Shehu Shagari and Olu Falae Were Exactly Right On Obasanjo

Shehu Shagari and Olu Falae Were Exactly Right On Obasanjo

Dr. Wumi Akintide

So many Nigerians who have known Olusegun Obasanjo longer and better than the rest of us, can all agree on one thing. They all hold the view that Obasanjo is as lucky and as richly blessed as they come, by always positioning himself in the right place, even if it means thrashing the image and reputation of people who may have been very close and useful to him at one point in his life. They see him as very Machiavellian in his ruthlessness, and he sees himself as wiser than everybody else and that Nigeria can hardly stand, if you discount him from the Nigerian equation. He is one Nigerian who has totally fallen in love with his own ideas and has therefore blocked out making it hard for new ideas to permeate his already fixed assumptions on Nigeria

For a man who has been President and ruler of Nigeria for no less than eleven going to 12 years in a very complex country like Nigeria, I guess some may be tempted to call that an understatement. The only addendum I might add is that Obasanjo’s ascendancy to power and privilege in a country of no less than 140 million people is more than a sheer coincidence of Luck. Some would call it a by-product of Destiny or divine blessing and connection. I call it that and much more, because Obasanjo is a jigsaw puzzle, if you look at the man and his antecedents. Since the man is “stepping aside” for now to borrow a word from IBB. I think the less we speak of him the better because progressive Politics is more of the future than of the past..

The enigma called Obasanjo who takes special pride in calling himself a farmer is a master tactician and strategist who knows where and when to play his best card, even as a fresh man at the old Abeokuta Baptist Boys’ High School which he attended along with some of the Nigerian best brains and leaders like the great Obafemi Awolowo who attended the school for a few years or M.K.O. Abiola. and so many others. Like the old Barewa College in the North, Abeokuta Baptist Boys’ High School has produced many a juggernaut in the political arena of Nigeria. Many of those old boys of the school like those of the famous Barewa College have occupied many strategic positions of power in our country and beyond.

If M.K.O Abiola has not been robbed of the Presidency of Nigeria at the ninth hour, Abeokuta Baptist Boys’ High School would have produced two out of the three Southerners to be lucky to be selected as President in Nigeria because Nigeria has never truly had a free and fair election. I make that assertion on the presumption that Ernest Shonekan, the Interim Government Head for less than a year, was probably an alumnus of CMS Grammar School, if not if not a product of Kings College or St Gregory or the great Igbobi College, Lagos.

It is a little bit of an irony to me that Barewa College and Abeokuta Baptist Boys’ High School have topped the list of Nigerian institutions that have produced the highest numbers of Heads of State and Generals in our country. If you think that was the reason Obasanjo has gone so far ahead than any other southerner, you will be making a big mistake. Obasanjo has recorded so many a first in our country because he is a genius at positioning himself before opportunity strikes, better than any other Nigerian dead or alive. His choice of the Military, shortly after leaving the Baptist Boys’ High School where he was a C average student in the mould of a Colin Powell when he attended the New York Institute of Technology in downtown Brooklyn, as an ROTC enlisted candidate, was a sure masterstroke. That choice has given him the edge to be all he could be in the Nigerian Military and that, I dare say, was the “open sesame” or the passport to his other breakthrough s in the power configuration of Nigeria till now.

Obasanjo, as I said before, in one of my write-ups on him did not start the Biafran War but he sure, ended it on his own terms, as the victorious Commander of the Third Marine Commando that the Black Scorpion, Benjamin Adekunle was privileged to lead as the pioneer commander. What was remarkable about the two commanders was how they have both ended their careers. While Adekunle was defrocked and ended up in early and dishonorable discharge of sorts, Obasanjo has managed to make his elevation a stepping stone to greatness and limitless opportunities that saw him becoming Head of State not only once but three times, if you ask me. He was in fact on his way to becoming the international civil servant and Secretary-general to the UN, had IBB not given him a stud he could not skip. All the same he had built up sufficient IOUs in Nigeria to be considered a viable candidate for the presidency again when he was rescued from the prison totally broke and down only to be crowned the Commander-in-chief and President one more time too many.

He nearly made it to a third or fourth term but for the challenge and coordinated efforts of his second-in-command in Atiku Abubakar working in tandem with a powerful majority of Nigerians like Wole Soyinka and Pa Anthony Enahoro, Muhammadu Buhari, and Gani Fawehinmi to mention a few. Even though Obasanjo would hopefully cease to be President by May 29^th, he would be “stepping out” in his own words as the most powerful ex- President in all of our history. As the pleni-potentiary life Chairman of the octopus called the PDP, he would have become the President de facto while the Liliputian he has anointed and crowned as successor, in a charade of an election, would be President de jure.

Because Obasanjo was the 3^rd or 4th reluctant Head of State to be so named in 1976 following the assassination of Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo’s ascendancy to power has institutionalized or consolidated the practice of going for the least qualified and the least prepared candidate as President in Nigeria. Tafawa Abubakar Balewa as first Prime Minister was the first reluctant leader. He came in to lead the then Federal Government as an inferior surrogate to Sardauna Bello the Premier and leader of the defunct NPC (Northern Peoples Congress) who should normally have become Prime Minister as party leader. Sardauna Bello a prince of the Caliphate has rated the Sultan’s throne more valuable and more prestigious than the Prime Minister of the greatest country in Africa, south of the Sahara.

General Aguiyi Ummunakwe Ironsi who became Head of State following the Jan 1966 coup in Nigeria was even more reluctant and less ready to assume the power forced on his shoulders by his seniority in the Military. The ideologically- driven, no nonsense Chukwuma Nzeogwu, the leader of the Coup who could have stepped up to the plate to transform Nigeria was neutralized and detained while Ironsi was crowned King only for a few months before he was sent packing by a cabal of disgruntled Northern officers.

Then came Yakubu Gowon just out of Sandhurst returning home to meet a fait accompli of a situation that saw him becoming Head of State at 32 or less as a compromise choice. That Gowon would go back to school to acquire a University degree after nine years as Head of Government speaks volumes about the way Nigeria elects his leaders till tomorrow. Yakubu Gowon has managed to survive for nine years before he was overthrown in a palace coup led by his fellow tribesman from Pankshin in the Middle Belt, the late Brigadier, Joseph Garba, the Commandant of the Brigade of Guards which was the elite unit supposed to provide security for the Commander-in-chief..

Then came Murtala Mohammed who had waited in the wings for nine years waiting for the right moment to strike. He got his chance, and Obasanjo who did not actively participate in the coup, was picked as his second-in-command due to the quota system and the unwritten rule in Nigeria, that if the Head of State is a Muslim, his Deputy must willy nilly be a Christian. Murtala, the man once regrettably described by the same Obasanjo in one of his books as “an undisciplined officer” has managed to survive for only 200 days into eternity, before he was assassinated, giving room for Obasanjo to get on a platter of gold a prize that he himself has often gloated, that Awo for all his talent, hard work and charisma has failed to achieve despite his best effort.

Obasanjo has done it, riding to power at the back of the people like Awo whose policies and distinguished public service in the West, has made the Yoruba a force to reckon with in the political equation of Nigeria. Obasanjo is certainly one of the beneficiaries of that visibility and relevance. Obasanjo has always been the one to harvest the fruits of other peoples’ labor where it counts the most.

He has done it again with his taking over of the PDP altogether in eight years as President and thru a “do or die” election strategy that has seen the PDP winning more number of states than it won before despite its abysmal record of performance in pre strategic terms. It has done so in an election that has gone down in history as the most flawed and the most rigged elections of all times with little or no possibility of a redress by a Tribunal that has been designed to be a clog rather than offer the best opportunity for the aggrieved to get justice.

I recall Olu Falae turning down a suggestion to accept a hypothetical offer for him to serve in Obasanjo’s cabinet after losing to him in 1999.. I was stunned when Olu Falae who is always able to read between lines had once explained to me that he saw the invitation more as a trap than a genuine invitation to serve in good faith. He had seen what the Cicero of Esa Oke, Uncle Bola Ige could not decipher when .he agreed to serve in Obasanjo’s cabinet. Three years later he, as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the Republic was assassinated in cold blood in the comfort of his own bedroom, and up till tomorrow, his killers are yet to be brought to justice. To add insult to an injury, Obasanjo has recently rubbished Bola Ige as so incompetent and dumb that he could not tell his left from his right when he served in the so-called Ministry of Power, Steel and Energy. I say “foul over the bar”.

Who in Nigeria does not know the intellectual pedigree of Bola Ige as one of the best legal minds Nigeria has produced? That Bola Ige would even agree to serve under Obasanjo as Head of Government, was an insult, considering the yawning gap between their intellectual capabilities and readiness. It was like comparing day light and darkness. And to insinuate that Agagu who later took over the Ministry after the transfer of Bola Ige was a more competent candidate than Bola Ige was the height of insolence and intellectual dishonesty on the part of Obasanjo. Like Wole Soyinka has eloquently clarified in his rejoinder to Obasanjo, the demystification of Bola Ige was nothing but a set-up by Obasanjo to posthumously rubbish Bola Ige and the ideals he stood for in his life time. I have not met a more hardworking, diligent and patriotic Nigerian. Never. Gentle Men I know Uncle Bola Ige. Uncle Bola Ige was my friend and senior alumnus of Ibadan Grammar School. Uncle Bola Ige certainly knew his left from right, and he was not the charlatan that Obasanjo has painted in his unfortunate indictment of the dead who is in no position to defend himself. I totally reject that silly indictment and characterization of a true hero of the Nigerian struggle in life and in death.

The holier-than-thou pretensions of Obasanjo as a born-again Christian is often very offensive and misleading to say the least. I recall Obasanjo once dodging an opportunity to openly debate Olu Falae on television in 1999 by giving the impression he had traveled out of the country due to a conflict in schedule. Olu Falae who had to debate an empty Chair, because Obasanjo was no where to be found that evening. Obasanjo miraculously appeared in one of the rooms in the Abuja NICONGA Hilton Hotel in Abuja where he was hiding to avoid participating in a debate with Oluyemi Falae. Oluyemi Falae had mistakenly mistook another room on a different floor for his room and was attempting to open the door with his own key, when Obasanjo suddenly answered the door, not knowing who was attempting to get in. You could call it a Freudian slip of the worst order, but it did happen, and candidate Obasanjo was thoroughly embarrassed. If you don’t believe me, Oluyemi Falae is still alive and well and can corroborate this little incident.

I recall this isolated incident to lend credence to my hypothesis that Obasanjo, for all the good things he has done for Nigeria, has also had a dark side of him that the public also needs to know about as he goes into retirement. I would be the first to admit that he has done some profoundly good work for our country which posterity would never forget. He has also committed some blunders that if known to the public could help to offer a more balanced, accurate and objective account of his stewardship and legacies as we bid him farewell for the last time as the out-going President. Shehu Shagari was right was right to describe Obasanjo as a man who passionately believes he is the only wise man in Nigeria, and the one and only father of modern Nigeria.

I rest my case.