WHY IS OBASANJO DIFFERENT? John Akpaide

Contends former President Olusegun Obasanjo often takes himself more highly than he ought to be

The most paradoxical aspect of these weird presidential campaigns, which are much more about emotions than issues, is that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former president, is blowing a lot of hot air that President Goodluck Jonathan has not kept his promise of holding office for only one term. Obasanjo has already made this Jonathan promise a campaign issue and the All Progressives Congress (APC) has sought to make some political capital out of it. APC forgets that its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, also stated in clear and unambiguous terms in 2011 that he did not intend to contest for the presidency of Nigeria again. So the cycle of broken promises becomes a ripple in the country’s political waters.

Those who are trying to hold Jonathan to his words, therefore, lack the moral justification to do so. It is a promise one personally does not want him to keep. Keeping such a promise would be a disservice to the South-South. It would amount to redefining the zoning arrangement and creating the precedent that the South- South was entitled to only one term. The sense of injustice against the South-South would have been strengthened. Decades from now when another South-South man may emerge as president, it would be said, “Hey check the history books, the South-South always goes for one term – not two.” Not the kind of legacy one wants to leave behind for one’s posterity.

Such deprivation of a group and its telling effect on its posterity is not of any concern to Obasanjo. Obasanjo has always taken himself more highly than he ought to. Of all the former heads of state of Nigeria none seems to think that he has a greater sense of being the lord protector of the Nigerian estate than Obasanjo. Obasanjo sees himself as both a deity and a principality in the Nigerian political landscape and as “He who must be obeyed.” No government (except the one he headed) has escaped his acerbic tongue. Here is the list, the Shagari government was an “unmitigated disaster”; the Buhari government was “directionless”; the IBB government’s Structural Adjustment Programme did not have a human face. The Jonathan presidency is “clueless.” When he tried it with the no nonsense Abacha government, he went to jail!

Obasanjo should understand how to run an animal farm, he is a farmer. But, sadly though, he seems to think that Nigeria is his farm. It is easy to decode Obasanjo’s twisted personality. He believes that the world revolves around him. His first book was titled, “My Command” and it was about his war exploits. That others fought the war and had more exploits, or that war is a range of combat activities involving different commands which should take credit for success in meeting the goals of the war was immaterial to him. In his bloated ego, he was the greatest news during the war. Thereafter, he published another book titled, “Not My Will.” In this one he sought to explain how he became the military dictator after the death of General Murtala Muhammed. Not that anyone wanted to know, but OBJ is the kind of man who cannot stop talking about himself. Then came the next one: “The Animal Called Man,” a book about his prison experiences and how he

survived in prison. The last one is “My Watch,” a book about his presidency. He cannot think of any subject better than himself to write about.

Asked to define the difference between a misfortune and a calamity, British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli said, “If Prime Minister Gladstone were to fall into the River Thames, that I suppose would be a misfortune, but if anyone were to bring him out, that I suppose would be a calamity.” It does not follow that OBJ going to prison was a misfortune, and his being brought out was a calamity. But he has certainly and without doubt become the greatest nuisance in the Nigerian political space.

Consider General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the Head of State, who birthed our democracy. He has not arrogated to himself the answers to Nigeria’s problems. He does not pick up his pen and write a critical open letter to any president. Did he agree with everything Obasanjo did as president? No! He obviously must have been appalled at OBJ’s dogged attempt at a third term, but he did not join the fray. What of General Yakubu Gowon who fought to keep Nigeria one? If it were not for Gowon, Nigeria would have disintegrated. The only time Gowon intervened in an administration was when Abacha was head of state. He started the “Nigeria Prays Project” and kept at it until Abacha died.

So why is Obasanjo different? In a remark about Obasanjo’s latest book, “My Watch”, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, pointed out: “(Obasanjo) invokes God tirelessly, without provocation, without necessity and without justification, perhaps pre-emptively, but does he really believe in such an Entity? Does our home-bred DoubleO-Seven believe in anything outside his own Omnipotence: Could he possibly have mistaken the Christian exhortation –‘Watch and Pray’ for his private inclination to ‘Watch and Prey’?” This fairly sums up Obasanjo. The book he owes Nigeria and which he may never write is “My Confusion.”