General Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo As A Committed Democrat

By

Dr. Abubakar A. Muhammad

aamu645@libcom.com

One of the slogans of the so called ‘special assistants to the current president’ is their tenet: “Though must lie to keep your job.” We have seen numerous demonstrations of such unholy propaganda by so many of those selected actors and jobbers to the delight of the President, General Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo. Sure you are not going to find in the description of the duties of assistants to the president (especially those dealing with the public and media), such an ignoble role of lying to ‘protect’ the president; somehow in OBJ’s era lying professionally has become a given recital that these assistants understand as they try to transform a mean and nasty person to look good in the eyes of an otherwise intelligent and skeptical public. And one might say most of these so called assistants have, for the past seven years, followed the recital to the point of suffocation.  I thought though among them no one would beat the record left Femi Fani-Kayode, whose ‘professional’ job of lying through the teeth in order to protect his boss had eventually landed him into the more glamorous job of honorable Minister of tourism and culture; albeit it came only after his humiliating postures before the distinguished and honorable members of the National Assembly. For Femi Fani-Kayode though it was still honorable to be able to lie repeatedly, throughout his tenure in order to get a pot of porridge he so desperately needed. His collection of lies has become household tales. I do not intend to dwell too much on the unworthiness of these presidential jobbers referred to as ‘special assistants,’ yet it is important to understand that an assistant is only credible when his boss, the president, is also a person of integrity. This underscores the significance of electing someone into position of great responsibility like that of the president and who you should be able to trust. The saying goes appropriately: “Birds of a feather flock together.” While none of the ex-president Shehu Shagari’s assistants were known to have played the role of professional liars when he was president, OBJ seems to employ such assistants merely to carry out dirty work for him, It is the reason why no matter what the president says or promises is taken with a grain of salt by majority of Nigerians, that is if they do not dismiss it with a wave of the hand. No Nigerian past leader, had earned such high level of distrust among Nigerians of all walks of life.

 I recall in the heat of the recently defeated third term scheme when the president’s bogus ‘special assistants’ were unleashed on the nation to continue to deny that OBJ was ever interested in the extension of his term after May 29, 2007. It was Femi Fani-Kayode who flatly rejected the idea that his boss had anything to do with the third term project even when it was no secret the President had actually embarked upon it with the full support of the Peoples’ Despotic Party [PDP], who, having stolen peoples’ mandate in 2003, believed it could continue its political assault on the electorate by forcing the despotic President on us again beyond 2007. It was amazing as the house of sand began to crumble, and the plot unraveled the president found courage to tell us he was never a party to the failed plot to extend his tenure. Until then he kept his lips sealed while the infamous bribes of forty or fifty million naira circulated among the few but disgraced and irresponsible members of the National Assembly. As Nigeria’s political, civilian, and religious and friends in the International Community sought to advise the President to come clean he was busy sending his Boys Brigade and barking dogs to hunt, abuse, and terrorize anyone that counseled him to abandon the plot of treason to disenfranchise the Nigerian electorate again. Femi Fani-Kayode had the indecency to tell General Yakubu Gowon to shut up simply because the ex-army General counseled OBJ to learn the lesson of hanging on to power from him and other past leader. The garrulous Femi told the General, even as a distinguished member of the National Council of States that he had nothing to offer to the President because General Yakubu Gowon was never elected into the office of the president, rather, he seized power to become the Head of State. That undignified and irresponsible outburst sent tremors of condemnation to both Fani Kayode and his boss in Asorock. And to date, neither of the two had apologized to General Gowon over the callous statement, at least not publicly. Another salvo of insult by the same Fani Kayode was sent against His Eminence, Archbishop John Olurunfemi Oneiyekan, who was also reported to have advised the president to leave in 2007. He told the Archbishop how wrong he was to tell OBJ there were many capable Nigerians to take over the leadership when he leaves because only OBJ was capable and responsible for the so called monetary reforms that Nigerians enjoyed; nor would there be any Nigerian leader besides OBJ who was capable earning for Nigeria the so called debt cancellation; and to have repaired its international image, even as the President had also worked to ‘save’ for Nigeria huge foreign. But then Femi Fani-Kayode was the very man who, on July 20, 2005, told us that: “Mr. President is committed to honoring his words and will be leaving the stage in 2007, and if other people have their own reasons for wanting to stay beyond 2007 that has nothing to do with us and neither can we hold brief for them.” Another liar on the pay roll of Mr. President was one Onyema Ugochukwu, who dabbled as the senior assistant to OBJ on public communications, and who did not hesitate to characterize the brouhaha on the third term as: “Concoction of the media and vested interests who hate the reforms that the Obasanjo administration had instituted.” He too like Fani Kayode sought to dismiss the Third Term plot stating: “The president had never any intention to stay in office beyond 2007, and so the third term campaign is a media hoax.” Even as a communication ‘expert’ he failed to understand the contradiction following his very statement when he carelessly asserted: “On three occasions the president stated he will abide with and defend the provisions of the constitution, and that those provisions do not include a third term unless so amended.” Could he have failed, even as ‘senior assistant communications’ to understand he was actually telling us the president was working hard with his Boys Brigade under the Mantus and Dalhatus in the National Assembly to alter the terms of his tenure in the constitution just one year before he leaves? But such is the kind of debauchery you expect from the ‘special assistants to the president’ who understand their filthy errands for the president, outside the terms of our constitution. This brings me to the current ‘special assistant to the president’ on public affairs, Mallam Uba Sani, the man who dared to take the infamous job of Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode.

As a matter of principle, I will drop the acronym ‘Mallam’ to his name because the Hausa use the title out of respect for the person who is valued for his knowledge, maturity and integrity. Regrettably, Uba Sani, the new so called special assistant to the president on public affairs, has none of these qualities. It is significant that majority, if not all these presidential jobbers try to abuse the very office of the presidency and their positions by lying through the teeth either to cover up the President’s incompetence, corrupt activities, constitutional blunders and violations or they are sure to defend his despotic instincts.  The Nigerian president, like President George W. Bush, sees his opponents as enemies rather that those who do not share his views, even if the other views turn out to be superior and people oriented. And so he believes in the erroneous political dogma: “If you are not with us then you are our enemy.” That is why today most of the political bigwigs that brought OBJ to dine with them after the 1999 ‘elections’ have long parted ways with him. They include, among others, the veteran leader Chief Sunday Awoniyi; General Ibrahim Babangida; Bamanga Tukur; Isyaku Ibrahim: Adamu Chiroma; Abubakar Rimi; General Aliyu Gusau; General Theophalus Danjuma; Alex Ekwueme; Audu Ogbe; General Abubakar Abdussalami, Soloman Lar, Iro Dan Musa, Lawal Kaita, Ango Abdullahi, and numerous others, including, the current vice president, Abubakar Atiku, who is currently one of the most vital critics of the Obasanjo’s tazarce dream, the third term, that collapsed under the auspices of the National Assembly. It is important to note that all these veterans who are no longer with the OBJ’s vision of leadership had either left the party of villains and murderers voluntarily or they had been forced out by the man who, in-spite of his colossal blunders and mismanagement still believes Nigeria owes him gratitude for running down the nation in the drain through these inglorious seven to eight years of despotism and economic strangulation. In the eyes of Babasanjo, perhaps the greatest ‘mistake’ Atiku Abubakar committed was to announce his ambition to contest the presidency without getting the ‘blessings’ from OBJ who was [and still is] nursing the idea of being the president for life. The phantom theory that is now on sale by the presidency and nitwits around the president [including Ahmadu Ali, Nasiru el-Rufa’i, Nuhu Ribadu] is that Atiku Abubakar has been disloyal, a traitor, corrupt, incompetent, and what have you. This theory and other political verbosities are arrant nonsense. In my candid view, the unforgivable sin that Atiku Abubakar had committed was that he told OBJ in plain language that he too has a fundamental right to contest the position to become the president. In the eyes of OBJ Atiku is a felon and this is unacceptable to the man who still lives and believes, in spite of all the trappings of democracy, that Nigeria is  under his own brand of military dictatorship. I am not saying Atiku Abubakar is not corrupt, that remains to be established as a case of corruption charges against him is still in court. As some other insiders to the presidency have already expressed, Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo who has been for the past seven years both the President and Petroleum Minister as well as the head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] from which the trickle funds of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund [PTDF] come, should have more questions to answer on account of corruption and mismanagement than his vice president who indeed was never in the position to unilaterally allocate the lucrative oil blocks to his party and gang members, all in the name of  ‘a Nigerian free enterprise.’

Last week or so there was a lot of hot air and untruth coming from Asorock as the jobbers, in the name of assistants to the president tried to put cold water over the embarrassing story that the vice president had left the Villa over threat to his safety: that there were some movements of the security apparatus around Atiku Abubakar’s residence and that could mean a number of things. Later of course the public discovered from Malam Garba Shehu, the erstwhile spokesman to the vice president that Atiku Abubakar moved out of the Villa to attend to some pressing personal matters related to his November 25^th declaration to vie for the presidency. The idea of insecurity of the vice president around the hostile Asorock senior tenant, who happens to be Mr. President, is not new and perhaps no one feels more uncomfortable with the situation than Abubakar Atiku. Perhaps lessons of assassinations of the perceived enemies of the president stare the vice president right in the face and no one should be fooled by the president’s statement that his vice president is as secure as the president just because Atiku Abubakar has two hundred security men ‘guarding him,’ according to Mr. President. What is true and what is on the record is that when the presidential hired killers and butchers are given orders from above anyone can be eliminated, even in the very heart of Asorock. While the revelation that the Asorock has two hundred well armed security guards for the president, it is shameful, morally wrong, and unacceptable that he could not provide any level of security for innocent Nigerians who are today being murdered like rats in their own houses and indeed in bright day light on our streets. But I have digressed. On the issue of the vice president’s escape from Asorock, due to reported threat to his security, the presidency had this to say: “There is no threat to the vice president’s life and there is no plan to arrest him or scuttle his planned declaration for the top job.”  Uba Sani went further to accuse the vice president of raising an “unnecessary alarm”. He continues: “Atiku is unconscious of the position he occupies in Nigeria and that for him to raise ‘unnecessary alarm’ is to belittle the importance attached to his office. It is another calculated attempt to blackmail the president.” Not withstanding the double talk by this man, one would be tempted to ask him the question: “How would Atiku Abubakar ‘understand the importance attached to his office’ when at the same time he is ‘unconscious of the position he occupies’ in Nigeria?” The next charge from the assistant to the president is even more of a typical, tongue in cheek, and hollow statements we have all been nauseated with by these brain-dead assistants to the president. Uba told us that: “Atiku is welcome. He is a Nigerian and can declare for any public office. Mr. President believes that the Nigerian people are the ones to determine who holds any public office.” He then volunteered to tell us that the reason why the vice president decided to use ‘different tactics’ to blackmail the president was because he [vice president] is planning to leave the PDP, and therefore he wants to create confusion. Uba Sani’s confession that the vice president like any Nigerian can vie for any public office is not news, even as it is perhaps disingenuous. What is also blatantly false is his assertion: “Mr. President believes the Nigerian people are the ones to determine who holds any public office.” The truth is this statement has not resonated with the records of Mr. President. For one, he did not come to his current position through the ballot box as the infamous 419 elections had unambiguously demonstrated, while so much of the election frauds and intimidation under his own PDP in cahoots with INEC, SSS, and other Federal security apparatus made it possible for majority of their candidates that lost the races for Governors, Senate and House of Representatives as well as Local Government Chairmen and Council members to illegally occupy the positions they are holding today. May be Uba Sani was on exile when such unbelievable election crimes took place under the watch of Mr. President and his gang of looters; even then he would have read that the PDP stole the ballot boxes and imposed losers on us. It is ironic the same party under its dictator has just recently been too busy impeaching its own Governors and their deputies who, in the first place, never won the elections to become Governors or deputies. But then according to Uba Sani’s job prescription, he wants us to believe: “Mr. President is a committed democrat. He believes in Nigeria and the rule of law.” Sadly, I had a hefty laugh at this statement. But then how else could one absorb the shock without heart attack? As far as I am concerned Uba Sani might as well have stated that Stalin, Khrushchev, Tito, Mussolini, and Hitler were all ‘democrats.’ And so like OBJ, they too believed in the ‘rule of law.’

As people have said repeatedly, Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo is a lucky man in politics, one might say even in the military as well because he had reaped where he had not sawn. It was towards the end of the civil war when the secessionist army, rather unexpectedly, surrendered, and he was destined to be the one commander to receive them back into the Nigerian family and his profile had since then kept rising until he became second in command to the late Military Head of State, General Murtala Muhammad whose glorious life and achievement were in inauspicious circumstances terminated. Again, this time it was OBJ who became the Head of State. When he handed over power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari as the second civilian president, General Olusegun Obasanjo was only following a military script that he had bequeathed from General Murtala Muhammad and knowing the consequences of rescinding that article of Faith left by his boss OBJ was lucky to hand over power and ‘stepped aside’ for the civilian administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. People now know better that General Obasanjo unlike General Rawlings of Ghana did not hand over power because he saw himself as disinterested military professional. It was General Sani Abacha who imprisoned General Olusegun Obasanjo over his alleged involvement to overthrow the junta. One day someone will write a true history of what actually happened and whether OBJ was merely made the scapegoat and locked up over false charges against him. As his fate had it General Sani Abacha who lost out with the military establishment was intrigued and certainly poisoned by them, an event that had another opportunity knock again at OBJ’s prison door where he already had his death sentence reduced to life imprisonment. Not only was he set free, OBJ became the anointed of the northern military and civilian establishments that decided to impose him on the rest of us in their effort: “to right the mistake” of the infamous June 12, against Mashoud Abiola and the South. True or false what most of the actors then did not know was Olusegun Obasanjo was all the time acting to be considered among those that cared about democracy. I suppose though his own southwesterners who knew him better than the northerners had resisted his candidacy all along but they were shortchanged in politics by shear numbers. Who would today, in his right mind deny that General Olusegun Obasanjo cannot be trusted to build any democratic institutions in Nigeria no matter how long he remains as president?  Who would today, in his right mind deny that General Olusegun Obasanjo had not for all the years he has been president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria learned that politics and democratic practice are all about sharing of power between contending parties? Like an unrepentant ex-army General, OBJ still believes in the chain of command and the idea of negotiations, consensus, and give and take are alien to his form of politics. He still sees himself the conqueror, per excellence, and his military politics is all about the winner taking all and holding everyone else hostage. And true this is the man the so called northern elites from the military and civilian hegemony imposed on Nigeria in 1999. One of the ways for Nigerians to see light at the end of the tunnel is to stop this dangerous man right in his track before April 2007 when elections are due. Unfortunately, and this is quite tragic, the National Assembly is not going to take this bull and bully by the horn and have him taste his own medicine through legitimate, [not Kangaroo styled] impeachment process. General Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian maximum dictator, deserve to be impeached and should this happen he would certainly find himself back into the maximum security prison cell where he truly belongs. One also hopes and pray should that happen, all members of his cult: the Ahmad Alis; the Mantus; the Ubas; the Adelebus; the Bodes; the Anenis; and a host of the PDP Governors as state tyrants and armed robbers will give him company. No one should be fooled that Nigeria will disintegrate when PDP, the party of corruption and murderers is gone for good and a new day for true democracy becomes a reality. I rest my case.

Dr. Abubakar A. Muhammad writes from the State of Pennsylvania, United States of America.