When Nigeria’s civil war leader, General Yakubu Gowon celebrated his 90th birthday recently, one of his theatre commanders, General Olusegun Obasanjo, came and stood beside him – perhaps for the first time since Gowon’s ouster from power in July 1975. I call them “puppets” because they were pawns on the chessboard of the United Kingdom and Sokoto Caliphate establishment, which have run and ruined Nigeria after 64 years of paper independence.
Gowon had set 1975 as his handover date, but perhaps misguided by his “Super-Permanent Secretaries” who probably wanted to enjoy for a little longer, Gowon changed his mind without even bothering to set a new date. Five years after the war, and with the oil boom floating Nigeria in idle prosperity, the surviving founding fathers such as Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mallam Aminu Kano, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and the lot, were itching for the military to leave the stage for them.
On the other hand, most of the senior combatant officers were still very young, in their thirties and early forties. Gowon’s refusal to quit as promised presented them with the perfect alibi they craved to seize power. When Gowon travelled to Ethiopia for an OAU meeting, the military led by the civil war combatant, General Murtala Mohammed, simply walked into the State House, Ikoyi. Six months later on February 13, 1976, Murtala paid the supreme price as he was messily assassinated at Obalende. His Deputy, Obasanjo, mounted the saddle.
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Obasanjo was enthroned by the United Kingdom and the Sokoto Caliphate, not minding that he was a Yoruba Christian. It seemed that each time the head of the Sokoto Caliphate snake was cut off, they looked for a usable Christian (preferably Yoruba) to tide over their healing process and return the power when they are ready and mended. Obasanjo not only accepted a younger Fulani royalty, Colonel Shehu Yar’ Adua, as his Deputy, he also gave him a free playing field in his 42 month-long regime. Obasanjo carried out Murtala’s pro-Fulani transitional agenda to the letter, ensuring he handed over to Shehu Shagari, a former Private Secretary to the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the North’s political patriarch.
Obasanjo also faithfully discarded the Parliamentary Sytem which was blamed for the short-lived First Republic, and authored the Presidential System Constitution of 1979 which essentially converted Nigeria to a centralised “democracy” where power would permanently remain in the North or be dictated by it.
The geopolitics of Nigeria was also repositioned with the North having the lion’s share and the West adequately compensated for its eager support to the North during the crises and civil war. The Minorities also got their, albeit, transient taste of superiority complex over the Igbo nation which was relegated to the lowest rung of the geopolitical ecosystem. As noted in the earlier article, the Yoruba were wholly conceded the economy, while they and the North shared the highest bureaucratic and diplomatic booties of the Nigerian state.
Unfortunately, all this post-war booty sharing which Obasanjo presided over when our oil in the defunct Eastern Region boomed, have gone to dust. Today, the hunter is the hunted. They are the ones wailing helplessly in the streets, of hunger, brought upon us all by the rapacious parasitism of the post-war North-controlled military junta.
In 1998, the North was in need of another puppet to hold power for them. General Sani Abacha’s regime had ended suddenly. Though General Abdulsalami Abubakar took over, he had to hurry Nigeria through an eleven-month transitional programme. He and his fellow Northern political speculators realised that getting another Northerner elected after the annulment of Chief Moshood Abiola’s election and his death in detention could trigger a Yoruba version of Biafra. Such an event could end their honeypot, Nigeria. What to do?
They decided to look for a Yoruba man who could be TRUSTED to hold power for four years and hand it back to them. They remembered their trusty puppet, Obasanjo, whom Abacha had jailed for alleged involvement in a coup. They released Obasanjo, pardoned him, barred all Northerners from contesting for president in the 1999 election, gave Obasanjo the ticket of the biggest of the newly-registered political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP – and funded his election for president. An Igbo man who was poised to emerge as president, Dr Alex Ekwueme, was pushed aside for Obasanjo.
Unfortunately for the North, the Obasanjo of 1999 was not the Obasanjo of 1979. His prison experience had radicalised him. His days as a Northern puppet were over. He struck at the heart of North’s power with his retirement of 93 “politically-exposed” military officers. That move probably ended coups in Nigeria till date. Incensed, the North tried to use the Sharia law and riots in the Deep Muslim North to destabilise Obasanjo. They also pushed his Deputy, Atiku Abubakar, and “their own military general”, Muhammadu Buhari, to prevent Obasanjo’s re-election in 2003.
The Ota chicken farmer pulled the strings of state power and gave himself a second term in 2003. The North immediately lined up behind him! The puppet had freed himself. In fact, by 2006, he nearly overplayed his hand by angling for a tenure extension, which the entire nation denied him.
Obasanjo used his second coming to position himself as the best President Nigeria ever had since 1999. With the help of the best brains, Obasanjo freed Nigeria from $32bn indebtedness to Paris Club, and created a robust economy that survived the Economic Meltdown of 2007-2010. Obasanjo went for further education after his eight years and earned his PhD in religious studies. He became a born-again Christian, and no longer the exponent for “Juju Bomb” as Africa’s response to the Atomic Bomb.
Obasanjo refuses to keep silent. He braves insults and speaks truth to power. Unlike Gowon who cowers, Obasanjo is the man in the frontline.
Olusegun Obasanjo is our man!
