05 Jan 2005 |
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| In 1998, Obasanjo invited fellow Nigerians to share in his good fortune. The late dictator, General Sani Abacha had passed away in mysterious circumstances, paving the way for his release from prison and eventual ascendancy as democratically elected president on May 29, 1999. God is great, he reminded us. In His infinite wisdom, He had answered our silent and not-so-silent prayers for deliverance from the inequities of Man. It was time for a new beginning and the fear of God was henceforth going to be central in the conduct of our public affairs. This élan of new-found religious zeal caught on like wild fire. It was not long before our vigilant national media began to echo sycophants and henchmen alike by reminding those who cared to listen of the divine ordination of Obasanjo. Pedantically, image launderers effusively talked about the supposed religious rationalization at the heart of the Obasanjo presidency. To be effective, the born-again orthodoxy also needed the agency of religious tradition and respectability. Its message would be articulated by way of an avant-garde doctrine of rightwing religious fanaticism and ritual symbolized by the hierarchy of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Aso Rock, with the support of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), was soon transformed into the Jerusalem of political mobilization and indoctrination. Obasanjo could do no wrong. He was the paragon of righteousness. The President was pursuing looters of the national treasury. He had given a re-invigorated nation hope. Hope for a better future based on democracy and the rule of law. With a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) in sight, or so it seemed, Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo's messianic status was only a matter of time. This re-packaging of Mr. President was the moral equivalent of asking us to suspend our disbelief. And so, prayers and blind faith became our defining relationship - a social contract of sorts - with those God had ordained to lord it over this hapless nation of ours. You can call it "Government-By-Prayer" (GBP). Alas, this mantra of the Obasanjo presidency turned out to be a fad. As is often the case with everything built on falsehood, it soon self-destructed - the victim of its own contradictions. The systematic demystification of Nigeria’s ‘born-again’ president has become necessary in order to set the records straight. It is also hoped that this demystification exercise will serve as a useful cautionary tale against impostors in the likes of that grim figure of Nigeria’s corrupt politics known as Babangida. Nigeria is at a critical juncture in her history. All hands must be on deck to guard against the country falling once again into the hands of those reactionary and anti-people forces who had in the not too distant past ruined this great nation called Nigeria. Today, an enduring legacy of the anti-corruption crusade of Obasanjo's five and a half-year old regime is the perception that members of the Abacha family have become victims of the President's vendetta. This image of a president incapacitated by his demoralizing vindictiveness is what has remained ingrained in the consciousness of Nigerians. To a large extent, the extra-judicial massacres of Odi and Zaki Biam are indicative of the vindictive arbitrariness which continues to dominate the way President Obasanjo deals with critical national issues. Every leader needs a plank - a defining vision - to articulate how he intends to make a difference in the lives of those he claims to serve. For the average citizen, Obasanjo's GBP posture has been an unmitigated failure. Can he resurrect our faith in it? That is the all-encompassing question. The 2003 elections offered a unique opportunity for the President to demonstrate his ability to restore public trust in his regime. He failed woefully. Since that national debacle, a lot of water has passed under the bridge, politically speaking, thereby aggravating our sense of individual as well as collective despair. Generalized insecurity continues to plague the nation with communal violence making hundreds of victims in 2004 alone in various parts of the country. Confronted with his inadequacies, our ‘born-again’ imperial president has consistently adopted a posture of attrition and vindictiveness against perceived enemies instead of acting as a statesman and a unifying political figure. In his abdication of his constitutional role, he has often trodden the facile path of dubious schemes and political tricks unworthy of a national leader. The unedifying spectacle of the current Anambra imbroglio is a case in point. It is quite revealing that even as Obasanjo is corruptly using state resources to hound and intimidate Chief Audu Ogbeh on account of the fact that the latter has courageously admonished the president’s misrule and in particular his unsavory role in the Anambra crisis, Nigerians are reminded that Kabiyesi’s key political allies have not yet been called upon to account for public monies they controlled in their respective official capacities. Obasanjo’s eerie henchman, Anenih, has not up till today told Nigerians what he did with the billions voted for road construction and repair when he was works minister. And where are the mind-boggling sums of money budgeted since 1999 for electricity generation and distribution nation-wide? As de facto minister in charge of oil, President Obasanjo has always balked at the idea of having a transparent auditing of the accounts in that critical sector. Since 1999, there has been unprecedented revenue accruing from the sale of oil and related products. Despite this so-called windfall, Nigerians are hungrier now and there is very little by way of government projects to show for it. The outfit which goes by the acronym of NNPC is today seen as being synonymous with sleaze and graft. It is hardly surprising that much of the official corruption in Nigeria nowadays is said to take place at the presidency. This cannot be good news for our ‘born-again’ president and his allies who have been behaving as if they own Nigeria. And as if to compound this image of a morally diminished president of Nigeria, there is the Babangida factor. Babangida is like an albatross for any person with claims to moral direction. The erstwhile tyrant from Minna is bad news. He exudes evil and cannot in any rational sense be said to have any redeeming qualities that should endear him to fellow citizens. By continuing to be associated with a character like Babangida even to the point of reportedly supporting his sinister ambition to be president in 2007, Obasanjo should know that he and his pal are needlessly exhibiting their hubris. The last time a local tin god went down that path in Nigeria, he and the clique around him were reminded with a note of dramatic finality of the grave consequences of taking on the people’s collective anger. The loss of public trust should be bad news for every responsible leader not just because of the political consequences it entails, but especially the fact that it implies non-performance on the part of the leader. In a responsible democracy, a consequence for a leader or a political party of the loss of public trust could be electoral defeat. Another consequence is the danger of large sections of the society losing faith in national institutions. This can be very damaging for a fragile polity like ours. That is why the political recklessness shown by the president and his party in the last five years, whether it is in the area of human rights or his obstructionist approach to governance, or yet still, his laissez-faire orientation to security, must be seen as most unfortunate indeed. Despite the puerile talk about defending democracy, Obasanjo and his allies should be worried that very few Nigerians today sincerely believe what the government does or says. This is ironical for a government which only five years ago asked the country to pray - for our past sins, but especially for the future, so that the need for prayers would not have the same significance again. A dependence on brute force or arbitrariness by the Obasanjo regime has also meant that Nigerians - and by that I mean especially those who would rather the country continued to wallow in fraud and incompetence as long as the vested interests of a cabal are protected, all in the name of "stability" - seem to be relying more and more on the illusory power of prayer in finding solutions to our national problems. This will reinforce the feeling of despair amongst the people. Nowadays, our tormentors don't even pretend that they need our prayers. This may be partly because they know that their unpardonable failures have left an insurmountable gulf between them and the citizenry. Or, most likely, they simply don't give a damn as to what the average Nigerian feels or thinks. This is the reign of savage impunity. Proponents of impunity may feel they have won. That is what we have sadly been witnessing in the aftermath of the 2003 controversial elections. But that is a phoney victory. We will only be postponing the day of reckoning by subscribing to a bogus legitimacy. Those advancing the silly argument that Obasanjo would have won even without the rigging should be reminded that they do not have to consult their crystal ball again to understand that the rigging option became necessary because it offered the only guarantee for Obasanjo's political survival. Ogun and Anambra , in short the entire failed regime of President Obasanjo is at once a potent reminder and consequence of the 2003 electoral charade. In the immediate aftermath of the ‘419’ elections, Nigerian towns and villages were looking more and more like military camps. The use of the Army and other security organs to clamp down on dissent associated with the 2003 electoral fiasco was misguided. A situation whereby the only forms of discourse being tolerated today are the ones preaching deference and submission to a dubious legitimacy cannot be said to augur well for the sustenance of a democratic culture in our country. Those who seem contented with the status quo have often invoked the pretext of anarchy to justify their rejection of well-reasoned solutions put forward to help us move away from the quagmire Nigerians have been living for some years now. We are back to where we began in 1999. Except that this time around, what we have is a legacy of prayers and failure on all accounts and not even the slightest hint as to how to transcend this pathetic tolerance of evil. P.S. This is an updated version of an earlier commentary. Events in the last few weeks have made its revision inevitable. Aonduna Tondu. New York, USA. |
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