Obasanjo and the Third-Termism

By

Chidi P Eze

pceze@academicplanet.com

 

There is a popular saying that evil that men do lives after them. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

 

For a brief historical analysis, Obasanjo replaced Col. Benjamin Adekunle at the tail end of the Nigerian/Biafran civil war and became lucky that the war ended in his sectorial command. Though not through his military bravado, but he thinks otherwise. He has been bathing in the dream that he defeated the Igbos. Already, the Yoruba tribe had been accepted as a junior partner in the administration of Nigeria due to the part they played in consolidation of Nigerian leadership to the northern oligarchy. The northern military establishment brought Obasanjo and made him representative of the Yoruba nation in the share of the spoil of the war effort. Hence his second- in command position to Murtala Mohammed after the change of baton with Yakubu Gowon.

When Mohammed was paid back on his atrocious behavior and his devilish activities in Asaba during that genocidal war against Ndigbo, on February 13, 1976, again the northern military establishment felt that they should make him (Obasanjo) the titular head of state ( to keep the Yorubas as the junior partner) who can only act  when the defacto military leader Yar' dua, ordered him to do so. Then on October 1, 1979, an opportunity came for him to escape being murdered by the untrained, uneducated and corruption infested northern military, he quickly handed over to Shehu Shagari. He had no choice or else he would have been finished. As a trade off, he was allowed to take home his own share of the loot from UPE contract of 1976, the contract from the laying of oil pipes from Port Harcourt and Warri to the northern Nigeria including the establishment of oil refinery in Kaduna, to operate his farm at Otta. As is usual to the corrupt leaders of Nigeria, he stayed on the back ground and pretended as if he had Nigeria's interest at heart by his utterances. It is factual that Nigerian leaders when out of power pretended through their utterances to be interested in the Nigerian unity, while when in power resorted to policies and programs to disunite and dismember Nigeria. See Babangida and IOC and Buhari and his war against Igbos (his W.A. I )

In 1995, the then Nigerian despot, Sani Abacha  roped him and nailed him in the gulag somewhere in Yola. He survived it, but has not forgotten it. In 1998, Babangida and the then northern military establishment felt that Obasanjo who had been their errand boy from 1969 through 1979 and moreover the Yoruba as their junior partner, he would be made president to hold forth for them (northerners) to calm down the frail Nigerians nerves emanated from the annulment of the late Akinola's presidential victory of June 12, 1993. On May 29, 1999

Sani Abacha resurrected from dead and another emperor and despot was created in Nigeria's leadership.

With the help of the United States and Britain, the so called Nigerian army was weeded of the northern Islamic coupists and the sun was set in northern Nigeria's leadership monopoly . The demolition of the northern Nigeria military monopolistic tendencies on military, economic and political sphere of Nigeria had begun.

As the northern Nigeria's imperial coats were being dismantled from the corruption hangers at Aso Rock and beyond, the Yorubas were putting theirs back on the same hangers of military, security, economic and political land scape of Nigeria. Hence the Yorubanization of Nigeria has begun.

Obasanjo has now tasted the real power. As the coast is very clear for him by the exit of the Islamic dominated military coupists, he now assumes God and plays God in Nigeria. He is now more catholic than the Pope.

He now determines who lives and who dies in Nigeria. With the collaboration of the Nigerian military based on his bribery strategy, his executive corruption and intimidation of members of the Nigerian National Assembly, his flooding of his tribes men and women in the security department of the Nigerian nation, his executive support and sheltering of criminal and murderous governors, his and his kin folks control of the Nigeria's oil wealth, his divide and rule tactics of the various Nigeria's tribes, his establishment of Chris Uba and co to rubbish on Ndigbo, his demolition and control of the party formed while he was in Abacha gulag, the death of prominent Nigerians just for the control of power, the use of EFCC to hound his prominent political opponents or any prominent Nigerian who criticized his despotism, his marginalization of real Nigerians and his empowerment of Nigeria's crooks and criminals, his use of Nigeria's police, SSS, Nigerian army to abuse and maim Nigerian citizens, his use of executive power to corrupt Nigerian democracy, his obsession for corruption, intimidation, abuse, crudity, irascibility, his financial and political empowerment of the unmerited Nigerian's political and economic criminals that surround him as advisers and political contractors, those who tend to cry more than the bereaves, those who are the drummers of his third termism are all the reasons for his continuation beyond 2007. It is true that there are reforms going on now, but why were the reforms not carried out from May 29, 1999 through may 28, 2003? Among his retinue of Ministers, advisers and board appointees, the only visible and practical performers are, Dr. Ngozi Okonji Iweala, Dr. Dora Akunyiri, Prof. Charles Soludo, Dr. Obeageli Ezekwesili, Mr. Ernest Ndukwu of the NCC and the mobile phone fame, Mallam El  Rufai is just in Abuja fighting Ndigbo and their hard earned properties.

Obasanjo has committed too much atrocities against Nigeria and Nigerians and will be scared his pant off living in Nigeria without power. His cronies are equally scared of being hounded or getting a pay back from their corruption, moral and political atrocities against Nigeria and Nigerians from another leader.. Does one wonder why in a country that sells 2.5 million barrel of oil daily @ consistent average of $50 a barrel, has no functional electricity, no tarred roads, no running water, no functional or standard tertiary institutions, no good medical facilities for common headache, no functional airline, a country where members of the military and police are daily looting the banks, robbing and killing innocent citizens, a nation where a prominent minister and political leaders would be murdered in cold blood, the accused would be appointed senator or political adviser to the president, and every politician in Nigeria drives SUV (sport utility vehicle) build sky scrapers, every governor in Nigeria has houses in USA, Britain and other western countries. Every president, governors, ministers and state commissioners, special advisers, advisers, members of the national and state assembly, politicians military and police in Nigeria have accounts in foreign banks worth billions of dollars. Obasanjo is so corrupt that he dwarfed Abacha, Babangida, Atiku and Abdul Salami Abubakar. He is afraid of retributive justice, otherwise at 70, and 11 years in the nations leadership chair, what else does he need when even in those 11 years he could offer nothing to Nigeria and Nigerians. Nigerians should see his third term ambition not in the sense of Nigeria's political interest, but purely for personal security concern. The third term or continuity would offer him and his cronies a reprieve from the national punishment for their atrocities and or perhaps send him to his grave rather than live to witness his retribution from another president. He has effectively paid Abacha back  in his own coins, and Nigerians well known for revenge politics, he will equally get his own pay back by who ever succeeds him. It doesn't matter whether his successor is his son or daughter, he certainly will be paid according to his sin which is grave.