Olusegun Obasanjo : Nigeria’s Pontius Pilate – Lanre Ogundipe

“An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life — becoming a better person.” – Leo Toltstoy

Should we not continue to allow Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to hang himself as his destiny to offer as an appeasement to the gods. His disgraceful act of reducing Nigeria to nothingness after dismal performance as Head of government businesses for nearly 12 years with his first coming as Military head of State for 3 years and 8 years as civilian President with an attempted tenure elongation. Were it not for the resistance of few progressive elements within and outside the then National Assembly, Baba Aladie (the chicken farmer) of Ota would have raped constitutionally as a nation and succeded in instutionalising the “Third term” regime into the fraudulently packaged 1999 Constitution. That attempt was trauncated by the collective will of the people.

With his age, a man of his stature cannot bridle his tongue in his engagement with international audience but to open a can of worms based on self and wrong assessment on successive administrations who failed to pander to his whims, were tagged, demonized and seen as failures. He never gave a thought that the accusations being directed towards others could in turn consume him. The foundation he laid is the base on the structures he is criticizing. He is the founding father of whatever is playing out today not only in Nigeria but also in Africa.

From the prism of he who pays the pepper dictates the tune, Obasanjo’s hirelings always derive joy in dressing him in a borrowed clothes and project him to the world as an intellectual endowed and versed in every subject matter for discourse thus allow him to distort facts at will, giving wrong impression of his limit educationally. His native intelligence belies the scope of assignment his takes on himself oftentimes. His condemnation of African leaders and Nigeria rulers needs to be interrogated in view of his submissions at his public outing at Yale University in USA where he gave a lecture in honour of the iconic literature giant, late Professor Chinua Achebe. Obasanjo lampooned successive administrations in Nigeria. He pontificated that leadership in Nigeria are corrupt while Africa leaders were not left out of Obasanjo’s bashing on corruption.

Reading his message at the occasion reminded me of the famed Fela Anikulapo – Kuti music in the 70s “Obasanjo and Abiola International Thief – Thief” which was the case of scandal involving padding and kick backs from contracts on International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) that left Nigeria in debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars without any success recorded in Telecom services in Nigeria.

Our self righteous leader was allegedly involved in Halliburton and Simmen scandals. These companies allegedly paid government officials under Obasanjo’s watch millions of dollars to secure juicy contracts. We are not in a hurry to forget his senior in Secondary school at Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta, Chief SM Afolabi, who was humiliated out of office as a Minister.

During Obasanjo’s hold on government, majority of the corrupt practices in his tenure involved his top hierarchy in his government which necessitated the emergent creation of both ICPC and EFCC to combat the scourge, the monster developed rapidly with its viruses speading its tentacles into all the fabrics of the nation.

In the words of John C. Maxwell “to add value to others, one must first value others,” Obasanjo in his vitriolic posturing never value anyone except himself thus throwing tantrums at others means a lot to him as the only one with a clean slate as former ruler who should be deemed fit to canonize in Afica by the world leaders as if his records of performance was that outstanding! I am not invalidating the fact he did his best but that did not confer on him the “Righteousness” and “Sainthood” posturing he wants to acquire by hook or crook. This means that his failures no matter how minute, have contributed to failures of rulers in Nigeria.

Talking to the failures of African leaders on human rights abuse, Obasanjo cannot in anyway be absolved from having clean records on human right abuse. If he were to be judged by his peers, by now, he should be in Hague to answer charges on the wanton killing and destruction of Odi – the massacre in 1999 and Zaki Biam killings in 2001. His brutality/autocratic nature was more as civilian than by his Military era. Here is Saint Olusegun Obasanjo who wants the International world to applaud and adjudge him as “conscience of Afica” who could not offer any explanation on why his own country failed to generate it own electricity with a whopping sum of over $16 billion invested and spent to improve electricity generation in the country.

We also need to find out from ‘Evangelist’ Olusegun Obasanjo of the Kleptomaniac order of Ota Farm, who appointed him a whistle blower in Africa on corruption?

Has he forgotten “Ali Must Go” crises of 1978 which flagged off the downturn of the Education sector in Nigeria? The introduction of Uniform pump prices in the country; the obliteration of Public Works Departments to pave way for Contracts in government businesses into our lexicon? The plundering of our newly found oil resources; on acquisition of “ABILU” juju charms against Aparthied regime in South-Africa. Obasanjo wasted the resources his contemporaries in other climes deployed into technological advancement of their countries while he played big brother in the continent putting in jeopardy the future of his own people.

If Nigeria has failed the black race and Africa, Obasanjo should be held responsible for blotting out all requisites and qualities that once made Nigeria a giant of Africa shortly after our Independence.

As students of history, we know Obasanjo has large capacity for mischief. He finds it more convenient to gloat and lie to massage his ego at every slightest opportunity to present himself as someone with credible credentials, forgetting that one finger pointed to others, the remaining three fingers are directed at himself as a former leader. Is he oblivious of the fact that his records are in public space and it can be recalled? In all his submission, there’s no modicum of honesty in the paper presented.

Even in the democratic principles he canvassed. In 1979, he was the same person who told Nigerians that the best candidate may not win the election. While on an overnight reshufflement, forceful retirement was carried out in the judiciary top echelon and fostered retirement on late Dr. Teslim Elias as the Chief Justice of the Federation in order to manouvre and manipulate the outcome of 1979 general elections! His only achievement during his first coming was the handing over to Alhaji Shehu Shagari as the civilian President. A look at the exercise would confirm the processes were fought with fraud.

On his return to power in 1999, 250 naira was an equivalent to one dollar while he promised heaven and earth to revert the situation. That was impossible.1999 to 2007 were the years of locusts and caterpillars in Nigeria because he failed to carry out some reforms in the financial and other sectors of the economy, neither was he able to achieve his aim to salvage the falling value of the naira. And before he became President he always decried the falling value of the naira ceaselessly but he failed to salvage it as President. Though the fall of the naira started during the time of General Gowon. when Nigeria converted from pound sterlings to naira in 1973, the value of the Naira was 10 shillings, not One pound, that’s half a pound, that was one naira and it still retained its strength through the Murtala/Obasanjo administration. Through Shagari administration and then Muhammadu Buhari, we started seeing further depreciation of our currency and there were apprehension on the downturn in our economy when our currency was further subjected to tinkering of IMF under Babangida’s administration. Aside these, Obasanjo’s presidency was a colossal failure on infrastructures, the roads, health and education sectors etc.

How then can a person with lots of baggage hanging on his neck make a detour to point accusing fingers on others as if he’s free from complicity games he is accusing others of? I have heard some people arguing that he did more beyond the issue of reforms in the financial sector that brought… ! Yes, he brought his personal character to bear on the polity. He stamped his character on the government, and at every corner his trappings manifested – that indicated he was not only in government but in power. Elections became a “do or die affair” with garrison commanders stationed at strategic places. His Royal Majesty, Oba Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja a former governor of Oyo State is a living witness of Obasanjo undemocratic act. Audu Ogbeh former National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)and late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo former Senate President would never forget their encounter with Obasanjo moving train.

Bola Ige, his erstwhile Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation’s assassination remains a mystery yet unresolved. This is to mention just few!

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Let me draw curtain on litany of woes on this Fake Evangelist of Anti- corruption with the word of Joseph Fort Newton that says ‘egoist is a man who think much of himself; but thinks little of other people’, and that is who OBJ is – to stands before the international audience with the warped senses of history to declare “Fatwa” and impugn on peoples integrity. He thinks little of others. That is why he can refuse the order of the highest court in the land – the Supreme Court in the landmark judgement on Lagos Local Governments creation. Obasanjo as the President disobeyed the court order. What is the moral he wants impact on rule of law? Shortly after he left office, his successor Umar Musa Yar’adua paid the backlogs of the amount owed to Lagos State. Would he ever learn from history? Pride goes before the eventual fall.

Lanre Ogundipe,
A Public Affairs Analyst
Former President, Nigeria and African Union of Journalists (NUJ/AUJ) writes from Abuja.