| Speaking Truth to Power: General Obasanjo - ‘The Corruption of the Best is the Worst’ |
|
![]() |
| Written by Dr Olu Ojedokun | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Saturday, 19 April 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
ABSTRACT With the words "Corruptio optimi pessimum est, this article attempts to discern why General Obasanjo is facing so much opprobrium from many observers and Nigerians, why his achievements as the only two term President of Nigeria are being drowned with daily calls for him to be probed and the stench of scandals in the air. It concludes by urging him to speak.
Speaking Truth to Power: General Obasanjo - The Corruption of the best is the Worst -Olu Ojedokun, Ph.D.- It was Harold Brown who wrote: "Corruptio optimi pessimum est, drawing from the Greek proverb that 'the corruption of the best is the worst'. Another writer Ashleigh Brilliant went on to argue that: Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy." It is not part of my usual style to begin an article with quotations, drawn and borrowed from history, however, the art of writing means that we must sometimes seek and find inspiration from beyond ourselves to make sense of the present and to speak truth in a way that addresses the issues of power. In the past few months we have been presented with salacious details of the alleged corrupt practices that occurred during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo. These details have covered the privatisation process and ranged from the power generation scandal to that of land allocations in
The responses of most casual observers, writers and Nigerians to these reports have been vitriolic, unsparing and the feelings of a deep sense of betrayal is evident. In some cases these responses have manifested itself in forms of a lynch mob mentality, with many and sundry calling and crying for the Generals head. I hope to proceed further deploying some examples of these facts in support of my central contention. This may go some way allaying fears and ensure that this article does not join the realms of the salacious, unbalanced, intemperate and poorly considered analysis. I begin with a few examples. On March 16, 2008 in the Punch Newspapers, Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, in an interview, castigated Obasanjo for: misruling and plundering the country, and asked that he should be: arrested and shot. On 27th March 2008, Lt General Jeremiah Useni was quoted as saying in the Daily Trust: But he should be probed, even a child in the mothers womb is asking that Obasanjo should be probed. Even the highly esteemed Lt General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma had earlier joined the lynch mob stating in the Guardian of 17th February 2008 that: "We will expose the dirty details, which I have in my possession. We will make them public, to compel even Umaru to do something." He said that Obasanjo merits a second term in prison. And the trend continues with the Guardians headline story of 27th March 2008: EFCC begins probe of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo's 8-year rule, others In all these allegations every sense of any of the Generals achievements in his 8 years of rule have been drowned out by the stories of the scale of corruption that he is alleged to have presided over. Debt cancellation, due process, enhancing GSM technology, the setting up of anti corruption bodies, all now pale to irrelevance with the prevailing stories and the rumours that accompany them. The extent of how the Generals stock has fallen is that Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sanni Abacha have now become candidates for sainthood in comparison to President Obasanjo. This is also compounded by the General who deploys silence as a response and weapon against his attackers. For it is either that he is supremely self confident that he has done no wrong whatsoever or he has been very adept in covering his tracks. But this does not address the question why President Obasanjo is the subject of a much more vicious press bordering on the betrayal than either General Babangida or General Abacha appeared to receive on leaving office. It could be argued that the alleged corruption of Babangida and Abacha was well trailed, that we believed them to be intrinsically corrupt so we were never shocked by the scale of the revelations that followed their respective departures. However, President Olusegun Obasanjo was not deemed at the start to be corrupt and the actions of his administration in setting up the anti corruption bodies and prosecution of a few gave the impression of some level of comparative self righteousness. Then again there was the mantle of born again that he adorned and his interactions with many Men of God. All these taken together in quantum appears to have set Nigerians up and the many observers for a big fall of the humpty dumpty fashion. The attendant implication is that the fall in his reputation appears so huge that no amount of spin can now fit it back together again. Our difficulty with President Obasanjo is some of us believed him to be the best
I dare to suggest to Dim Ojukwu who calls for the arrest and execution of the General and quote the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr. in response:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
I end with a call to General Obasanjo to end his silence and share Dr Martin Luther King Jnrs words with him: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. The writer is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 24 April 2008 ) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Services : E-mail news |
RSS Feeds | Podcasts
Links: About the NVS | Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies | Advertise With Us
All Rights Reserved. NigeriaVillageSquare.com





Posted by Robot| 19.04.2008 15:48