Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a complex person. He never shies away from controversy. He has continued to live up to his reputation as a controversial, unpredictable, but courageous individual. In recent weeks, Obasanjo has returned to his familiar turf, writes Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is back to familiar terrain. In one week, the former President has lambasted some state governors for living like emperors while demanding sacrifice from the citizens for the country to survive the hard times. Obasanjo, who spoke at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, held at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan (UI), Oyo State, said Nigeria is a country where some governors have become sole administrators, acting like emperors and have thereby rendered public institutions irrelevant and useless.
This is coming less than a week after he wrote Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, accusing lawmakers of corruption, greed, lawlessness and impunity. In the letter, Obasanjo accused the leadership of the National Assembly of not being sensitive to the economic plight of Nigeria by planning to buy cars for themselves. He accused the lawmakers of fixing and earning salaries and allowances far above what the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission approved for them. He also alleged that most of the 109 senators and 369 members of the House of Representatives were receiving constituency allowances without maintaining constituency offices as the law requires of them.
Love him or hate him, Obasanjo has become a consistent critic of successive administrations since he voluntarily relinquished power to civilians after his first coming as a military dictator. One may not always agree with Baba, as he is fondly addressed by Nigerians, but when he talks, everyone listens. Since he left office in 1979, he has never failed in criticising his successors and predecessors, especially on national unity. He obviously enjoys doing so.
Having ruled Nigeria three times, once as a military dictator and for two terms as an elected leader, Obasanjo has become a strong factor to reckon with in the country’s polity. In his letter to Saraki and Dogara, he indicated that when he became President in 1999, he had set up structures, such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), in recognition of the fact that corruption is a major impediment to the economy. He added that after he left, corruption returned to Nigeria with vengeance, draining billions of dollars from the economy that could hardly afford to lose even a million dollars.
The accusation against lawmakers did not go down well with them and other stakeholders. At the risk of being labelled as not being in sync with the current anti-corruption war, some stakeholders have dismissed the former President’s comments. Chairman Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Dino Melaye, said the former President’s anger was misplaced. He said: “The letter, I can see, is a misplacement of anger. Our leader is mistaking the 8th National Assembly as the same Senate that defrauded him in 2007; those who collected his money and refused to implement the 3rd term agenda.”
The spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas, also dismissed Obasanjo’s letter as one meant for the lawmakers who served while he was the president between 1999 and 2007.
Some say the recent outbursts are the former President’s way of identifying with President Buhari’s anti-corruption war. Critics say that over the years, he has been playing the ostrich by being consistently vocal in his condemnation of people in the corridors of power. Yet, under his watch the country did not fare differently.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took to Twitter to slam the former President for berating the National Assembly, led by Saraki and Dogara. It asked Obasanjo to apologise for trying to use money to buy third term. It said: “It’s good that Obasanjo wants the National Assembly to stop waste. He should apologise for using #GhanaMustGo to try to buy 3rd term.” It added: “President Obasanjo should take personal responsibility for transactionalising the business of the National Assembly and corrupting legislative affairs.”
In his reaction, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Timi Frank, advised President Buhari to be wary of Obasanjo because no one is sure what he is after this time. Frank described Obasanjo’s accusations as: “sweeping generalisations – without supplying concrete evidence that could lead to prosecution of those found to have abused their offices in the manner they want everybody to believe.”
Obasanjo is a complex and difficult person to understand. Over the years, he has continued to live up to his reputation as a controversial, unpredictable, but courageous individual. After he fell out with his former protégé, Dr. Jonathan, Obasanjo launched a series of public attacks on him, including a widely-publicised open letter, where he accused the former President of failing to deal with corruption, piracy, kidnapping and oil theft. In the 18-page letter, he stated: “I want nothing from you personally except that you should run the affairs of Nigeria not only to make Nigeria good, but to make Nigeria great for which I have always pleaded with you and I will always do so. And it is yet to be done for most Nigerians to see.”
Before the election, in mid-February last year, Obasanjo who was an elected leader between 1999 and 2007 publicly tore up his PDP membership card and refused to back Jonathan’s re-election campaign, despite helping his initial rise to the top job.
But, critics say he should have utilized his well-known single-mindedness of purpose in pursuit of desired goals to lay a solid foundation for democracy, as an elected leader. But, according to such critics, he used same to enthrone imposition and lack of internal democracy in the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He engineered the emergence of his successor, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, who was paired with Jonathan to pave the way for the emergence of the latter in the corridors of power.
Immediately Buhari was announced the winner of the March 28 presidential election, Obasanjo wrote him, a move that was interpreted as a sign that he is available to help the incoming leader. The letter read in part: “I am sure there are men and women of goodwill, character and virtue… that you can mobilise to join hands with you in the reform, repairs and re-direction that will be imperative to put Nigeria back on fast lane.
“With so much harm already done to many national institutions, including the military, which proudly nurtured you and me, you will have a lot to do on institution reform.”
It is on record that Obasanjo bared his mind to almost all his predecessors, warning against destructive trends and events in a country he fought to unite during the civil war. Aside from letter writing, he also capitalises on public lectures and conferences to make his views known. A common trend that runs across his attacks on his predecessors is that something terrible happened to almost all of the regimes soon after he criticised them.
Obasanjo’s international image soared in 1987 when he indicted the military administration of Ibrahim Babangida of implementing a structural adjustment programme that lacks a human face.
He did not spare the military administration of Buhari, who was in power before Babangida. At a lecture he gave to the Agriculture Society in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, in August 1985, Obasanjo had criticised Buhari for allegedly running what he called “tilted federalism.” Obasanjo was reported to have sent an advanced copy of the lecture to Buhari. Later that same month, the Buhari regime was sacked in a palace coup led by Ibrahim Babangida, the then Chief of Army Staff.
The contraption called Interim National Government (ING), headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, did not last long enough to attract Obasanjo’s criticism. It lasted 82 days between August and November, 1993.
Gen. Sani Abacha, who shoved Shonekan aside in a bloodless palace coup, did not escape Obasanjo’s criticism. In 1994, at a lecture organised by Arewa House in Kaduna, Obasanjo sternly criticised the administration, which assumed office in November of the previous year, of lacking in credibility and moral fibre. He also accused the administration of habouring dark design to perpetuate itself in power and blamed Mr. Babangida for Mr. Abacha’s ascension to power. He said: “General Babangida is the main architect of the state in which the nation finds itself today and General Sani was his eminent disciple, faithful supporter and beneficiary.”
Subsequently, the late Abacha was not comfortable seeing Obasanjo moving as a free man; he had him incarcerated on trumped up charges of complicity in the 1995 phantom coup. Abacha was not comfortable because of his self-succession plan. The taciturn general not only imprisoned Obasanjo, he also tamed other critics, including Obasanjo’s erstwhile deputy, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. Abacha considered the latter’s political activities as a threat to his own self-succession agenda. Yar’Adua later died in prison, while Obasanjo did not regain his freedom until the emergence of the Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Born on March 5, 1937, his full names are Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo. At the age of 21, he enlisted in the Nigerian Army in 1958. He attended the six-month Short Service Commission training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot in England and was thereafter commissioned as an officer in the Nigerian Army. He was also trained in India at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and at the Indian Army School of Engineering.
Although he did not participate in the military coup of July 29, 1975, led by Murtala Mohammed, he supported it and was named Murtala’s deputy in the new government. On February 13, 1976, coup plotters, led by Army Col. Buka Suka Dimka, marked him, Murtala and other senior military personnel for assassination. While Murtala was killed during the attempted coup, Obasanjo escaped death. The low profile security policy adopted by Murtala had allowed the plotters easy access to their targets. The coup was foiled because the plotters missed Obasanjo and General Theophilus Danjuma, chief of army staff and de facto number three man in the country.
Obasanjo is a statesman and diplomat respected internationally. He has the distinction of being the first military ruler in Nigeria to hand over power to a democratically-elected government. He served the country as a democratically elected President from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007 on the platform of the PDP. In 2006 he came under domestic and international criticism for attempting to amend the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term as president; the proposed amendment was rejected by the Senate later that year.
