The intemperate outburst of former President Olusegun Obasanjo against President Goodluck Jonathan and his warning that the nation is fast drifting into chaos and uncertainty shows his capacity to stir the hornet’s nest, and to comment freely on matters of national importance. Given the terrible scenario playing out in the country, manifested in mass poverty, high corruption in government, gross official recklessness and near zero governance, Obasanjo, in an 18-page diatribe identified five key areas where Jonathan needs to be assessed. These are leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); head of the federal government; commander-in-chief of the military; chief security officer of the nation; and the political leadership of the country. His verdict: Jonathan has failed on all counts. Besides exercising his right to free speech; having regard to his status as a former president, elder statesman and PDP baron, when someone like Obasanjo speaks, the nation is compelled to listen.
Obasanjo’s right to comment on any issue, like every other Nigerian, is not contestable. What may be contestable is the moral justification for the barrage of allegations he made against the president, which, to say the least are scandalous, weighty and shocking. Given that Obasanjo has had two glorious opportunities to change the fortunes of Nigeria (1976-1979) and (1999-2007) and he squandered both; this is a classic case of the wrong messenger delivering the right message. Needless saying most of the problems Obasanjo highlighted took root during his own administration. He is therefore not completely blameless. Also, as a former head of state, Obasanjo ought to have direct access to the President. The fact that he chose to reach the president through an open letter that was mischievously leaked to the press somehow reduces the propriety of his method. Little surprise the Presidency, in its characteristic combative riposte, found the letter “highly unbecoming, mischievous and provocative… self-serving, hypocritical, malicious, indecent, and very disrespectful of the highest office in the land.”
The rambling letter is constructed in the form of an advice, with a damning import. It was deliberately leaked to embarrass the president. Obasanjo is not only telling the whole world that Jonathan has failed; he is placing his verdict on public record, while openly distancing himself from the President. Baba is asking the public to be his witness that when Jonathan began to drift; he raised the alarm that the nation is adrift and ridden with corruption which stinks around the president. Baba has also managed to say in his letter that the real problem with Nigeria is Jonathan, and that only Jonathan alone can solve the problems that have arisen. Obasanjo has also warned against Jonathan’s re-election bid and condemned him for anti-PDP activities. He also cautioned that the proposed national conference is fraught with danger of chaos. Obasanjo is telling Nigerians that even though he imposed Yar’Adua and Jonathan on Nigeria as his parting gift, Jonathan is now on his own. In other words, Obasanjo is passing a vote of no confidence on Jonathan, as President of Nigeria.
Obasanjo’s letter is a sad commentary on the Jonathan government. It is the kind of letter that is expected from the chairman of an opposition party. But this is Jonathan’s own predecessor accusing him of condoning criminal and treasonable activities, failing to act and to lead, endangering democracy and putting the country on the path of destruction. These are very serious charges. It would be interesting to see how Jonathan responds, given that the two men are reported to have met in Nairobi, Kenya, even as the letter was making waves back home. Whatever happens, it should be remembered that Obasanjo spoke not just his own mind or the mind of many in the PDP but the mind of the majority of Nigerians. It does not require special intelligence to recognize that Nigeria is ailing. Poverty is acute and widespread, corruption is endemic, critical infrastructure decrepit and insecurity of lives and property prevail in a huge magnitude. The situation deteriorates by the day without much hope of a respite. The problem as Obasanjo rightly noted is inextricably tied to the poor quality of leadership the country is plagued with.
But for all his acerbic criticism of the Jonathan administration, Obasanjo cannot escape responsibility for the parlous state of the nation. All the things he said about Jonathan may be true. But the same and even more can be said about the two Obasanjo administrations. Having ruled for eight of the last 14 years of the PDP’s misadventure in power, it is legitimate to ask: to what extent is Baba complicit in the rot that runs through Nigeria today? From 1999 to 2007, Obasanjo was not just the leader of the PDP, but also the President of Nigeria, wielding enormous powers, and in absolute control. When Obasanjo disengaged as president, he foisted himself as the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, another vantage position. He was, therefore, all along in a veritable position of influence to put the PDP on a sound democratic footing. But he did not.
If anything, Obasanjo chose to ride rough shod on party structures and in the process, many of the problems from which the PDP is yet to recover, cropped up under his leadership. Obasanjo’s last stage as President was mired in a third-term controversy that he sought to justify as a situational call for tenure elongation. He also introduced “do-or-die” contest for power, the harbinger of the 2007 electoral disaster; one of the worst in Nigerian history that brought Yar’Adua and Jonathan to power. The rest is history; but in hindsight, Obasanjo’s imposition of Yar’Adua and Jonathan as his farewell gift to the Nigerian people was probably one of the most wicked acts he perpetrated against this nation.
On good governance, the rigging of elections as well as visible attempts to weaken all centers of power, outside the Presidency, indicated the extent to which Obasanjo abused State authority to subvert the will of the people in the exercise of their fundamental right to choose their leaders. Throughout his Presidency, Obasanjo’s relationship with other arms of government was, more often than not, uninspiring. His regime was notorious for disobeying court orders. Unless Baba has the memory of an elephant, he ought to remember his budget fight with Tinubu of Lagos State. Also, the rancorous fracas with his deputy, Atiku Abubakar; the political assassinations (including his Justice Minister Bola Ige), and massacres in Odi and Zaki Biam all made nonsense of democracy.
Obasanjo’s lamentation about corruption is indeed astonishing. Granted that the controversial pardon granted former Bayelsa Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, further ridiculed Jonathan’s purported anti-corruption crusade; under Obasanjo, Nigeria became “Corruption Incorporated.” He reduced the anti-graft agencies to attack-dogs against political opponents and personal enemies. Therefore, being a major architect of corruption in Nigeria, Obasanjo’s criticism of Jonathan can hardly be credible, because in the twilight of his administration, he exhibited profoundly disturbing and confounding enthusiasm to reward corruption.
To say Obasanjo speaks before thinking may well be the least that could be said of a man who has outlived his political usefulness but remains stuck in a messianic posture with a false sense of entitlement, claiming the right to have a say over who rules Nigeria. It is bad enough that Obasanjo has a loose tongue but his disparaging utterances against a sitting president of the federal republic is a fundamental lack of expression, which set a new low, in what, unfortunately, has become the unedifying trademark of the talkative former president. It is indeed unfortunate that in the name of public engagement, Baba has made it a personal motto to cast banal aspersions and vituperative invectives on Jonathan. To the extent that such discourteous and uncivil remarks expose the President and the institution of the Presidency to ridicule and public contempt, this madness must not be allowed to continue. Meanwhile, the president needs to get his act together and seriously address nagging problems facing the country, and not be distracted by the ranting of an inconsequential ex-president, with a high nuisance value, seeking political relevance and opinion shopping for cheap popularity.
