President Yar’Adua has declared Olusegun Obasanjo his leader. 

Meanwhile, Obasanjo has declared Lamidi Adedibu his own leader, and the leader of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).   

It is impossible to forget or ignore Adedibu, who is currently being troubled in the court of law by no less than the Inspector-General of Police himself.  However, until Obasanjo clarified Adedibu’s “national” stature, he had been regarded only as the “strongman of Ibadan” politics.   

Adedibu himself has never been in doubt as to what time of day it is.  In a newspaper interview some years ago, he dismissed thuggery as being a problem.  “Thuggery is part of politics,” he declared.  “It has to do with politics but we thank God. He has taken control now.” 

This man is so experienced he went chapters and verse:  “We started the First Republic with thuggery and I participated. This phenomenon called thuggery started in Western Region in 1953.”

And asked about taking the law into his own hands, he had a fascinating response: “Sometimes yes, but when you discipline your child, what is the concern of the police in that?” he asked. 

He then offered the following analogy: “If a thief comes to rob you and God helps you to arrest him before the police come, will you free him and say he should go? So by arresting him, does it mean you are taking laws into your hand?”

That may explain why, allegedly found with a few ballot boxes in his house before last year’s general election, it must have surprised him that people were alarmed.  But Obasanjo, the serving president, stepped in and explained that it was not an issue.  The old man, the president said, should be left alone.  Of course.

Adedibu is not a man who hides his feelings.  In Nov 2007, following his arraignment at an Abuja court for disturbing the peace, he blamed his travails on the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dora Akunyili, whom he described as “that girl.”

He provided context: “She was in my house before the election, showering praises on me,” Adedibu said.  “When she lost in her bid to become a minister, she started abusing everybody. May be she felt pained. That is her problem.”

Akunyili was one of Obasanjo’s few success stories, a woman who saved millions of lives by making certain they did not drink classroom chalk when they thought they were taking antibiotics.  In years of toil and persistence, she succeeded in bringing the influx of fake and expired drugs under control in most of the country. 

In Ibadan, however, Akunyili complained to the Governor and the Olubadan publicly that Adedibu was using thugs to frustrate her agency. 

This is the man Obasanjo was proud to announce to the world as “the father of the PDP”.  Adedibu did not dispute the pedestal that the former president had placed him.  After all, said Adedibu, he had been in politics for over 50 years.  That ought to be enough for anyone to become father of anything, I imagine.  It ought to be enough for a man to possess his own ballot boxes ahead of a general election, and get away with it. 

It is known that methods like this made the PDP invulnerable.  Since 1999, it has used money, stealth, thugs, the police and the manipulation of ballot boxes to “win” elections.  One level of proof is that in almost every state in which an elected PDP official was challenged last year, the “elected” PDP official has been thrown out of office by the electoral tribunal.   

In other words, although the PDP is dominant nationwide, that position was not earned.  It lacks moral authority and therefore, political credibility.   

Furthermore, the policies, politics and practices of the party are now being challenged in every state, at every level (except in situations where the courage is lacking).  The Patricia Etteh imbroglio in the House of Representatives, where she wound up being rejected as the Speaker by her own party, is an example.   

The PDP’s effort to institutionalize rigging also has traction within.  After all, the “election” to determine the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party was openly, brazenly rigged, leading to the enthronement of Obasanjo.  You might say that within the PDP, dogs have a taste for dog meat.   

Even as Obasanjo bosses the party, the roof is caving in, and there seems to be confusion among his allies as to how to respond to the swirling waters around the former president.  Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, has been accused of impersonation.   

Obasanjo’s daughter, the story goes, traveled to Austria in 2005 as “Mrs. Damilola Akinlawon” for the purpose of signing a contract on behalf of her company, Akiya Nigeria Limited, with an Austrian company. 

Meanwhile, the same Obasanjo-Bello is wanted in the United States where she flouted a court order granting custody of a child to her husband.  She also owes her former husband $35,013.20 in unpaid child support. 

Gbenga Obasanjo, the President’s second son, has been indicted in a couple of frauds already: a N24 billion fraud by a government administrative panel.  The funds were secured through a company called Global Infrastructure Holdings Limited (GIHL) that is partly owned by him. 

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping development of all is not, on the face of it, political.  It is the accusation of Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, by his son Gbenga, of sleeping with his wife.  According to Gbenga, the same woman, Mojisola, has also had intimate relations of her own father. 

Somewhere in a lavish palace overlooking a city, one gap-toothed former Nigerian leader must be rolling on the floor with laughter.  I mean, only a little while ago, he was being thought of as the father of Nigerian corruption, as the man responsible for the state of the art. 

But within only one year of being out of power, Obasanjo seems to have surpassed all expectations in that regard, and more.  Nigerians are finding out not only how deeply their standard of living took a nose-dive under Obasanjo, but that he expended exorbitant sums of money as he bragged about his reforms and achievements.   

Worse still, there are vast sums of money, often in hard currency, that Obasanjo has not explained to Nigerians.  All of this as he has emerged from office stupendously rich.  His Temperance Farms is now a money-spinner; but before he assumed office, it had almost passed into history.  He now owns other farms.  He now owns schools.  He owns shares and homes everywhere.  He owns a “presidential library” that was illegally-funded. 

At the same time, Nigerians lack basic supplies of water and electricity.  Travel is hazardous, both because human security is a contradiction in terms for us, and because Obasanjo’s government only talked about building and maintaining our roads.  It never really did or finished anything.   

And then, seeing that it was all coming to an end, Obasanjo tried to hang on to power.  He was hunting for friends and people he could buy to actualize an unconstitutional third term in office.  Mercifully, that dream collapsed in front of his face. 

That is why, in the end, he has stopped at nothing to achieve his bid to sit atop the PDP.  He must have calculated that by controlling the party machinery, he will control Nigeria through control of the PDP in the executive and the legislature.  It seems he forgot the termites inside his agbada.   

Curiously, this is the “leader” that Yar’Adua admits of.  In my view, if Nigeria’s current leader wants to be taken seriously, or to make any progress, he must create reasonable distance between himself, and Obasanjo.  There is no other way.