Obasanjo-era illiberal contributions to Nigeria’s liberal democracy.
An Anambra godfather kidnapped Ngige, to procure a forced resignation. He was wrestling the state’s till with the governor, over some illicit pact over campaign funding. Rogue federal security elements aided and abetted that intra-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) kidnap. Obi was impeached because a sitting president asked him to cross from his All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to PDP — or forget a second term!
Fayose was impeached and banished from completing his controversial first term, though Ekiti under him laboured under assassinations and executive outlawry, before the governor fell out with Abuja’s federal might. Dariye was illegally sacked by an assembly minority, though both governor and assembly would later go under, when President Obasanjo imposed an emergency, and appointed a sole administrator. That same fate — Ekiti sole administrator — would meet the last few months of Governor Fayose’s first term.
Again, the courts stood their grounds and all of these governors, except Fayose, regained their offices. With such an illiberal president as Obasanjo, how would liberal democracy have worked?
It’s irony of ironies though, that the same Obi the Obasanjo Presidency would rather shove off his seat is the same Obasanjo brandished as his golden “mentee” in the run-up to the 2023 presidential elections; and on the account of whose loss Obasanjo is now declaiming “liberal democracy” for his fanciful “Afro Democracy”! A living proof of Obasanjo’s ever fickle ideas?
But perhaps the illiberal President Obasanjo had a natural problem with liberal democracy with its rigid checks and balance; and really looked forward to some “Afro Democracy” with a “Kabiyesi” — read unquestionable — syndrome! That way, perhaps the two-term president could easily have altered the Constitution to get a third term as he craved, and maybe a life presidency ever after!
Still, there is a double irony totally lost on the former president, as he outed with his latest fancy theory, from his OOPL. At the waning years of military rule, Obasanjo lampooned military rule from his Ota Farm — itself a pork from his military rulership, thanks to the Land Use Decree (now Act) which facilitated his acquisition of so much land.
Now, from his OOPL, he pushes “Afro Democracy”, while declaiming the liberal democracy that made him two-term president, the Land Use Act that gifted him the large tract of land on which OOPL stands, and a corrosive presidential power that “divined” a fund-raiser, at which those who did business with the government could come “donate”!
Pray with such illiberal abuse of power, how can liberal democracy work for everyone?
Besides, when exactly did Gen. Obasanjo discover military rule was an aberration and President Obasanjo, that “liberal democracy” had outlived its usefulness in Nigeria and Africa? When it’s becoming more and more difficult to reap illicit benefits from both?
Obasanjo’s latest fancy should be dismissed with all the contempt it deserves, without prejudice to his inalienable right to hold and espouse opinion. It’s nothing but grand ego-tripping, with hardly any altruistic value.
It’s proof, yet again, that Obasanjo’s conduct, bruising citizens and institutions while he was president, and traducing others with reckless letters and noxious theories as ex-president, is a clear mirror of how not to be a statesman.
