OBASANJO DID EVIL IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD! 
Peter Claver Opara

At long last, Mathew Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo (what a combination) has vacated the seat of power. He allowed eight years to creep on him and he turned vegetable as the date closed in on him. He was unprepared, in terms of readiness to shift to the background, after a profligate eight years romance with raw and undiluted power. He never thought that eight years would come to an end, as the many actions and speeches he made as that date drew nearer, demonstrated. True, he engaged in a last minute asset tripping that was so obscene in a bid to ensure he pads life after office. From a paltry N20, 000 when he came out from prison, he is now one of the wealthiest Africans livings.  He coveted office so much he thought he is welded by the gods to the office of Nigerian leadership He valued the trappings and inanities of power so much that he never thought there would be a tomorrow. If he ever thought of a day outside power, he approached such imminence with a mind-shattering looting binge that cringes the ear and sets a record on how not to strip a country of its prized assets. Obasanjo bathes himself in so much hubris that he had sewn for himself such funny apparels as ‘founder of modern Nigeria’, ‘life leader of PDP’, and such other appellations that are meant to cushion himself from the judgments of a history he did so well to lacerate.  

Obasanjo came on lofty hopes that he would reinvent the wheels of leadership and take it steps higher than the scrambled pastimes of reprobates and jackboots that were accidents of history. When he came, the country was trashing on the very floors of despotism. In this humiliated state, the citizenry merely clobbered on with the hope to survive for the next day. He met a state laid prostrate by a profligate military where he remains a prominent player. Life was tottering on the very brinks and he was emerging from an excruciating valley of death where he was providentially exhumed and thrust with a re-invention mission of a people that have been on the receiving ends of a horrible leadership for the better parts of their independent lives. He made the right noises and exuded the desired intents when he took over on May 29, 1999. He offered that he would stoop for the people to walk, that he would lean back to soothe their tears and that he would put the right blend for the right results. The citizenry, ever desirous for winks of light to cheer their inept and corrupt leaders, cheered and hoped for the best. 

But this was the period before the gaunt, lean and almost frail Obasanjo was led into Aso Rock for no sooner than he settled there than he reached for the Rehoboam treatise and launched a regime that was outstanding for its bizarre sadistic attitude to the same people that had cheered it on. Obasanjo elected to chastise the people with scorpions where the much-hated expired tyrant, Sani Abacha chastised with whips. He elected that only the same soiled reprobates and scammers that wrote the tragic Abacha treatise were good for the job he fancied he was about to do in Nigeria. He was so generous that he offered them instant rehabilitation and commissioned them for the destructive enterprise that happened under his watch these eight years. He adopted hypocrisy and brazen scam as guiding principles of governance and grew trenchantly determined as he tried one adult trick or another on the country. To him, reform meant heaping unending pains and misery on the people and even as he sounded so pious about his love for the country, the image of a serial fraudster a sadistic perfidist was so obvious that the citizenry could not help but notice. What more, till date, Obasanjo can ill-articulate what his reform is all about, its entry and exit points except for constant empty sloganeering and vacuous propaganda of seeing a country whose poverty crisis he had deepened for eight years, into one of the ‘biggest economies by 2020’. He had eight years to start that march but it rather dwindled the capacity of the country to dream big and hope for a bright tomorrow.  

Before he came to power, Obasanjo took upon himself the job of always sermonizing on the actions and inactions of those that were in power for the interlude offered between his first and second coming. When he came for an encore, he stood out for how he took the very acts for which he railed so stridently against Babangida and Abacha to an exceptional height. Whether on corruption, dubious economic reforms, destruction of ennobling values, impunity, lawlessness, etc. Obasanjo showed himself to be a terrible practitioner of the virtue he delights in preaching while out of power. To him, all his preachments were meant for others as he deliberately excelled in all the known vices he condemned in others. In Obasanjo, the biblical Pharisees of old had no better progenitor. He did all he never professed and never did any thing he preached. He reveled being a Hammuarbi of sorts, a veritable lawgiver that is not bound by his own laws. In this state, he fancied himself as being far above his duped and thoroughly cheated countrymen who were scandalized by the many tricks and raw acts of deception that were brought to define governance especially in its relationship with the governed. Never had deception, trickery and guile been promoted as a corporal part of governance. Obasanjo sounded the depths we never knew existed with horrible leadership and as waffled from one trick to the other, the country continued in an awful regression into a failed and bankrupt state, which despite the monumental rip-off it made from an unflagged eight years oil windfall, remained a deepening hell hole where men ventilated all known acts of official fraud and dubiety. A country that witnessed the Byzantine cave rule of Babangida and Abacha, suddenly woke up to the fact that a more devious evil than the combined nuisance of Babangida and Abacha was indeed here with us. 

Obasanjo riled against corruption but he was a case study in treasury looting. His many dirty acts and indiscretions became so much that the many funny alibis his hatchet dogs sold to bail him from his corrupt acts rubbed in the tar the more they try. An instance; When he was caught in the Transcorp web, to which some national patrimonies were handed in questionable circumstances, they excused that as ‘conflict of interest’ and not corruption but when Orji Kalu invested in his airline, that was corruption! As at yet, none of his horses and men have been able to explain the source of his sudden wealth that spans virtually all the sectors of the nations when he walked out of Abacha’s dungeon a bankrupt, with only N20,000 in his bank account (apologies to Nasir El-Rufai). The list of glaring indiscretions are legion; the Obasanjo library extortion, the Obasanjo Farm renaissance, the PTDF loot, the petroleum ministry plunder, the oil bloc bazaar, the Mofas account puzzle where the president made several sorties even when he earlier denied not knowing about the account, the Virgin Airline, the Arik Air, KEPCO and so many dubious business fronts through whom Obasanjo carried out the most audacious loot of public treasury in the history of the country. To Obasanjo, all seems to be fair as he threw caution and decorum to the winds to ensure that he mopped up all known public corporations at give away prices. Obasanjo employed bribery and coercion as instruments through which he had his way with so many infamous acts that shortchanged Nigerians. He retained no scruples as he weaved so many intrigues including a fraudulent attempt to manipulate the country’s constitution so as to perpetuate himself in power. The failure of that dubious corrupt, was to unleash a terribly insensate and pathologically insecure persona that dragged the country closer to the brinks of collapse as he unleashed all known vices and subtleties to deal with the opponents of that soiled project and ensure he immunes himself from the logical outcomes of the many acts of compromise which he committed in eight years of unmitigated waste-laying. He descended to the gutters to hew for himself a political order that tolerates his primordial wiles and intrigues and webbed so much spin to ensure that the country is deadlocked on the dire straits of political crises as his end neared.  

Obasanjo’s government predicated its satiation of the monumental greed that drove it on the suffering of Nigerians. For this, he bathed no eyelid in carrying out mind-bogging extortion of Nigerians with any opportunity that flees by. Thus constant fuel price increases became such an attractive nectar that was too tempting for the regime to ignore. It was so bad that a regime that met price of petrol at N10 felt no qualms revving it up to N75 per liter as it made its inglorious exit. Couched under a dubious deregulation guise, it was obvious that the only hallmark of Obasanjo’s phantom deregulation was the constant increment of petroleum products prices. Under Obasanjo’s watch, the refineries were completely interred, preparatory to their being appropriated by him and his business fronts and the nation was placed under a regime of total importation of petroleum products by economic predators spawned by Obasanjo, of course at heavy costs to long-suffering Nigerians. NEPA, later PHCN, under Obasanjo became one huge extortion industry that took inefficiency to dizzying height. While the wobbly power agency sank deeper into non-performance and rot, it revved up its tariffs thus exerting tremendous fissure on a thoroughly subdued citizenry. All manners of taxes were imposed on hapless Nigerians for the period Obasanjo reigned and all these ended up financing the greed and corrupt tendencies of Obasanjo’s burgeoning court of economic rapists whom he fed at the expense of long-suffering Nigerians. To him, this was economic reforms and he boded no qualms deepening such unfavorable policy that persecuted the masses as it lasted. Under Obasanjo, deception became a code of honour and the image of a president that lies so freely even when caught in the act, incensed and assaulted Nigerians who were the primary victims of this demeaning act of official perfidy. Obasanjo positioned to twist and manipulate every situation to his advantage. To him, no pranks were considered too mean and no tactics considered too puerile to employ to achieve his base means.   

Obasanjo demeaned and desecrated the office of the presidency in a way that has never been known in the history of Nigeria. Under him, pettiness and trivialities became eternal credos of governance. Pursuit of vendetta and petrifying contrivances and inanities became the pre-occupation of Obasanjo and the presidency was reduced to conform to that demeaning level. We had in our hands a president that engaged in shouting matches with market women, a president that engaged in abusive match with a musician for representing the true state of Nigeria under his incompetent watch, a president that riled so shamelessly against a pastor for representing the feelings of his people and a president who cares no hoot engaging in petty name calling just to score his points. It was during Obasanjo’s reign that the presidency was dragged into such shameful acts as sponsoring hoodlums to attack those that differ from his government’s style. Hooligans and street urchins; victims of Obasanjo’s diabolical schemes were recruited to go against any person or institution that begged to differ from the licentious guffaw Obasanjo and his minions celebrated as governance in the past eight years. It was during his evil reign that scammers and known racketeers were commissioned to abuse, denigrate and insult hallowed institution and his had the highest turnover of sycophants and known scoundrels that derived their kick from ventilating all manners of pranks, antics and tricks on the rest of the country. They were variously promoted as ministers, advisers and assistants and charged to be more brazen in dealing a devastating blow on what remains of the honour and sacredness of the presidency, all in the name of fighting the petty fights Obasanjo provoked in the past eight years. Obasanjo and his menservants believed that self glorification and self-adulation would obviate the fact of their under-achievement and that the more they celebrate themselves, Nigerians would come round to ignore the fact of their impoverishment and accept the fraud that a government that had the benefit of earning more money than all the other regimes that ruled this country since independence, did well by profuse celebration of fictitious achievements and deepening the poverty level of Nigerians. Thus, Obasanjo impoverished Nigerians, dehumanized them and subjected them to the most inhuman treatment ever meted out to Nigerians by any regime while diverting state wealth and resources to a cartel of few oligarchs that  

Obasanjo reveled so much in inventing fraudulent achievements to shore up the humiliating performance he put up these past eight years. To him, raw fictions, sold and repeatedly chorused, substitute for performance. In his desperation to embellish his barren record, he commissioned phantom power plants that spewed out megawatts of darkness. He yodeled about turn-around maintenance projects that interred what remained of our refineries, he advertised vacuous and empty achievements that were known only to him and the buccaneering ring he gathered around himself to regal him with praises as his futile flight of vanity lasted. He mutilated power and made it a plaything for all manners of pimps and scavengers who found in his Aso Rock a haven where they scoop immense patronage for polishing the vanity of Obasanjo. He made sycophancy and cronyism such worthwhile ventures that nothing but this vain act seemed to thrive in Aso Rock under his reign. A strange occultic adumbration of babaism was celebrated by a pot pourri of eunuchs, slaves and yeo men who masquerade as ministers, special advisers, special assistants and all manners of appellations but who are no more than curtsying fawners and palace jesters that live in the fears and awe of Obasanjo. They celebrated themselves as reformers who relished celebrating the hard and raw fact that with so much revenue, they have plunged the country into one of the poorest, most corrupt and hopeless nation on earth in an eight-year blitzkrieg that ranked as the worst in the annals of Nigeria’s history. Meanwhile, rumour mongering, gossiping and tale bearing thrived to such untoward height that they became integral parts of qualification to serve in Obasanjo’s government. With a president that stood out for his sparseness, an intellectually challenged impostor, it was not difficult for  

Obasanjo enjoyed pranks, adult pranks and annoying tricks that were so obvious to the people. He relished playing the ostrich on issues that border on his own personal transparency and believed that he was never bound by the laws that were put in place to deal with such acts of indiscretion. Under Obasanjo, as in no other epoch in the history of the country, lawlessness and contempt for the laws of the land was the norm. His government relished the art of playing tricks with judicial decisions when it was not outrightly disobeying such decisions and with an attorney general that believed in twisting the laws of the land to conform to the restricted whims of the pharaoh at Abuja, the law was subverted with a prurience that was never there during the worst of the military era. The electoral process underwent the most horrifying manipulation under Obasanjo. The 2003 and 2007 elections were horrible charades that set the marks on electoral fraud the world over and these were quintessential aspects of Obasanjo’s so-called electoral reforms in eight years. Vote robbery and violent subjugation of the electoral process to impose cronies and hirelings became such an obsession with Obasanjo that he deigned the complete criminalization of the country’s electoral process as national values that should be sustained so as to achieve the corrupt order he set out to impose on Nigeria.            

Under Obasanjo, the country became one borderless insecure enclave where armed robbers, hired assassins, hoodlums and political thugs had one easy ride. They never had it so good as the police, riddled by corruption and ineptitude avoided the criminals but rather went full blast against the political opponents of the PDP. Nigerians learnt to depend on constant prayers that armed robbers and assassins never remember them, as nothing, in terms of security, existed for Nigerians under Obasanjo. What more series of political killings were so rampant while an inept and ultra corrupt government looked on helplessly overwhelmed by the challenges in that sector, as in virtually all sectors of Nigerian life. What remained of the police was employed as security guards to partisans of Obasanjo’s PDP and when they are not being employed to violently clamp down on those that disagree with the policies of the PDP, they were used to intimidate and hunt those that refuse to drink from PDP’s profligate chalice. The Obasanjo regime was bedeviled by an acute lack of creativity except in foisting deception and negative acts on the country and this accounts for why after so many trillions of Naira have gone down the drains and after eight years, this government still feels it must buy media spaces to tell Nigerians of how wonderfully well it had performed. Obasanjo left Nigeria a very divided, strife torn and chaotic country, which is possibly united by the hate of his person and his vain pretensions. Check out the Niger Delta, the security situation, the infrastructures, the census, the ID card scheme, the National Political Reform Conference, the Oputa Panel; all speak of either a pathological cluelessness or a deliberate intrigue to hoodwink and rob Nigerians.  It is a shame, a life burden that would haunt Obasanjo as he recedes into the anonymous lives of impostors that have taken turns to rape Nigeria. 

As he goes down in history as the worst and most destructive that has trod the unfortunate sands of Nigerian governance, we shall allow the chroniclers to write his epitaph as they did his patron saint, Rehoboam; ‘He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord………..” 
 
 

Peter Claver Oparah.

Ikeja, Lagos. 

E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle9950=encodeURIComponent(Obasanjo di...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 03.06.2007 22:23

nawaya  Villager

# 2 Here we go again, what is Yar' adua up to?? (A thousand apologies that I have to post this here - it's boring a hole in me!!) culled from thisdayonline.com Ex-governors Dominate Ministerial Nominations Names of former governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were said to have dominated the list of Ministerial nominations submitted by state governors to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. The former state chief executives were also said to be forming a pressure group that would protect their interests in the new government. A PDP national official told THISDAY weekend that at least eight of them have been nominated for Ministerial positions while they have also put their weights behind one of their own and former Governor of Benue state, Senator–elect George Akume, for the President of the Senate. Among former governors said to be on the Ministerial nomination list are Ahmed Makarfi (Kaduna), Donald Duke (Cross River), Samuel Egwu (Ebonyi), James Ibori (Delta), Adamu Muazu (Bauchi), Achike Udenwa (Imo) and Adamu Aliero (Kebbi). But the former governors may not have an easy ride the inclusion of Udenwa’s name on the list, for instance, is already causing ripples in Imo state PDP. Yar’Adua had given new PDP governors till yesterday to submit three names representing senatorial districts for ministerial positions. According to information, almost all the governors included their former governors. On the discord already brewing in the Imo PDP, THISDAY gathered that Udenwa included his name rather than submit that of the former Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries, Eze Festus Odimegwu. Odimegwu was said to be the candidate for Orlu Senatorial district but the former governor substituted Odimegwu’s name for his own when his bid to get the Senatorial seat for the zone failed. THISDAY also gathered that the name of Dr Alex Obi, submitted for Owerri zone may also not be going down well with the people of the area because his area, Mbaise, already produced the senator-elect, Mrs Chris Anyanwu. In Okigwe zone, the governor sent in the name of Engineer Charles Ugwu, who the state’s party officials kicked against because he could not command enough votes during the primaries last December but was foisted on the state by the party’s big wigs. Posted by nawaya| 04.06.2007 04:58

idee  JJC

# 3 Did the Lord tell you that? Let us be careful to invoke the name of the Lord. and let's be sure it is the Lord that is complaining to us about a person and we are not making it up. Afterall many prophets had prophesied against this same man, yet he waxes on. Posted by idee| 04.06.2007 11:09

peterclaver2006  Villager

# 4 Like your god who is ‘waxing strong’ in evil, I am not pretending that I heard from God. Like the chronicler in the bible, I am only reaching to a conclusion from determinable actions and not claiming the power of prophecy or equality to God as your man that is waxing so strong in evil and dubious deeds was good at doing while his waste-laying lasted. So Obasanjo is waxing strong? so is Babangida, so was Mobutu, so was Idi Amin, so was Bokassa, so was Saddam Hussien and all other evil men before they died or do you believe your Ota god will not die? Posted by peterclaver2006| 04.06.2007 11:58

ebasain  Villager

# 5 Peter, thank you for giving us another version of 'Cry, The Beloved Country' orchestrated by Obasanjo. Rather than write another long piece, let me surmarise it here: The man was a pathological liar, murderer, a sadist, over-rated military general (rtd), an ego-maniac, a psychopath, and one of the evil geniuses of all time. While I am still proud to be a Nigerian, I am ashamed to think that this man, Obasanjo is a Nigerian! Posted by ebasain| 04.06.2007 12:15

UncleTisha  Villager

# 6 =ebasain;180843>Peter, thank you for giving us another version of 'Cry, The Beloved Country' orchestrated by Obasanjo. Rather than write another long piece, let me surmarise it here: The man was a pathological liar, murderer, a sadist, over-rated military general (rtd), an ego-maniac, a psychopath, and one of the evil geniuses of all time. While I am still proud to be a Nigerian, I am ashamed to think that this man, Obasanjo is a Nigerian! Haba Ebasain! Epe se wa po ju nkan t'o sonu lo bayi?! (Why the curses come plenty pass the thing wey lost?) Why don't you tone down on all these vitriol? Na wetin? As worthless as Obasanjo is to you, there are people who are willing to swear by his name and what he achieved as Nigerian President. I can personally count the number of my friends and acquaintances who have moved into their own properties during the last five years. And they are mostly artisans. So many others have been able to achieve many other feats materially that even some people abroad cannot boast of. Ask the people who are daily making enormous profits from the stock exchange. The stability that Obj ensured alone gave a lot of people confidence to invest in the economy. In two days' time, at least 10 Nigerian banks are going to have meetings with the London Stock Exchange with respect to being listed, according to reports. That is a sign of progress that would have been unthinkable 8 years ago. If the man did not live up to your own expectations, you do not need to employ the kind of language on display here. Same goes for peterclaver2006. Please let us know why you think Obj has not achieved anything. Finish. Enough of the cursing competition abeg. Posted by UncleTisha| 04.06.2007 13:34

toksyleigh  Villager

# 7 Peter, thank you for giving us another version of 'Cry, The Beloved Country' orchestrated by Obasanjo. Rather than write another long piece, let me surmarise it here: The man was a pathological liar, murderer, a sadist, over-rated military general (rtd), an ego-maniac, a psychopath, and one of the evil geniuses of all time. While I am still proud to be a Nigerian, I am ashamed to think that this man, Obasanjo is a Nigerian! I am not a fan of Chief Obasanjo and while I agree with you that OBJ is all of what you have described here and more........ I want you to name one of the past Nigerian leaders that have been anything but all of of the despicable names you mentioned above. Just to let you know, the future is not looking like it is going to produce any of leaders that are different from what you have mentioned here. Shikena, Goriola Abamieda. Posted by toksyleigh| 04.06.2007 13:46

OluGbo  JJC

# 8 I read Mr. Oparahs article with growing sadness. Obasanjo has left the stage, but you appeared not to have seen any contribution for the betterment of Nigeria from him. Perhaps, in about two years when hopefully you reflect on Nigeria, its leaderships and their contributions, and personal antipathy against Obasanjo may have mellowed, I hope you will write a more objective article. Posted by OluGbo| 04.06.2007 17:28

STTOPP  Villager

# 9 Judge not so ye shall not be Judged, wise digest for all hypocrite, self righteous and prophets of doom on NVS. STTOPP Posted by STTOPP| 04.06.2007 19:14

ebasain  Villager

# 10 Obasanjo was the most diabolical and maniacal leader ever to come out of Nigeria! Posted by ebasain| 04.06.2007 19:59

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