While I was away (2): Obasanjo’s pious pontification

I conclude my “While I was away …” series this week on the recent intervention by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In a grandiloquently termed “special statement” in January this year, Obasanjo cautioned President Buharia gainst seeking re-election, and called for a“Coalition for Nigeria”, a movement he saidwould “take Nigeria out of Egypt to the promised land”. It was typically sanctimonious and pontificatory.

Sadly, media coverage of the intervention was largely uncritical. Nigerians, it seems, are unable or unwilling to engage Obasanjo intellectually or experientially. Yet, for a man who behaves as the nation’s conscience, and claims the inalienable rights to dictate its future, Obasanjoshould be challenged on his ideas and his past!

So, we mustdeconstruct his “special statement” through the prism of his place in history. For me, that means considering two main characteristics that make him sui generis.The first is that Obasanjo is Nigeria’s most serendipitous leader;the second, he isthe country’s No. 1 Svengali.

Take the first. Why is Obasanjo Nigeria’s most serendipitous leader? Well, because he never at any time sought the leadership of this country, but it was alwaysbestowed on him. He was either in the right place at the right time or a beneficiary of Nigeria’s geopolitics.

In 1976, Obasanjo became head of state after the brutal assassination of his boss, General Murtala Muhammed. Twenty-three years later, after the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election and the death of MKO Abiola, the winner, in prison, there was a national consensus that, to appease the South West, the next president must be Yoruba. But the military insisted that Obasanjo, a retired general, must be that Yoruba, according to General Ishaya Bamaiyi, a former chief of army staff, in his book, Vindication of a General. So, Obasanjo became president in 1999 after an election conducted by the military!

Obasanjo is thus a uniquely privileged Nigerian. But,as the Bible says, “To whom much is given, much is expected”. So, how much has he given back? Recently, the former president, 83, said he would “commit suicide” if Nigeria lacked hope. If a British leader said that he would be condemned for glamorising suicide and sending the wrong message to frustrated youths! But, leave aside the blustering, what did Obasanjo do since 1976, when he first assumed the leadership of this country, to help build a hopeful Nigeria? Well, let’s turn to his Svengalian character.

Obasanjo is Nigeria’s No 1 Svengali because of his controlling influence on the selection of this country’s leaders. Indeed, he once boasted that he’s been instrumental to the emergence of Nigeria’s civilian presidents since 1979. But he always imposed weak and ineffectual leaders on the country. He favoured the diffident Shehu Shagari as president in 1979, telling us the best person didn’t have to win; he handpicked the sickly Umaru Yar’ Adua in 2007 and paired him with the pathetically puny Goodluck Jonathan, setting both of them up to fail. And they did: Yar’ Adua, because of his terminal illness; Jonathan, later as president, because of his inconsequentiality and abject lack of leadership.

And what about Buhari? In December 2013, Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State, led leaders of the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) to Obasanjo in Ota, and told him: “We are resolved and determined to rescue Nigeria. We want you to lead the mission, we want you as navigator”. Obasanjo became their “navigator”! His open support for APC acceleratedthe collapse of his own party, the People’s Democratic Party, and smoothed the way for Buhari’s election.

Obasanjo said he knew Buhari was weak on economic issues, but thought he could “make use of good Nigerians”. In other words, he put his faith in technocracy. Babashould have read “The Political Economy of Policy Reforms”, edited by the famous economist John Williamson. Economic technocrats cannever deliver radical and successful reforms without “the presence at the top of a political leader with a vision of history”. Buhari is not that kind of leader. He disdains experts and has atavistic views on economic policy. For over a year, Buhari refused to listen to those he disparagingly labelled “the so-called economists” about the Naira’s fixed value, even though Nigeria was rapidly haemorrhaging foreign exchange. Yet, despite Buhari’s pathological weaknesses, Obasanjo was willing to play the Russian Roulette with Nigeria by putting his weight behind Buhari’s candidacy.

But, now, Baba has turned on his protégé with a vengeance, accusing Buhari of running “a failed government”. He has warned him against seeking re-election, citing his behaviour, age and health. Yet, in 2015, the same Obasanjo blithely dismissed every concern raised about Buhari’s age, health and worldview, including his clannishness. He went all out to ensure Buhari’s victory. Why? Well, he said, for him, it was“Any OptionBut Jonathan”, even if that “option” was a retrograde former dictator with a closed view of the world. For Nigerians, the choice between Jonathan and Buhari was one between the devil and the deep blue sea. Obasanjo helped tip the balance in favour of Buhari. Dignified neutrality would have spared Baba’s blushes today. But Obasanjo can’t be politically neutral, despite his self-proclaimed “non-partisan position”!

The test of leadership is judgment. Obasanjo failed it by imposing mediocre leaders on Nigeria,and in many of his actions in government. But you will not detect awhiff of regret from hissanctimonious pontifications. Instead, he uses his books and lettersto rose-tint his achievements. For instance, Obasanjo said in his “special statement” that his civilian administration “made Nigeria truly a land flowing with milk and honey”. What a perfidious distortion of history!

Interestingly, someone recently tweeted the front page of Daily Trust of August 10, 2002 with the headline “Nigerians are suffering, IBB tells Obasanjo”. Does that look like a land “flowing with milk and honey”? Although his government created a few billionaires, mainly due to crony capitalism, Nigeria’s Gini index, the measure of inequality, dropped only marginally from 0.47 in 1999 when Obasanjo became president to 0.43 in 2007 when he left office. Not a golden age!

Moreover, whatever Obasanjo achieved economically and institutionally, he destroyed politically. He destroyed internal party democracy, neutered opposition parties, eschewed political reforms, conducted massively rigged elections and – wait for it – tried to change the constitution to run for a third term! Clearly, Obasanjo does not seem to know the enormous damage that the Third-term agenda did to his reputation and to Nigeria’s political system. He said politics is depressed in Nigeria today, but, lest we forget, Nigeria was as politically depressed when he left office in 2007 as it was when he became president in1999!

Recently, in the full glare of media publicity, Obasanjo laid a wreath at the tomb of the 73 people killed by herders in the New Year, and said, “I feel sad beyond description”, adding that “The loss of life of one Nigerian is a loss to all of us”. Great, except that the Odi massacre, during which hundreds of innocent civilians were killed by soldiers and villages were destroyed, happened under his administration. The federal high court later described the killings as a “brazen violation of the fundamental human rights of the victims”.

Take another example of seeming hypocrisy. Obasanjo was in Rwanda last month and took part in the photo opportunity during the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). He criticised President Buhari for not attending, saying: “It is criminal for any African leader to talk of not understanding what we are going to sign and afford not to be here”. But the same Obasanjo ran one of the most protectionist governments in Africa, even boasting that “We will ban more imports”. So, is he now a supporter of free trade, which is what the AfCFTA is about? Or is he just a fair-weather cheerleader for free trade?

And what about values? Last year, when Rochas Okorocha, the megalomaniacal and nepotistic governor of Imo state, unveiled a statue in honour of Jacob Zuma, then president of South Africa, Obasanjo was there to support Okorocha and Zuma. Now, a key test in politics is: “Whose side are you on?” So, does Obasanjo, the apostle of good governance, believe that a statue for Zuma was the best way to spend the resources of Imo State, a state where workers are owed several months’ salaries? Does he even believe that Zuma deserved the “honour”, a statue anywhere in Nigeria? When the BBC asked Obasanjo last year whether he thought President Paul Kagame of Rwanda was a democrat, Baba’s answer was “yes”, even though Kagame silenced all key opposition politicians in the country. Last month, the British police said the Rwandan government was sponsoring secret agents to kill Rwandan exiles in the UK. Yet, Obasanjo said, “as far as I am concerned, there is nothing undemocratic about Kagame”!

Clearly, on the key leadership tests of judgment and values, Obasanjo has not justified the moral high ground he always claims. His recent criticisms of Buhari are accurate, but they are discredited by his own past and values. In Britain, a former leader like Obasanjo would hardly be shown any deference by the media or the public, as the BBC demonstrated last year in its totally irreverent HARDtalk interview with him. But Obasanjo takes Nigerians for granted, and they acquiesce!

Which brings me to his “Coalition for Nigeria”, which he said self-assuredly would “drive Nigeria up and forward”. He added hyperbolically that “failure to do it will amount to a sin against God and a crime against humanity”. Really? So, what’s the movement’s raison d’etre? Obasanjo listed “democracy”, “good governance”, “socio-economic well-being” and “progress”! But which political organisation in the world doesn’t have these universal goals? Why would “all well-meaning Nigerians” belong to one movement in order achieve them?

What’s more, these generic goals can only be achieved within a well-functioning political economy, in a society with the right politico-governance structure. Yet Obasanjo is against political restructuring. True, Nigeria needs a coalition, but it is a coalition to restructure the country, a coalition to give Nigeria a new political settlement, not a self-serving movement with some nebulous political agenda.

Surely, Obasanjo’s “Coalition for Nigeria”, which could “field candidates for elections”, is his attempt to play the Svengali, the godfather, again! Indeed, recently, one politician, Perry Opara, an Obasanjo confidant, said that “Obj will be instrumental in who becomes president in 2019”, adding: “Obasanjo is the Nigerian political oracle, which must be consulted in any presidential election”.

So, we know what’s behind Obasanjo’s recent sanctimonious interventions. He wants, yet again, to choose Nigeria’s next president. But Nigeria must reject Obasanjo’s demagogy, and free itselffrom his patrimonial and Svengalian grip!

Olu Fasan