Obasanjo’s miscalculations

Viewpoint illustration
| credits: Bennett Omeke

In the last couple of months, former president Olusegun Obasanjo has been involved in two amusing exercises.

In the first instance, he’s been passing himself off as a statesman; and secondly, he’s been quietly and indirectly painting President Goodluck Jonathan as incompetent and underserving of a second term. Both exercises are amusing because he, Obasanjo, can never in three lifetimes achieve such a status. And also because whatever the governing failings and foibles of Jonathan may be, they are, in many ways, traceable to the undoing of Obasanjo.  Therefore, to now condemn “corruption, inefficient, and waste” — when he was the “grandpa” of maladministration and poor governance – is not only hypocritical, but also sinful.

Whatever is wrong with Nigeria today is, for the most part, Obasanjo’s fault. It is his doing. Better read as undoing. But to hear him in recent times, one would think this was a visionary leader. He was not. You’d think he had the interest of the country at heart. He does not. And he is self-serving. This was and is still a man concerned with himself and himself alone. And more so since 1999, he’s been hugely responsible for the “gutterisation” of Nigeria.  More than anyone in the recent history of Nigeria, he is wholly responsible for the economic and political rot the country has become.

Obasanjo wasn’t always this way. He started out fine. He was decent. In one form or another, he has been a part of Nigeria’s fabric since the 1967-1970 Nigeria/Biafra War. More than many of his contemporaries, you cannot write the history of modern Nigeria without apportioning him a prominent place and space. He was a bona fide war hero. And thereafter, he became a member of the Supreme Military Council — and eventually its numero uno after the February 13 , 1976, coup that killed his boss, Gen. Murtala Muhammed. From 1979 until Gen. Sani Abacha jailed him, he was highly respected around the world.

Obasanjo was so well thought-of that he was either a member of, or was courted by governmental and non-governmental organisations. His name recognition and favourability quotient was so high he even came close to being the Secretary General of the United Nations. That was Obasanjo. Although he was not as intellectually gifted and suave as his cousins (the Ransome-Kuti brothers and Wole Soyinka), he more than held his own. What’s more, all those who underrated or dismissed him as a lightweight or featherweight, lived to regret it.

When Obasanjo returned to the national stage in 1999, the belief – the belief at home and abroad – was: “Here cometh the man to set Nigeria on the right path.” It was not to be. It was not to be! To be sure, he became something and somebody; but it was not the somebody and the something Nigerians had expected. Or wanted! He turned out to be a disaster. And today, he is wedged to Nigeria’s throat.

During his tenure, what became of the Nigerian Airways and the maritime industry? What became of food production and food supply? What became of the manufacturing industry? How safe and reliable were water and power supply? Public secondary education and the university system were worse off in 2005 than in 1995. Many public buildings and infrastructure became death-traps. And even though he left the Presidency in 2007, the nightmare he wrought on the nation has not ended.

The Obasanjo government spent several billions of dollars on real and imaginary projects and with much of the money unaccounted for appropriately. And so, when you look back at Obasanjo’s second coming (1999-2007), one cannot but think of those years as the wasted years. Truly wasted!

Yes, Nigeria had been on the wrong track for decades. But the man many Nigerians thought was going to make things better worsened the situation. Virtually everything that was bad about Nigeria was made worse. And even the National Assembly became nothing but a mere rubber stamp to his excesses and whims. The judiciary and the independent electoral commission were thoroughly compromised.

Perhaps, to prove that his ambition knows no bound, he forced Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan on Nigerians.  Would Yar’Adua have survived or better managed his illness, if he was not forced or tricked into accepting a challenge he was not capable or ready for? We may never know. But as we approach the summer of 2013, these are the things we know for sure: if Obasanjo had been a decent and effective president, we would not have had these many non-state actors and criminal enterprises threatening the sovereignty of Nigeria. We would not today be talking or writing about the fragility and the fragmentation of Nigeria.

And in fact, Obasanjo’s miscalculations may have helped to bring about the birth of the Boko Haram sect. Terrorism and criminality gestate under several conditions – amongst these are an acute sense of injustice, crushing poverty, hopelessness, the stifling of dreams and aspirations, political and economic exclusion, and alienation from society or the nation. If the government does not care for you, you are likely not to care whether or not the government survives or prospers. Many of these and other factors have been present in Nigeria for a while. But under Obasanjo, things went from bad to bone-crushing excruciation.

In spite of Obasanjo’s sins – and not minding the residual effects of several decades of bad governance – it is time for President Goodluck Jonathan to sit up. It is not too late. He may or may not sit for and or win the 2015 presidential election. It doesn’t and should not matter. The time is here and now to act like the President of Nigeria. It is his job and duty to meet and exceed the expectations of Nigerians. He should worry more about what history and posterity will say about him. From this day onward, he should outperform his current performance level. Be the President!