05 Apr 2008 |
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Olusegun Obasanjo and gnashing
of the teeth in Nigeria. Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria, is in the news a lot now for sundry reasons, mainly negative ones. What Nigeria went through under him could best be described as ‘system failure’ to adopt the characterization of the speaker of the house of representatives, Oladimeji Bankole. These are not easy times. There is much gnashing of teeth. After decades of mystifications, the scales have finally fallen off the eyes of many . For decades, values and attributes were falsely assigned to one who did not possess them, one robed in elegant clothings that do not fit, because they do not belong. What does one expect from a hungry man, even an old one, put in charge of a kitchen full of food prepared by other people? Yet, Obasanjo’s many malfeasances, criminal and unconstitutional conduct, were totally predictable. There was abundant evidence all along, even in the public domain, for his proclivity to engage in these acts. But for all kinds of reasons, including the primitive, underdeveloped nature and character of our political elites, the failure of the Nigerian media, the fractured and fragile nature of our polity, with its barely existing institutions, all these factors conspired to conceal his inadequacies, foist him on us, with disastrous consequences for our society. One can say the nature of the Nigerian society enabled him, that is to say, critical elements in our country, bankrupt, lacking in vision, driven largely by self enabled him, for decades, for their own interest. They had need of him and thus nurtured, promoted, enabled and gave him support materially and otherwise at critical junctures in our history. Most Nigerians had never heard of Olusegun Obasanjo before May 1969, six months before the Nigerian civil war ended, when he took over as the General Officer Commanding [GOC] the Third Marine Commando of the Nigerian Army. After two years of sustained losses, in men, material and territory [the war started in July 1967], the beleaguered Biafrans faced a dismal and bleak future. Almost virtually surrounded on all sides by early Jan. 1970; the Biafran head of state, Gen. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu fled on Jan 10, and the instrument of surrender was handed over to Obasanjo by Gen Phillip Effiong on Jan.15. A commander of a division in an army who only saw direct military action for six months now sees himself [according to his war memoir ] as being the genius that brought the war to a close and the Nigerian media portrayed him as such. Obasanjo has entered the heady realm of military-in-politics. His political maneuvering, essentially based on animal cunning, his real objective carefully veiled, now found full flowering. He was a post-war commissioner of works in the Gowon military government. Upon learning about the plans to overthrow the government, which was widely known in military circles, Obasanjo went to Gowon to make his fears known. He fretted about his own future, what would become of him and his career, if the government he served were to be overthrown. Then, on the day of the coup of July 29th 1975, Shehu Yar Ardua , Abdulai Mohammed and Joe Garba [three of the core coup planners] called him , Murtala Mohammed and Yakubu Danjuma to intimate them of their plans. Obasanjo was the most senior officer of these three. When Garba et al informed them that Murtala is their head of state, Obasanjo in his own words said ‘I quickly cut in to say that I was prepared to serve as second-in command if that entailed shouldering real responsibilities and not [just] allocating quarters to civil servants’ Obasanjo claims he accepted to be second- in- command to Murtala , his subordinate, because he was making a sacrifice to Nigeria’s ‘stability and development’. Soon after, the new government came up with a scheme of demobilization of the army; the scheme ran into a problem because number one on the list drawn by the committee was Obasanjo. Obasanjo piled pressure on northern federal civil servants and their military counterparts to prevail on Murtala not to act on this recommendation and thus his career was saved. Then came the Dimka coup of Feb 13, 1976. Hiding in the Queen’s Drive home of Chief S B Bakare, Obasanjo rode the events of the day out, just like any ordinary Nigerian citizen, by listening to radio announcements, calling this military colleagues without disclosing his location while other people were attempting to put down the coup attempt. With the coup contained and neutralized, Murtala assassinated, Obasanjo showed up. A disagreement broke out among the northern dominated ruling clique about choosing Obasanjo, the deputy who went AWOL during attempts to contain the Dimka coup, as head of state. Some bluntly asked ‘where is Obasanjo’s constituency’ in the army? But since Yakubu Danjuma, their choice, had no interest in being the head of state, Obasanjo thus became the head of state by default. Gen. James Oluleye in his book’ Military leadership in Nigeria; 1966-79’ mentioned Obasanjo’s proclivity to cut and run. In October 1966, some Yoruba army officers were made aware of violent acts to be directed against the Yoruba in the north. Four officers, Olusegun Obasanjo, James Oluleye, E. Akinfenwa and T. B. Ogundeko decided to meet with the military governor of the northern region, Lt.Col. H U Katsina. Obasanjo, being the most senior was the designated spokesman. Upon reaching the governor’s office and just about to enter, Obasanjo developed cold feet and told his colleagues to find another spokesman as he was not prepared to be, whereupon, Oluleye assumed the position. Just like during this extant fourth republic, the Obasanjo military government [1976-79], was preaching probity, non-tolerance for corruption, frugality , which the Nigerian media dubbed ‘low profile’ . This was the period of the indigenisation decree, which barred civil servants and government functionaries from buying shares from the companies being indigenised. When inquiries was directed towards finding out those who contravened this injunction, Obasanjo [the head of state] was to be found there. In his famous letter to the Guardian newspaper in 1990, Alison Ayida, the secretary to the federal military government, stated he used his influence to shield this fact from the public. The whole notion of ‘the first African military ruler to voluntarily hand over power’ was a myth concocted by the Nigerian media. We know now of course [courtesy of the Danjuma interview in the Nigerian Guardian, Feb. 2008] that Obasanjo was scheming [just like the third term maneuvering 2005-07] for ways to scuttle the 1979 transition to democracy so he could stay in power. Much like other self-deluding military autocrats all over the world, he did not want to leave. Even then, why did the Nigerian media continue to refer to him as the ‘first African military ruler’ to ‘voluntarily’ hand over power, when they ought to know that the claim was bogus. Ghana had a military coup on Feb 24, 1966, that toppled the Kwame Nkrumah government. In 1969, Ghana’s military government handed power back to a democratic government when Dr Kofi Busia became the new prime minister after the election, the country having adopted a parliamentary system of government. This was ten years before Nigeria’s military government of Obasanjo handed over power in 1979! Why did the Nigerian media create a myth such as this? The media knew, voluntary or not, Obasanjo had to choice but to relinquish power, because the choice was not his in the first place, it was decided by those who gave him the borrowed robe of head of state, at whose pleasure he served During General Ibrahim Babangida’s interminable transition, the case of his description of the man widely presumed to have won the election, Chief MKO Abiola, as not ‘being the messiah’ Nigeria needed is well known. What is not as well known is that Obasanjo was not only the architect of the idea of interim government, he was angling to be named the head of that government too. That is not to say Obasanjo does not have ‘foreign friends’. They were the ones who put up an advertorial in the New York Times and referred to themselves as ‘Friends of Obasanjo’ during the preparation to the election of the UN secretary general in the 80s. The UN security council is the organ of the world body that votes to choose the secretary general. The council is made up of fifteen members; five permanent members and ten members from the UN general assembly who serve for a term of two years. Boutros Boutros Ghali of Egypt won the election with eleven votes; the Zimbabwean foreign minister had four votes and Obasanjo had none. I have read accounts in the Nigerian media where it was written that Obasanjo ‘nearly’ became the UN secretary general! Most Nigerians do not know that our country had no lender-debtor relationship with these international lending institutions before 1978. It was Obasanjo’s regime in 1978, when his ‘international friends’ were declaring Nigeria to be ‘underborrowed’, that took Nigeria to the debt peonage of IMF with the then jumbo loan of $2 billion. Yet Nigeria fought a three-year civil war that cost three hundred million British pound sterling without borrowing. During the Abacha regime, it was perhaps understandable to continue to repeat the false claim of the ‘first to voluntarily transfer power’ as Nigeria’s civil society adopted anyone opposed to the regime as a democrat, even with a small ‘d’. We forgot conveniently that Obasanjo wrote a book in 1989, called ‘Constitution for National Development’ in which he advocated a one-party rule for Nigeria; that of course is not different from what Abacha was scheming for. Then what happened when providence released him from the clutches of Abacha.? Secretly, the Abdusalami regime rehabilitated him. Destitute, he was approached by the northern military and political establishment who were in search of a ‘safe’ Yoruba candidate. As Sule Lamido, governor of Jigawa put it bluntly [Guardian Feb 8,2008] ‘it could NOT be any Yoruba man, a particular one’ And to safeguard the interests of his sponsors, the northern military and political establishment wanted the following; the ministry of finance; the office of the chief of staff of the army; petroleum ministry etc, in the famous pact brokered by Jubril Aminu and Sunday Awoniyi. His friend who became disaffected later, Sunday Awoniyi saved him when Obasanjo demurred. Awoniyi wrote ‘there is nothing in this document with which any reasonable man would object to’ and Obasanjo appended his signature. Obasanjo who upon being originally approached, asked the famous question ‘how many presidents do you want to make of me’ has now become a bona fides candidate. Then there was the little and inconvenient matter of electability of a candidate, the candidate’s electoral value. Obasanjo had none in 1999. The PDP guidelines stipulated that a presidential candidate had to win his ward; his district and his state? Obasanjo failed miserably on all three. But what is a little inconvenience among friends? Loaded with other people’s money, Obasanjo showed up with N130, 000.000 at the PDP presidential convention. All the party rules were set aside for him, a candidate who had no idea when the party was formed and he was crowned the PDP nominee. Solomon Lar et al., are gnashing their teeth today, they sowed the wind of lack of internal democracy from the very beginning and of course they reaped the whirlwind. Looking to put some democratic sheen on the electoral process, a group sponsored a debate on Nigerian Television Authority [NTA] between the two presidential candidates, Oluyemisi Falae and Olusegun Obasanjo. In total disdain for and contempt for the electorates, and assured his sponsors will deliver the election to him, Obasanjo never showed up for the debate. I mean, why spoil the party? By the way, who are these people you call the voters, who might disturb him from getting to the banquet table, the gravy train, waiting in Aso Rock? Now we all are wiser. For him, from the May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007, it was all about ‘food is ready’. The late senator Idris Kuta from Niger state alerted Nigerians that Obasanjo was bribing legislators federal legislators with N50 million for the third term vote and some had already collected this money. The Nigerian media failed to pursue this story to its logical end. On the eve of his departure on May 28, 2007, Obasanjo awarded himself licenses for four radio stations; two television stations. He and his cronies , including his children, were playing the game of monopoly with our money, twenty nine ghost companies were awarded energy contracts. If a similar probe were to be directed to the petroleum ministry, the honey pot on which Obasanjo perched for eight years, hell would probably break loose in this country. Most young people if asked what they aspire to be when they grow up, will probably answer’ a banker; a physician; a teacher; a businessman etc’ Obasanjo’s ambition in his own words, as a young man was to be a ‘roadside mechanic’ .He blundered into the Nigerian Army, learned technical education and the Nigerian media called this ‘engineering’ Every time I pass through through Ibrahim Babangida Blvd, and I see this huge banner, ‘President Olusegun Obasanjo Hilltop Mansion’, the sprawling library in which government contractors were blackmailed to shell out N7 billion , the Hotel, recalling the huge farms spawning all over Nigeria, I am galled by the thieving mendacity of this almost eighty year old [never mind he called himself seventy one year old] man. I ask myself , ‘what could have gone so wrong in our land that we end up with a specimen such as this’? During the height of the Watergate crisis, the American president , Richard M Nixon asked at a press conference ‘People have got to ask themselves whether their president is a crook?’ Then he answered his own question’ Well, I am not a crook’ We were looking for someone to help mend our society after Abacha, we ended up with a crook masquerading as a president. Where did we go wrong in this country? Biodun oguntade lives in Abeokuta.
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