Obasanjo May Well Be Nigeria's Best President To-Date, But A failed One, if Judge by American or British Standards
By
Dr. Wunmi Akintide
 

In drawing this conclusion, I am excluding the Nigerian version of the generation described by Tom Brokaw as the greatest generation in America. I see our founding fathers or the three leaders and their associates that fought for Independence from Britain as a class in themselves. They are the best in every index of assessment including their patriotism, their political honesty and integrity and their cherished commitment to promoting the best welfare of their separate regions, while at the same time preserving our national unity to the best of their abilities.

All of them had a chance to want to project the kind of ambition that inform some of the messianic streak and pretensions of Obasanjo, but they resisted the temptation as much as humanly possible. The foundations they have laid in each of their regions have more or less become the launching pad for our nation as we embraced Federalism by creating a stronger central Government that later form the basis of the unitary concept that the Military later foisted on the whole country without saying so in so many words.

In drawing this conclusion, I want to concede and affirm that expecting the same level of decency and deference to the rule of Law from any of our leaders in the third world, in general, has to be viewed as expecting too much. There is little basis for comparison. I have painfully come to that awareness a little bit too late, perhaps, as some will argue. I personally don't like Obasanjo and some of his modus operandi as a leader, and I have said that, time and again, but he is still the best we have got, at this point in our history. And like Don Rumsfeld has acknowledge, you work with the Military you have got and not with the Military you would have hoped to get. Obasanjo is what we have got for now, and we have got to make the best use of him in deference to the Al Gore doctrine which does not only apply to Atiku Abubakar alone, but also to Obasanjo who is hell bent to win the next election for his Party whether the voters come out to vote or not. Pundits who understand how the game is played in Nigeria are already speculating the margin of victory for the ruling Party even before the first vote is cast. It sounds familiar. Does it not?

By May 29, 2007, the enigma called Obasanjo would have proved himself the longest serving Head of State our country has produced in 46 years of our Independence from Great Britain, Whether you hate or like Obasanjo, that observation has become a fact of our History for better or for worse. Some will attribute that observation to sheer Destiny on Obasanjo's part, while others might describe it as sheer luck or a mere coincidence.. If you really reflect on it. like I do, quite often, the difference between Destiny and Luck is way too thin or superficial. Call it whatever you like, in a country of 140 million people, this Obasanjo of a man has proved himself not just a punctuation mark in our History, but the very nerve center and one of the principal actors in the Nigerian drama. One thing we can all agree on, however, is that Obasanjo has got to have been doing a few things right to have gone this far  and to have become as a constant factor in the Nigerian equation in the last 40 years and probably for a few more years to come. 

Obasanjo's choice of a career in the Military at a time the Military was not always the first choice of young school leavers in his own part of Nigeria can be called the hand of destiny. Most Yorubas, at the time, think and act very much  like our brothers and sisters in the South East who have similarly demonstrated their revulsion on letting their children go  seek a career in the Military through some of their cherished proverbs that have captured my imagination during some of my holiday visits to Umuahia Ubeku and Ifite Oraifite in my student days. "Nne mulu soja ngbaka wan" meaning "a woman that has a soldier as an only child can be written off as barren or childless". Our brothers and sisters to the North of our country did not share that mind set and that is one reason the Northerners have dominated our military and through that our country, for as long as any of us can remember and even up till now. 

Such sentiments as widespread as it was in the Yoruba enclave, did not deter Matthew Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo from pursuing a career in the Military. He probably joined the Army out of financial desperation like few Yorubas who have ended up in the Army, in those days, because they wrongly or rightly believe, at the time, that such a career should offer  a quick fix to all of their financial problems. Obasanjo has presumably had a rough time as a student at Abeokuta Baptist Boys' High School because his parents were evidently very poor and could barely afford paying his school fees. 

I doubt if it ever occurred to him, at the time, that he was actually taking the greatest decision that might forever change his life, and catapult him over and above his classmates, by making him the Nigerian with the greatest potential to profoundly shape the destiny of our country better than any other Nigerian dead or alive. By that singular decision, Obasanjo has probably got more from our Nation than he has ever given to her, and he would be leaving office, come May 29, 2007, not only as the creator of a political Dynasty but as one of the richest and luckiest Nigerians to ever live. He has done it in much the same way like the Kennedy clan of Massachusetts when their patriarch Joseph Kennedy has played much the same role like Obasanjo is playing today for his nuclear family to remain a force to reckon with in our country.

One can clearly see Obasanjo as heading that way, if you consider all he has been doing in office to forever secure his financial base and that of his nuclear or extended family in Nigeria. One of his wives is a presidential candidate in the coming elections and his first daughter, Iyabo is today a State Commissioner by riding on the coattail of his father. Iyabo has had her eyes set on a seat in the Nigerian Senate where she is gunning to be Senate President, if the PDP wins the majority in the next election. Obasanjo or his children, cronies and surrogates today own controlling shares in Aladja Steel Complex and in many of the Fortune 500 Companies in Nigeria like the Nigerian Transcorp. He and his first lady and children have acquired much of the assets of the old Nigerian Airways. Obasanjo is right on his way to becoming the Bill Gate of our country upon leaving office. Some of this information may have been hyped by those who carry the rumors, but there is some truth or validity to the claim, if you consider some of the things the President has accomplished for himself in the last eight years at least.

That revelation could only be a tip of the iceberg when you factor in his Bell University investments on education and his multi billion Naira Obasanjo Presidential Library not to talk of his great Ota Farms which has now become the moral equivalent of the America Midlands Farms with branches scattered all over Nigeria. That Farm alone makes roughly 250  million Naira a month as speculated last year. I am recalling all of these to add some luster or credibility to my hypothesis that Obasanjo has rightly crossed over the bridge before its collapse, as the Yorubas would say, and his financial empire and future are as secured as they come.

I would be the first to argue that Nigerians cannot expect Obasanjo with all the opportunity that have come his way to leave office a pauper after serving as a military Head of State and military dictator for three years, to begin with, and eight more years as executive President and Petroleum and Foreign Minister of an oil-rich country like Nigeria. You could talk about all of the above as what Obasanjo has gained from serving our nation in different capacities right from his days as the last commanding officer of the Third Marine Commando, and later on as Federal Commissioner for Works and later on as number 2 and Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters to late Murtala Mohammed. it doesn't get any better than that for a southerner for that matter. I would now explore what he may have given to Nigeria and generations yet unborn including you and me and why I am inclined to describe him as our best head of government given his track record in public office

I am putting him on a ranking scale with Tafawa Balewa, our first Prime Minister since Nnamdi Azikiwe our first President was only a ceremonial Head of State. I am comparing Obasanjo's track record with those of General Aguiyi Ironsi who ruled for less than 6 months and General Yakubu Gowon, who ruled from 1966 to 1975, General Murtala Mohammed who ruled for only 200 days, President Shehu Shagari who ruled from 1979 to 1984, General Mohammadu Buhari who ruled for less than a year or thereabout, General Ibrahim Babangida who ruled for more than eight years, Earnest Shonekan who ruled for roughly six months, General Sani Abacha who ruled for five years and General Abdulsalam Abubakar who ruled for roughly a year before handing over to Obasanjo in 1999.

I served in the Federal Public Service in a senior capacity  from 1968 to 1987 and I knew all of the Heads of State that ruled Nigeria from Yakubu Gowon to Ibrahim Babangida. The others I did not know too well are Earnest Shonekan, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalam Abubakar, but I have enough dozier on them to be able to form an opinion on each of them. I cannot think of any of them who has left as impressive a legacy as Olusegun Obasanjo, all things considered. As a matter of fact, Obasanjo would appear to have beaten all of the military ones to a second position by his decision to voluntarily hand over Government to a civilian Government of Shehu Shagari in 1979.

It was a first in African History and he did it with flawless precision thereby putting Nigeria on a world map as a country to watch as the rest of the world began to embrace Democracy. Obasanjo had left in 1979 a Foreign Reserve that was the biggest in our History and a laundry list of assets that were quickly frittered away by the Shagari Government within 6 years. The Obasanjo Government had not only followed the script he had inherited from Murtala Mohammed, he had done it with the persistence of a demon, making sure that all of the promises made to the Nation were all carried to term within a specified time frame. 

His was one Administration that has made Africa the cornerstone of its Foreign Policy and Obasanjo's Government was singularly responsible for standing up for the ANC and Nelson Mandela to break the backbone of Apartheid in South Africa when it mattered the most. It was an achievement the whole world has not forgotten. When you add that to the peace-keeping efforts of Nigeria all over the world and the role of Nigeria in the OAU and ECOWAS not to talk of the UNO, UNESCO and the International Court at the Hague and sub regional affiliates like CAFRAD (African Training and Research Center in Administration for Development based in Tangier Morocco, not to talk of OPEC, you have to give kudos to Obasanjo as a man of steel and one of the foremost African leaders of this century and the last.

Nobody in his right mind would deny Obasanjo that credit. As a Yoruba man I remain very proud of his achievements as a leader in that regard and I want to say that loud and clear.

His efforts with the Paris Club and Breton Wood and others and his determined appeal for debt relief for our country has been spectacular, and it has laid the foundation for the future economic transformation of our country, if his successors would not let go and go back to their old ways of dragging the nation into needless debts while wasting the resources of the country on frivolous and white elephant projects that have done our country no good in the past. That was another first for Obasanjo.

By far, the most important step Obasanjo has taken is his highly focused War on Corruption in our country. He, Obasanjo has clearly done more than all of his predecessors combined in this regard, if you know what I know. Although he has got mixed results by the one sided way he has prosecuted that war in a few instances, all the same, he has done more than any of our leaders dead or alive, to put his feet down against Corruption, despite all the arrows thrown at him by some of us. In standing his ground, he has run into problems with a gang-up of forces within and outside our country who have been  the greatest beneficiaries of Corruption, and who have refused to let go without a fight.

By so doing Obasanjo has begun to make a serious dent on that problem by drawing attention to the cancer and why it has to be fought till it is defeated. I give him high marks for his dedication and sense of purpose. Even though some of his methods have been crude to say the least, he has done nobly by identifying individuals like Nuhu Ribadu and El Rufai, Okonjo Iweala, Akinyuli, Soludo and some of his hatchet men and women who have served him well. As the Obasanjo's Administration is winding up its affairs I think it is fair for well-meaning Nigerians to now begin to draw attention to some of the fine legacies he would be leaving behind.

We must all admit that different societies have different rules and norms. It is therefore naive or even silly to equate our own caliber of democracy in the third world with those of the more civilized world like the United states and the United Kingdom just to cite two examples. Our standards and value system remain a far cry from those of the civilized world, and the basis for comparison is really farfetched, if the truth must be told. That is precisely why I submit that Obasanjo has performed very well based on our own index of measurement and standards in the third world. His performance may inferior to those of Nelson Mandela as the foremost African statesman of his time, nevertheless, Obasanjo has had a distinguished record of achievement as a leader that future generation of African leaders cannot easily forget.

If Obasanjo were to be operating in a country as sophisticated as America or the UK he probably would never have risen to the level he has reached in Nigeria. Why? Because Obasanjo has committed many a violation in the way and manner he has pursued some of his legacies. In more civilized country he could easily have been impeached for sometimes ignoring the Constitution or by-passing the Legislature altogether in carrying out his agenda.

A Government like the one he is leading today and his  Party the PDP would easily have been defeated in the next election, based on many of the crude things that Obasanjo has done during his last 8 years in office. The current schism between him and his Vice President and the fallout from it could easily have sandbagged his Government and render it totally unelectable. If Winston Churchill the successful War time British Prime Minister and his Party could be voted out of power following the Second World War in Britain, I think the whole world has to recognize that the developing and the developed nations of the world do not operate on the same wave length at all.

The value system in the developed world is such that would have frowned at some of the double standards that inform some of the policies of Obasanjo and his Government in the last eight years. Therefore the PDP and his presidential candidate should have had a hard time winning the next election regardless of the few good things that Obasanjo has done. It would have remained an uphill task for the PDP to win again, as it may well do, when the chips are down by May 29th. But that must not stop the nation or some of us armchair critics, from giving credit  where one is due.

  I rest my case.