The central theme is clear: the current President of Nigeria and his predecessor share very little in common in personality and historical antecedents. The office of President, Advisers, Critics and Praise singers are some of the common features that they inadvertently share as a matter of sheer compulsion.

Just a few days back, one of the fiercest critics of Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was hosted in a polit-chat show on global broadcast. Prof. Wole Soyinka featured in the BBC’s Hardtalk where he was fielded obvious questions that were occasionally countered with sound and intelligent response. At the end of this interview though, I was sure I had come one step closer to a better understanding of the extreme sense of bitterness and the vendetta-driven hate that is characteristic of many critics of the Ex-President. I found answers to several major questions underlying the brutal sense of agitation shared by many adversaries against Obasanjo. Unfortunately though, I found no single answer to the adamant refusal of this group of persons to take a brief (and just a brief) look at the other side of the coin. But first, what I understood.

I was able to understand in the aftermath of Wole Soyinka’s submissions that the handover of a complete State of Nigeria to a thug – a non-denying, self-proclaimed professional thug – for governance is indeed, a disaster to say the least. It is a mystery how a sane nation inhabited by intelligent biological products of nature will simply allow, let alone accommodate the unexplained financing of a destructive element operating against the interest of the nation from government funds in broad daylight. Adedibu in Oyo state is one big question to which the former President must provide answers before his time comes to be called to the great beyond.

I was able to understand from the submission of Wole Soyinka that the mysterious rise in the spate of political killings in the eight years of Olusegun Obasanjo is one outrage, for which explanations are required. No doubt the Professor knows more details than I do. But one thing I know for sure is that the killing of Bola Ige is still begging for clearance. I am aware that the cock and bull story of a drug baron and all that jazz merely served to worsen suspicions. Pointers have always hinted at a high-level conspiracy right up to the Presidency. It is impossible to rule out more low-profiled cases.

I was able to understand from Wole Soyinka’s submissions that the Ex-President’s intimate association with a protégé, who parades himself with alleged fake qualifications and is neck-deep in a can of worms stinking of corruption is (in the mildest term) infuriating in a state abound with highly qualified operatives. Andy Uba has now become the face of Olusegun Obasanjo’s fight for and promotion of the wrong cause, at the wrong place and at the wrong time. Many more less-prominent examples cannot be ruled out.

I was able to understand from the distinctive submissions of Wole Soyinka that the sudden transformation of Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, who Abubakar Atiku claims, had only N 20,000.00 left in his pocket after leaving prison, into a millionaire or billionaire within the past eight years is simply a slap in the face of every suffering Nigerian.

I will refuse to dwell on less important issues that are simply controversial to say the least. For instance, I will refuse to touch on the issue of arbitrary impeachment of governors, who are said to have committed only the offence of falling out of favor with the Ex-President. That many of them were selectively and officially charged with corruption, for which they are and were never found innocent, renders this issue less clear-cut and highly controversial.

No doubt, I will have little or nothing to laugh about if I were a politician in Oyo State, who has been subjected to the brutality of Adedibu’s banditry. I will have nothing to laugh about if I were a relation of any former politician rendered physically useless in life by the banditry of Adedibu to say the least of seeing public offices occupied by outright unqualified hooligans with the dubious credibility of being Adedibu’s subjects. I will have no laughs for Olusegun Obasanjo if I were the son of Bola Ige or an outsider who knew for sure that Olusegun Obasanjo really had a hand in the killing of this political gift of nature. I would care less if the law holds him innocent until proven guilty as long as rumors persist that the Ex-President had a hand in the killing of Bola Ige and as long as the cock and bull story of the drug baron further called credibility into question. I will have little or nothing to write home about in favor of Olusegun Obasanjo if I knew Andy Uba at close range and am aware that he has never seen the inside of any University classroom but parades a doctorate degree and other academic titles and is being pampered and promoted by Obasanjo at all cost. I would have nothing to cheer up for if I knew that Olusegun Obasanjo revamped an industrial empire within a period of eight years with only N 20,000 to start with. Today, no Nigerian knows what the President or any politician for that matter earns in public office.

I am indeed grateful however, that I do not fall into any of the above categories. It is the law of democratic nature that civil societies are built upon the premise of fairness and neutrality. If I was any of the above, no doubt I would have been too biased and too prejudiced to be a Judge, a Jury or an Executioner.

It is all one hypothesis after the other. While no single proof of all the assertions above has ever been provided, the seriousness of the matters clearly underscores the gravity of the questions that the Ex-President should be held accountable for, not the least, within the scope of the anti-corruption war and principle of transparency set in motion by him. Without seeking the skull of the Ex-President, I humbly submit that he truly has cases to answer.

What I am unable to understand however is the extent of exaggerations now being advanced in wanton mischief. I was unable to understand why Professor Wole Soyinka characterized eight years of Obasanjo’s government as worse than the reign of Sani Abacha. Reminded by his interviewer that he (Wole Soyinka) had to flee the country as a refugee and was sentenced to death in absentia by Sani Abacha and that his freedom of expression in the present dispensation was one remarkable difference, the learned Professor was short of a convincing response. The decency of simply admitting that one has occasionally subscribed to hyperbolic expressions to drive home some points was glaringly begging to be seen.

I am unable to understand that many lower-level Obasanjo adversaries (thank goodness, not Wole Soyinka) simply resort to a blanket state of absolute denial and advance near-illiterate thesis in cyberspace in their bid to discredit the other side of the coin as regards the eight years of Obasanjo’s leadership.

I am aware that the Nigerian gross domestic product more than doubled to an average of 7.3% since 2002 as opposed to 3% in preceding years. Growth in the agricultural sector gearing towards self-sufficiency is one natural consequence of economic reforms since 1999. The respected American-based investment company and international economic analyst Goldman Sachs characterized the overall Nigerian economy as now “much less vulnerable to adverse external shocks.” The international debt of the Paris Club was history under Olusegun Obasanjo’s leadership thus, paving way for the re-direction of resources towards internal development. The London Club was positively rescheduling at the end of Obasanjo’s term. The ratio of debt to GDP dropped miraculously as of 2006, to 3% as opposed to 60% in the nineties thanks to debt repayment. As of the dying days of Olusegun Obasanjo, official inflation figures stood at 8%. The banking sector was revamped and investor confidence boosted. For the first time since the 1970s and early 1980s, a Nigerian bank (Zenith Bank) had gathered enough commercial confidence and standing to expand to the United Kingdom. Foreign reserves were reported to be standing in excess of $ 40 billion. Telecommunication was revolutionized under the past administration, etc., etc.

In fact, one of Olusegun’s Obasanjo’s statements in his inaugural speech underscored the dire state of the Nigerian economy in 1999: “Our infrastructures - NEPA, NITEL, Roads, Railways, Education, Housing and other Social Services were allowed to decay and collapse. Our country has thus been through one of its darkest periods. All these have brought the nation to a situation of chaos and near despair. This is the challenge before us.”

In picking the pieces of a crumbled house, the Ex-President broke major grounds in macro-economic achievements, which generally takes its time to translate into public affluence. It is therefore more than astounding that adversaries of the Ex-President not only flatly deny any of his achievements but refer to the dire economic state of the common man as observed by them in private surroundings to drive home a near-illiterate thesis that they sell as ‘empirical’ and ‘scientific’ statistics.

I am unable to understand why Olusegun Obasanjo is held responsible for the growth of crime in a systematically exploited economy that is expected to be fixed in a democratic dispensation of civil rights and liberty. I am unable to understand why no critic highlights the mischievous formation of private armies by disgruntled politicians, who had constitutional means at their disposal.

I am unable to understand why credit is not given where credit is due. I am unable to understand that people refuse to see Obasanjo’s fight to establish some geographical equilibrium in political governance away from northern domination and the impact this almost had on him in the aftermath of the spate of Sharia declarations in the north.

I am unable to understand why many who condemned the selection of the so-called sick and dying Katsina man Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as President turned around to praise him a few months later because he reversed a few policies of his predecessor. Many came out in praises and recognized the emergence of a good leader. Many of these voices are vocal today in the wake of the ‘Rule of law’ debate, stressing how much they knew better that a corrupt selection could not beget a good leader.

The current failings of the present leadership are the interim failure of Olusegun Obasanjo as the godfather of the current President.

No doubt Ex-President Obasanjo has a lot of axes to grind with chains of enemies made for several reasons. If truly corrupt, no doubt, victims of his anti-corruption war and people with a closer of view of occurrences within the inner circle would be bitterly aggrieved and dismiss his anti-corruption drive as the largest smokescreen and mass deception ever. Be that as it may however, Olusegun Obasanjo is a man of many faces. While he deserves to be held accountable for perceived ills at least for the sake of clarity, denying his achievements in a country that has been down and rotten is a sin against humanity.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Olusegun Obasanjo is a man ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 12.10.2007 05:41

SOC Okenwa  Villager

# 2 Frisky, Hi my friend! How are you doing in Lady Merkel's country? Your apparent obsession with Obasanjo and his "achievements" is getting out of hand. I fail to comprehend your motive for this strong stand against those of us that hold him in scorn. Yet it is a free world where everyone's opinion counts. Obasanjo will forever go down in history as a military cum civilian dictator -- corrupt, vindictive, petty and arrogant. The Ota cave man squandered great opportunities for national re-birth for eight years due to reasons best known to him. We hold him accountable for the present ills of our society: armed robbers over-running banks, abandoned federal roads that continue to kill our brothers and sisters, political confusion of those he handed the baton reluctantly, social deprivations and the economic melt-down. If it is because he had married Stella, his late wife who is from your Edo State then marital links or 'in-lawship' needs another political definition. Great weekend my friend! Posted by SOC Okenwa| 12.10.2007 07:06

Frisky Larr  Villager

# 3 SOC Sir, Thanks a lot my brother. None of your specualtions above applies. I am trying very hard to understand the other side of the coin and feel the bitterness of poor achievements that affects us all. I am only aggrieved that people at the other line of the divide are simply not interested in shifting an inch in the direction of fairness. The issue came up again not because of my obsession with it, but because it was treated in one of my recent threads with some dose of disinformation. Have a nice weekend sir and keep up your civility! Posted by Frisky Larr| 12.10.2007 07:13

denker  Villager

# 4 If it is because he had married Stella, his late wife who is from your Edo State then marital links or 'in-lawship' needs another political definition. ..that's good observation...my dear okenwa Posted by denker| 12.10.2007 07:14

Adeola Aderounmu  Villager

# 5 Obasanjo's disastrous regime (continued by UMYA) is/was not about Soyinka been able to live at home and not in exile. We are talking about more than 70 million people living in penury while the presidential jet is used to ferry women and dollars abroad. We are talking about enslaving more than 140 million people by not allowing their votes to count in a wuruwuru selection- The worst in the history of mankind (Are you not even ashame of that one alone?) We are talking about do Obasanjo's will or die doing the contrary. We are talking about genocide, fuel pipeline explosion, record increase in fuel prices, ...we are talking all these things that demean our lives and existence. We are talking about corruption and sacred cows. Thieves in high but dishonoured places. We are talking about one man thrice lucky but remaining senseless as usual. We are talking about a man who became rich that we may be poor. That (OFN), Operation Feed the Nation became Obasanjo Farm Nigeria. We are talking about him and his gangs...they, who made our commonwealth their pleasure and our nightmares! We are talking about 8-10 years of waste and the resultant establishment of an illegitimate government. Please,,,,don't let my stomach churn up again. I'm trying to be in a good mood for the weekend. Now, I must listen to the Best Best of Fela-the black president. Posted by Adeola Aderounmu| 12.10.2007 07:24

dapxin  Villager

# 6 Here is the interview, if anyone is interested - http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/07/hardtalk/soyinka10oct.ram Posted by dapxin| 12.10.2007 07:27

peterclaver2006  Villager

# 7 The earlier you convince yourself that this your Obasanjo recreation project can never fly, the better for you. The earlier you come to the unchangeable fact that Obasanjo cannot be judged by what the talcumed image he and his propagandists invent than the terrible fate of the N140million Nigerians that survived his deceitful, ultra-corrupt, malevolent, sadistic, hypocritical, lying siege on this country for eight years, the better for you. As Babangida’s hirelings struggled in vain to re-invent their man so will you and people like you who struggle to sew a new coat for a sly fellow like Obasanjo struggle in vain. What you seek to sell is a rotten product and will certainly not sell. If ever you succeed, then there is need for humanity to go and seek forgiveness from Mobutu Seseseko, Idi Amin, Jean Bedel Bookasa, Sani Abacha, etc who were less devious than Obasanjo. Posted by peterclaver2006| 12.10.2007 08:55

Ebe2  Villager

# 8 Frisky Larr is getting desperate with every failed attempt to rehabilitate his beloved OBJ. Even at the risk of taking on the great WS, he is still trying to present evil as good. It's a mystery to me what is really behind this inexplicably thoughtless obsession with OBJ. But first a few fact checks: At the end of this interview though, I was sure I had come one step closer to a better understanding of the extreme sense of bitterness and the vendetta-driven hate that is characteristic of many critics of the Ex-President. This is hillarious. Wole Soyinka, a man of untramelled commitment to the nationalist cause, is motivated in his critique of OBJ by "extreme bitterness vendetta-driven hate"? Listen to yourself, man. What did (could) OBJ do to the great WS to prompt the latter into a "vendetta-driven hate"? A man as accomplished as WS is bitter? Bitter at what? I was able to understand from the submission of Wole Soyinka that the mysterious rise in the spate of political killings in the eight years of Olusegun Obasanjo is one outrage, for which explanations are required. No doubt the Professor knows more details than I do. But one thing I know for sure is that the killing of Bola Ige is still begging for clearance. I am aware that the cock and bull story of a drug baron and all that jazz merely served to worsen suspicions. Pointers have always hinted at a high-level conspiracy right up to the Presidency. It is impossible to rule out more low-profiled cases. Most informed people know that OBJ and his PDP cabal murdered Bola Ige because Ige was going to resign to go back to the West to rebuild the AD and challenge the PDP in the 2003 elections. Stop beating around the bush. It is like pretending that we don't know who killed Dele Giwa, or Harry Marshall. I was able to understand from the distinctive submissions of Wole Soyinka that the sudden transformation of Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, who Abubakar Atiku claims, had only N 20,000.00 left in his pocket after leaving prison, into a millionaire or billionaire within the past eight years is simply a slap in the face of every suffering Nigerian. I believe that piece of revealing information came from OBJ's own man, Nasir El-Rufai. It only provided ammunition to the desperate Atiku to fight back against his attacker. To date this spectacular information has not been disputed. I will refuse to dwell on less important issues that are simply controversial to say the least. For instance, I will refuse to touch on the issue of arbitrary impeachment of governors, who are said to have committed only the offence of falling out of favor with the Ex-President. That many of them were selectively and officially charged with corruption, for which they are and were never found innocent, renders this issue less clear-cut and highly controversial. These are not very controversial. The EFCC invaded Taraba, Benue, and a few other states and coralled members of the state assembly into a meeting where they were blackmailed into starting impeachment proceedings against the governors. I know for sure that in the case of Benue and Taraba, the governors quickly made peace with Aso Rock and renounced their loyalty to the dreaded Atiku camp. Voila! impeachment move evaporated; EFCC packed up and left, and assembly members returned home from Obudu Ranch. The two governors were allowed to serve out their terms and to even, for good measure, select their successors. What about the case of Gabriel Suswam, who was mentioned by OBJ in a national broadcast as one of the bribe takers in the Wabara-Osuji bribery scandal. Today, thanks to Suswam's (and Suswam's godfather, Akume's) peace treaty with OBJ's Aso Rock, Suswam is sitting pretty as governor of Benue State. There are other examples. Meanwhile, we didn't see impeachment moves against Odili, Ibori, or Igbenedion because they were firmly in OBJ's camp. The selectivity and hypocrisy of OBJ's so-called war on corruption is a documented fact, sir, not a controversial rumor. Today, no Nigerian knows what the President or any politician for that matter earns in public office. LIE! we know what public officers earn. The RMFAC publishes the salaries of all elected public officials. Whenever there is an adjustment they make it public. This is, and has been, public information. I believe the current presidential annual pay is somewhere in the region of N3.5 million. This salary structure doesn't square with OBJ's transformation from having N20,000 in his bank account in 1999 to the billionaire that he now is. It is all one hypothesis after the other. While no single proof of all the assertions above has ever been provided, the seriousness of the matters clearly underscores the gravity of the questions that the Ex-President should be held accountable for, not the least, within the scope of the anti-corruption war and principle of transparency set in motion by him. Without seeking the skull of the Ex-President, I humbly submit that he truly has cases to answer. Another lie. There are proofs all over. OBJ bought 200 million shares in Transcorp. He claims he took a loan to finance it (which itself would be a conflict of interest), but he is yet to tell us what he deployed as collateral. We don't even know if the loan story is true since he didn;t supply the loan info. His farm has miraculously revamped to the point of making N30 million a month. This proof was provided by OBJ's own former spokesman, Fani-Kayode. The farm now has lucrative branches in several states. Are these not proofs? What about the 250 bedroom hotel in Otta? Or the NNPC dealerships? Or the numerous other deals and acquisitions that have been published in newspapers and magazines without being refuted? Please don't insult our intelligence. There is ample proof that OBJ is one of the most corrupt leaders in Nigeria's history. I only hesitate to put him at the top because of IBB and Abacha's records. What I am unable to understand however is the extent of exaggerations now being advanced in wanton mischief. I was unable to understand why Professor Wole Soyinka characterized eight years of Obasanjo’s government as worse than the reign of Sani Abacha. When I reached the same conclusion a few days ago on another thread, I caught some grief for it. A more authoritative voice has uttered the same verdict. Again, I am not sure that WS enjoys comparing evil to evil and having to pick the lesser of the two. But if one is asked to compare the two regime, one has to give an honest, direct answer. I am aware that the Nigerian gross domestic product more than doubled to an average of 7.3% since 2002 as opposed to 3% in preceding years. Growth in the agricultural sector gearing towards self-sufficiency is one natural consequence of economic reforms since 1999. The respected American-based investment company and international economic analyst Goldman Sachs characterized the overall Nigerian economy as now “much less vulnerable to adverse external shocks.” The international debt of the Paris Club was history under Olusegun Obasanjo’s leadership thus, paving way for the re-direction of resources towards internal development. The London Club was positively rescheduling at the end of Obasanjo’s term. The ratio of debt to GDP dropped miraculously as of 2006, to 3% as opposed to 60% in the nineties thanks to debt repayment. As of the dying days of Olusegun Obasanjo, official inflation figures stood at 8%. The banking sector was revamped and investor confidence boosted. For the first time since the 1970s and early 1980s, a Nigerian bank (Zenith Bank) had gathered enough commercial confidence and standing to expand to the United Kingdom. Foreign reserves were reported to be standing in excess of $ 40 billion. Telecommunication was revolutionized under the past administration, etc., etc. More abstract Goldman Sachs nonsense. How have these abstract figures that you quote so glibly from your friends at Goldman Sachs improved the lives of NIGERIANS in terms of health, education, security, roads, cost of living, employment, water, electricity, etc? In fact, one of Olusegun’s Obasanjo’s statements in his inaugural speech underscored the dire state of the Nigerian economy in 1999: “Our infrastructures - NEPA, NITEL, Roads, Railways, Education, Housing and other Social Services were allowed to decay and collapse. Our country has thus been through one of its darkest periods. All these have brought the nation to a situation of chaos and near despair. This is the challenge before us.” Well, OBJ had eight years and the compliment of a revenue stream that surpassed that of all previous regimes put together. What did he do to improve this grim situation that he painted so well at his inauguration? In fact in most of those infrastructural categories, OBJ managed to achieve a decline, a further deterioriation in service--which requires an uncommon level of incompetence. I am unable to understand why Olusegun Obasanjo is held responsible for the growth of crime in a systematically exploited economy that is expected to be fixed in a democratic dispensation of civil rights and liberty. That is because either you don't understand that it is the duty of government to secure the lives and property of its citizens or you have chosen to excuse the government of your god, OBJ, from that responsibility. I am unable to understand that people refuse to see Obasanjo’s fight to establish some geographical equilibrium in political governance away from northern domination and the impact this almost had on him in the aftermath of the spate of Sharia declarations in the north. In case you've forgotten, OBJ did NOTHING about Sharia and allowed thousands of innocent Nigerians to be slaughtered in so-called Sharia riots in Northern Nigeria. In establishing your so-called geographical equillibrium, he did not hesitate to order a massacre in Odi (Southern Nigeria) and Zaki-Ibiam (Middle Belt). He also did not hesitate to give power back to the North, whose "dominance" he had purportedly broken. He also divided the South into several opposing political factions. Remember how he founded and funded the YCE to rival and undermine Afenifere? So much for breaking Northern dominance! I am unable to understand why many who condemned the selection of the so-called sick and dying Katsina man Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as President turned around to praise him a few months later because he reversed a few policies of his predecessor. Many came out in praises and recognized the emergence of a good leader. Many of these voices are vocal today in the wake of the ‘Rule of law’ debate, stressing how much they knew better that a corrupt selection could not beget a good leader. That is because you're straining so hard to find fault with critics of your god, OBJ. Praising Yar'Adua's upturning of OBJ's last minute decisions does not amount to endorsing Yar'Adua or his fraudulent ascension to power. The fact remains, and this is very clear now, that because of the circumstances of his coming to power, there is a limit to what he can do. He can't move too aggressively against OBJ and other members of the corrupt PDP cabal. They have his number. In any case, he does not have electoral legitimacy, so while he may carry out a few populist actions to public applause, Yar'Adua cannot be the break we need from the destructive politics of the OBJ era. I wish you good luck in trying to rehabilitate OBJ. Let me remind you of the public ridicule that greeted a similar attempt to rehabilitate Atiku in a book sometime last year. No one took the writer's explanation of Atiku's wealth seriously. But perhaps you can do better with OBJ. I hope you have read about the outrage and protest that greeted an attempt to honor Abacha in Ekiti State recently as well as the ostracism that OBJ is encountering in Yorubaland. For reasons known only to you and God, you have chosen to single-handedly rehabilitate the image of a tyrannical, petty, corrupt, incompetent, and insecure buffoon that Nigerians had to endure for eight years. Good luck in that self-imposed enterprise. Posted by Ebe2| 12.10.2007 10:53

ajis15  Villager

# 9 And I am unable to understand why people will blame Obasanjo for the plight of common man when the governors of each state got more federal allocation in eight years than in the whole of Nigeria's 46 years of existence during Obj reign. I am unable to understand why people are not blaming their governors for unprecedented thiefry, grafts and outright robbery of the treasury i.e, Alams, Kanu, Dariye, Akala etc. How about the local government chairmen and councillors who mismanage money meant for fixing the local government roads. As terrible as Obj may be he did few things right and those should be mentioned. He discovered and empowered Dr. Akinluyi, Ezekweli, Iweala etc. He paid off the national debt. I heard our new govt inspite of continued oil windfall and low ratio of debt to GDP has gone to borrow money again. Posted by ajis15| 12.10.2007 11:32

Ebe2  Villager

# 10 Ajis, The reason is simple. The federal government, contrary to what you wrote, and according to the existing revenue sharing formular, keeps more funds than do all the states put together. But that's not the main reason. The main reason why the Feds are largely held accountable for these failures is that electricity generation, job creation, roads rehabilitation (at least major roads), health, tertiary education, security, and aviation, are all largely the jurisdiction and responsibility of the federal government. As currently constituted, the state governments are supposed to compliment the efforts of the Feds in the health, education, and other fields and not the other way round. Of course, this set up is not ideal. I have always advocated for developmental initiative to be devolved to the states and for a much more weakened Federal government. That would also require the bulk of revenue to go to the states and local governments (and ultimately resource control sans taxes). For now more revenue is appropriated by the Feds than what goes to the states. Until the revenue sharing formula ( and, of course, the constitution) changes to institute fiscal and developmental federalism, most governmental failures to improve the lives of Nigerians would be blamed on the federal government and on whoever is president. Posted by Ebe2| 12.10.2007 11:55

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