Obasanjo: Nigeria's Mandela, Napoleon, and Jesus Christ rolled into one?
Has Olusegun Obasanjo finally run out luck? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem charts the career of the Nigerian president.
Anybody who believes that treachery does not pay has not studied the life history of Nigeria's recently humbled aspirant-maximum-ruler, retired General, Chief Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
A combination of capacity to speak to the left while going right - and extraordinary luck - has propelled him far beyond what his childhood dreams could have been from his very humble beginnings in Owu, Abeokuta. For a man of no exceptional ability to have risen from pauper to president is a worthy mythic story in itself, but Obasanjo even managed to do the journey in reverse also: from prisoner to president. It will require extr ordinary humility not to begin to believe that the Almighty God specifically created you to deliver Nigerians. His acolytes convinced themselves that Obasanjo was Nigeria's chosen messiah and with time Obasanjo himself began to believe that he is Nigeria's Mandela, Napoleon, and Jesus Christ rolled into one.
Given where he started from and how far he has travelled the temptation was almost irresistible but as a self –confessed born again evangelical Christian one would have expected his faith to counsel him and make him grateful to the Good Lord for all the bounties showered on him. Instead Obasanjo began to believe he is the Lord redeemer himself. I hope in these sober days he reflects on those very Christian words: Pride goes before a fall.
After all this was a man who according to his own biographer, as a boy, wanted to be a motor mechanic! His life's ambition would have been satisfied if he had ended up owning a shared workshop in some run down area of Abeokuta. But he ended up training as a technician (though he keeps claming he is an engineer) in the Nigerian army.
He was a junior officer during the Nigerian civil war and an average performer until lady luck shined on him in two distinct ways. Towards the end the war, he took over the command of the third marine commando (TMC), from one of the most authentic heroes (or villains) of the civil war, Benjamin Adekunle, The Black Scorpion. But good fortune smiled on Obasanjo and TMC troops fell on the radio station of the Biafrans, a few days after which General Effiong surrendered to the federal troops. And who was the officer he surrendered to? Yes, your guess is right: Major Olusegun Obasanjo.
How kinder can faith be? Like other young officers (Murtala Muhammad, TY Danjuma, Mohammed Shuwa, Alani Akinrinade etc etc) propelled to command posts by the exigencies of the civil war, Obasanjo finished the war and went into obscurity to continue a steady rise in the army. Towards the end of the Gowon regime he was made a federal commissioner (minister) but not many people would remember that until Gowon was overthrown in July 1975. The coup was essentially by young officers who had served in the war and were disgruntled by the lack of direction of the Gowon regime, especially as it became clear that he was unwilling to handover power to civilians, but bent on civilianising himself. Murtala became the preferred leader for the coup plotters. Obasanjo became his deputy. Six months down the line Murtala was assassinated (February 1976) and a reluctant Obasanjo became head of state.
From then onwards more accidents have conspired to keep Obasanjo ahead of his many enemies, but also his serial betrayal at the highest levels became a guiding principle. He changed course from the dynamism of the Murtala regime in relations with the West, but kept the Africa-centred focus. He invited Jimmy Carter to Nigeria on the first ever official trip by a sitting US president to an African country. From then onwards he thought himself friend of the US. Domestically he endeared himself to everyone by handing power to an elected civilian government in 1979 in an imperfect transition. He thus became the first military leader to peacefully hand over power without a coup to an elected civilian leader.
Nigerians forgave the excesses of his authoritarian rule, including killing of a university student during demonstrations, detentions without trials, introduction of fees in universities, etc because he handed over power. Internationally Obasanjo's stocks rose rapidly, courted by the many friends of Africa looking for signs of good news from the much abused continent. Contrary to his domestic authoritarianism Obasanjo became part of a global progressive coalition, claiming friendship of Carter, the former British Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, Willy Brandt, etc. He was to become one of the eminent persons of the Commonwealth that tried to broker a reconciliation between the liberation movements of South Africa and the apartheid regime in the 1980s. He was even at some stage considered a likely candidate from Africa for the post of UN Secretary-General. Nigerians could not understand why a man with at most a dubious internal record could become an international hero. The only comparable global experience is former President Carter, who became more popular after leaving office in very dismal circumstances.
Under the military dictatorships of General Babangida and Abacha, Obasanjo became a reluctant pro democracy advocate but was never loved or trusted by the real democrats. This was a man who used to cane people, especially press representatives who dared to trespass on his Otta farm. He even reportedly had signposts at his gates specifically naming categories of undesirables, including journalists.
His opposition to both IBB (Babangida) and Abacha were based on military reasons rather than democratic considerations. He did not want the military to be 'disgraced out of office'. He connived in IBB's annulment of Nigeria's only free and fair popular election won by Abiola. In spite of coming from the same historical city as Abiola, Obasanjo was very public in his criticism and opposition to Abiola being president.
It were these anti-democratic credentials that recommended him to the power blocs that conspired to impose him as Nigeria's leader after the exit of Abacha. His betrayal of June 12 made him a beneficiary of the democratic dispensation. Who says betrayal does not pay?
No sooner was the man released from jail than did other generals hurry to him asking: Oga abi you wan go back Aso Rock (i.e. Boss would you like to go back to Aso Rock). The man had famously criticized General Gowon for wanting to contest presidential elections in one of IBB's many aborted primaries. Obasanjo asked the former general: “What did you forget in Dodan Barracks (the former seat of power in Lagos) that you want to go and pick?” Obasanjo did not tell us what he had hidden in Aso rock that he needed to go and dig up.
But the generals were in charge and hence their choice became 'the choice of the people'. A man who could have been killed in Abacha's prison without much protest from many quarters metamorphosed into the presidency and began to behave as though he was a messiah. At a personal level one cannot begrudge him his feelings of triumph but after sometime people got fed up, especially as the initial promise of 'good days are back' was undermined by the president's arrogance and I-know-all mentality.
Obasanjo sees himself as the only person who believes in the so-called Nigeria Project. Like all dictators he thought the nation must forever be grateful to him for ruling us. His grown up bootlickers who prefer to call themselves Baba's boys and girls did not help matters by making themselves so loyal that they could not even tell their boss if he had bags of saliva on his nose! Many former advisers and even current ones have been known to complain bitterly that their boss never listens to anyone What the hell were/are they doing in his government then?
But luck and chicanery have gone full cycle on Obasanjo.
His sad term bid has ended sadly with the rejection of his cocktail of amendments in which the constitutional limitations on terms would have been removed. Most reasonable Nigerians did not think that the bill would pass but Obasanjo listened to the echoes of his own voice through his hired hands. Threats, intimidation, bribery and all kinds of measures were deployed but at the end of the day, he lost it. Unfortunately for him all the good he has done (and there are quite a few) may not now be remembered. It is this defeat, which has undermined him both locally and internationally, that history will remember him for. Maybe treachery, in the end, does not pay.
For a man who has been lucky enough to be at every great historical moment (right place right time) in Nigeria's history, Obasanjo has finally run out of luck. He is now highly weakened, a lame duck president who may not be able to influence his succession as the country faces a certain or uncertain period of electioneering to replace him in less than one year. The look I saw on the face of the president when I was attending a conference in Abuja recently was not the usual boisterousness that he usually displays at official Pan African forums. He looked tired, off-minded and somehow not all there. He is probably, finally, thinking of life after Aso Rock. There are a few fellow presidents who need to begin to do the same before history sweeps them into oblivion. Those who cannot embrace change will ultimately be swept aside in this unforgiven game of politics. No President can preside in perpetuity.
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
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