Professor Chinua Achebe put it aptly when he noted that Nigeria has never had it so bad. And after 8 years of what was supposed to be a democratic dispensation, most Nigerians agree that Obasanjo was the worst leader Nigeria ever had. Like Achebe, they believe that things have fallen apart so badly the center can hardly hold. In the wake of Obasanjo’s rampage, destruction and the total shredding apart of the country’s fabric, Nigeria can ill-afford the likes of Obasanjo if she hopes to recover from her own version of 9-11, consolidate her shattered pieces and become a true player in the comity of nations. Even so, many still strongly believe that the scars from the wounds of Obasanjo’s years of civilian dictatorship, brutality, marginalization and disenfranchisement of millions, incompetence, grand theft of the nation’s wealth, gross abuse of power and stripping them bare of their human dignity will take several years, if not generations to heal.

What’s more saddening about Obasanjo’s tragedy is his inability to see his presidency as a travesty of justice and evil construct of incalculable proportions. In vowing to end up wherever his ego takes him, Obasanjo seems to have closed the door to his own redemption while he lives.

In 1999, there was genuine hope in the country that Nigeria could regain whatever she’d lost during Abacha’s own reign of terror and dictatorship. The enthusiasm for a new beginning was like the fresh morning dew and sunrise, palpable for all to feel and behold. Previously, Obasanjo himself had gone around the world preaching to packed audiences and extolling the admirable virtues of democracy and how societies should embrace and nurture them. But, to the chagrin of Nigerians and international observers, Obasanjo the president was a far cry from what he preached. Unplugged, we saw him for what he truly is, a man who lacked the basic decency to uphold his own masterfully crafted pieces and beliefs on democracy. Here was a man who had so much promise but proved that he had nothing positive to offer his own country men and humanity and that despite his education, riches, power and experience as a military officer, he is just vanity in human vessel-all sound and fury, signifying nothing! In his disdain for anything other than his ego, he turned Nigeria from a land of hope to the killing fields of dreams and where the relics of his destruction will now be displayed in the presidential library of his imagination. Overwhelmed by greed and self-obsession, he would leave Nigeria far more wretched and hopeless than he met her.

Today, Nigeria is like a country just coming out from the mother of all civil wars, trying to rise from the smoldering ashes and thick smoke of executive Lawlessness, extra-judicial assassinations, broken infrastructure, broken promises, and a country in total darkness and devastation.

While digging into the full extent of Obasanjo’s crimes and felonies maybe slow and painful, this much can be gleaned from his greed, self-obsessive syndrome and penchant to kill and destroy. Part of the blame must rest squarely with the complicity of Nigerians- a complicity occasioned by our characteristic self-imposed amnesia and feigning of powerlessness. We hunkered down in our bedrooms, waiting to see where our fate will take us. Now, we discover too late that it didn’t take us that far, but left us reeling in the dust, smoldering of ashes and thick, black smoke.

Our lack of courage and inability to be more pro-active in meeting the challenges that Obasanjo posed to our collective justice, peace, freedom and unity may hunt us for the rest of our lives. The fact that we left the fight only to the militants in the creeks of fire and a few pro-democracy activists must charge us to think deeply now more than ever about the possible re-emergence of the likes of Obasanjo and the lessons of our painful history. For now, we must console ourselves with the satisfaction that, after all is said and done, in the people’s library, Obasanjo’s legacy will simply be seen as the WORST in Africa. Posterity cannot be harsher for a man whose self delusion is legendry and thought to be larger than life.

Ebi B Asain

Ebasain@yahoo.com

Robot  # 1 | 04.05.2007 14:52

var sbtitle5308=encodeURIComponent(Obasanjo's ...Read the full article.

STTOPP  # 2 | 04.05.2007 18:46

Nonsense, another unsatisfy citizen, i wonder what you have done or achieved in your own village. Please stop the nonsense. STTOPP

What?  # 3 | 04.05.2007 19:10

If Obasanjo was the worst, who was the best? Abacha, Babangida, Shagari, Buhari ? Please tell us who and give you reasons so we can put this article in perspective.

I Love Nigeria  # 4 | 04.05.2007 19:51

Chief Obasanjo is a man of honour..... ANPP Governor Abba Ibrahim of Yobe State! NOT a PDP member! The PDP is all out to form a government, and you can’t blame them. What do you expect them to do, sit back and just watch while others win all the elections. They are the ones in government, they will always struggle hard to maintain the lead. In many parts of the world, we have conservatives and the so-called progressives. God has brought somebody who certainly has been listening to us, who understood the situation. It is unfortunate he is leaving as he just understood the problems in this area, the predicament of the North east part of the country. Chief Obasanjo is a man of honour..... ANPP Governor Abba Ibrahim of Yobe State! NOT a PDP member! I must be honest and God-fearing, no Nigerian dead or alive have contributed more to the development of this country than Chief Olusegun Obasanjo – tell that to anybody. we started praising him for the good things he does, so that we can be encouraging him, probably he had never performed ....solving our domestic problems and we kept on advising him,particularly on pensions and pensioners’ dues, our internal debts for our local Nigerian contractors, power supply, education, agriculture, road construction, mentioned it .....So my praising Mr. President today has nothing to do with ANPP or PDP....My praises for Mr. President was for the good he has done. .. ...I fear nobody except God.....I believe there are so many things he can still do in or outside the government.......There a lot of important projects embarked upon by Mr. President for which we must very much appreciate I strongly believe in him despite the fact that we don’t belong to the same party......We know most of these things as specialists in physical and infrastructural developments of the changes that have taken place, tremendous changes are taking place now. Just look at the northeast zone, go to Maiduguri, from Kano, Damaturu – Potiskum, you find the whole of the over 600km roads being dualized from Kano to Maiduguri costing N175billion. The contractors have been mobilized, all of them promised to finish the roads by the end of the year. In the northeast, we have never known of dual carriage road at all...... ......Biased assessment of democratic dividends Things will generally get better. Things have been getting better in Nigeria; it is only that we never appreciate things in this country. There have been tremendous physical infrastructural developments in the last eight years, tell that to anybody. Those who make noise about nothing being done or dividends of democracy not being delivered are not sincere. They are not honest. All they are just saying is that they didn’t see it in their pockets. They didn’t see it in their bank accounts. Nigeria is such a huge country where we have 140 million people, yet idle leaders have been suddenly become rich. They have been made super rich by the military when things were shared on the basis of who-you-know. Now they cannot continue to get government patronage; things have changed and unless you work hard, unless you do something credible, unless you have authentic company, performing company, you can hardly get any job. So they go about condemning everything and everybody, because they are high and dry out. Their privileges have been reduced. Because they are no more in government, because their friends are no more in government, so they are the most frustrated critics of this government...... ....This is why we have been full of praises for him....President Olusegun Obasanjo has consciously... made history by being the first president to connect Niger and Nigeria in this Northeast sub sector....We are also proud of our attempt, which is nearing completion now, to connect the North-East Zone to Niger Republic “PDP is in a position to ensure political stability…

OsaroO  # 5 | 04.05.2007 19:58

Okay, Chinua hates Obasanjo and that encouraged you to hate him, since your writing failed to display personal concern to specific unjustified actions resulted to destruction of Nigeria. Unfortunately, your generalized opinion failed to communicate your impression of the damages that are beyond the repair of our generation by contrast or comparison of past administration in Nigeria or elsewhere to Obasanjo’s. You probably would have some points, but unable to connect them in your writing. If that is, I blamed it on your journalistic limitation. You see, Obasanjo has proved to Nigerians that his being transcends that of Zik, Awolowo, Sadauna, et al; because he is doing what any of them had no talent of (rule all nations in Nigeria with accomplices across the board). Who is daring to hold north-east-west to the same task in Nigeria without genocide? But Obasanjo did it and he is still continuing to do it. Yar adua is following Obasanjo line of actions, even at the expense of his brothers (Buhari, Atiku, etc.) Igbos in Chinua’s home state are not speaking unity language with absentee critique, smacks of cowardice, who fled home haplessly. If everybody is like Chinua, his state will be empty by now. They know they need heroes and they can only make people they see and that share their problems. Those who are around as leaders in Chinua’s home state are not just heroes but brave heroes, because they are facing the problems of their time and are doing something that make citizens politically alive and continue politicking for the existence of all and their state. Chinua is not one of them, since he ran away and sending words from distance. Obasanjo’s administration is filled with some technocrats being citizens from Chinua’s state and they would love to hang with Obasanjo, except Chinua. It is an exaggeration to think that one state in Nigeria is worse of than others, since every state is blaming Obasanjo for their problems. It is also an exaggeration to think that Nigeria is currently worse of than the past, since the global economists are ranking Nigeria as potential twentieth economy. A country that was deep drowned in debt about nine years ago is having a region of 45 billion dollars (not naira) in reserve. A country that was almost disintegrated about nine years ago are mixing together to fight for common ideology in the center and not tribal party ideologies. A country that relies heavily on tribal state universities is now springing up private universities across the board. A country that was lagging in intermarriage is now having Mrs. Intertribal names. Please wake up and join your brothers to bring democracy to full swing.

nelggio  # 6 | 05.05.2007 06:43

...it appears that psychophants are swelling in number by the day...thanks to Ghana must go...all these these Obasanjo appologists talking nonsense here should bury their heads in shame...they are at best felons...clowns..rejected individuals and dilution to humanity...Obasanjo as the world knows is an embodiment of evil..for Obasanjo's numerous attrocities even the devil himself would've been kinder...he said he's fighting corruption and one wonders with the monumental fraud called april elections if there's any corruption more than that...this president is the worst this nation ever had ..will ever had...the wrath of God is on the way...I enjoin all well meaning Nigerians to ignore all these pais psychphants - who can readily sell their parents for a mere federal porridge...Obasanjo has deployed N3Billion through thisday publisher to help play down the april election fraud and to also help market YarAdua brand...what a shame...!!!

omaks  # 7 | 05.05.2007 09:45

=nelggio;173651>...it appears that psychophants are swelling in number by the day...thanks to Ghana must go...all these these Obasanjo appologists talking nonsense here should bury their heads in shame...they are at best felons...clowns..rejected individuals and dilution to humanity...Obasanjo as the world knows is an embodiment of evil..for Obasanjo's numerous attrocities even the devil himself would've been kinder...he said he's fighting corruption and one wonders with the monumental fraud called april elections if there's any corruption more than that...this president is the worst this nation ever had ..will ever had...the wrath of God is on the way...I enjoin all well meaning Nigerians to ignore all these pais psychphants - who can readily sell their parents for a mere federal porridge...Obasanjo has deployed N3Billion through thisday publisher to help play down the april election fraud and to also help market YarAdua brand...what a shame...!!! Talking about OBJ apologists, i think it is only right to spare athought for the 'DOOMSDAY APOLOGISTS' too. In my own opinion the OBJ administration has not met all the yearnings and aspirations of the common man in the last 71/2 years. That does not however mean the reign of OBJ has not been without meaningful gains. We are generally a nation full of people who wants things to happen magically with 'the waive of the hand'. I remeber vividly the monumental rape of our national resources in the third republic the the Shewu Shagari led administration. I remember vividly the scandalously inept regime of Babangida/Shonekan/Abacha. Yet, people are lining up to slate a regime that has attempted to tackle a few of the problems afflicting our country. In all honesty, 9jeria is a hugely difficult country to govern, given its multiplicity. Let's appreciate the little successes of the present regime, but increase all effort to ensure that subsequent governments are well equiped to meet the aspirations of the common man. For as long as we all fail to defend our mandate and exercise our franchise without selling out to 'Ghana must go politicians' we will continue to experience bad leadership, corrution and underdevelopment. :mad:

Mikky jaga  # 8 | 05.05.2007 10:33

I really enjoy reading the songs of praise of the OBJ praise singers, for without them one would not know the achievements of their mentor. Part of what ILN posted reads thus: President Olusegun Obasanjo has consciously... made history by being the first president to connect Niger and Nigeria in this Northeast sub sector....We are also proud of our attempt, which is nearing completion now, to connect the North-East Zone to Niger Republic What an achievement!! Obasanjo was able to connect Nigeria with Niger, but the East-West road within Nigeria remains impassable. The Benin Ore road is a death trap among others. Obasanjo was able to give electricity to Ghana that just celebrated one year of uninterrupted power supplies while PHCN remains moribund. OBJ was able to conduct an acceptable election in Liberia and Ivory Coast, while Nigeria cannot hold a credible one. OBJ was able to get warlords in Liberia and Ivory coast to lay down their arms while the militants are growing in numbers daily in Nigeria. OBJ was able to pay the foreign debt while local debt is left untouched (to prevent inflation?). The summary of OBJ's legacy is that he spent eight good years in the life of this country to please outsiders while neglecting the very people he is elected? to serve. It is a legacy fit for the dustbin of history.