The Obasanjo Bombshell By: Reuben Abati

“Former President Obasanjo is a courageous patriot and statesman
who tells truth to power when he is convinced leaders are doing
wrong” – Muhammadu Buhari, March 4, 2015.

“Buhari is sick in the spirit, body and soul. Let’s beg him to
go and rest…Let’s give chance to another person” – Olusegun
Obasanjo, January 21, 2019.

On Sunday, President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed a press
conference at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in
Abeokuta where he gave the equivalent of a state of the nation
address which was essentially a testimonial on the performance of
the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, an assessment of the
integrity and credibility of the electoral umpire, the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) vis-a-vis the upcoming 2019
general elections, and a general commentary on recent developments
in the country and the tactics and methods of the incumbent
administration. This is the second time in the last one year that
President Obasanjo would be taking on the Buhari administration in
an extensive and provocative expose. In his 2018 intervention,
Obasanjo had advised President Buhari not to bother to run for a
second term in office because his performance was disappointing and
even more importantly, he would need more time to go and attend to
his failing health.

He accused Buhari of cronyism, nepotism, incompetence and
failure to bring about the change that he promised Nigerians. The
former President’s advice was ignored at the time. Professor Itse
Sagay, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against
Corruption who hijacked the job of the President’s spokesmen
launched an attack on Obasanjo. He told Nigerians that Obasanjo is
“irrelevant” and he needs to show President Buhari ‘some respect.”
Titled “The Way Out: A Clarion call for Coalition for Nigeria
Movement” (January 23, 2018), the Obasanjo letter then generated
ripples within the polity and energized those seeking a third force
as an alternative to the PDP and the ruling All Progressives
Congress.

We should all take special notice of the fact that this was all
in the month of January 2018, precisely in the third week. On the
anniversary of that very episode, almost exactly to the day,
President Obasanjo has intervened again. If his January 2018 letter
to Buhari was hot, this one of 2019 is explosive. The 2018 letter
was 13 pages long; the 2019 contribution titled “Points for Concern
and Action” runs into 16 pages. But the key difference is not in
the additional three pages; it can be found in the fact that
Obasanjo’s tone in this latest one is not advisory at all. This is
a brutal, dismissive, utterly condemnatory commentary which seeks
to consign the Buhari administration to the ugly chapters of
Nigerian history. The style of writing is lucid, frank, assertive,
no one is left in doubt that Obasanjo considers the Buhari
administration a mockery of sorts, some of its programmes such as
TraderMoni “idiotic”, and its management of the country’s security
situation, utterly laughable.

Having once declared that this government does not deserve a
second term in office, and having shown his preference for the
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
Obasanjo, without an obvious hint of partisanship, tells us that
the Buhari administration is adopting desperate tactics to rig the
2019 general polls. He takes on the Independent National Electoral
Commission and accuses it of crossing the “redline” with “blatant
partiality, duplicity, and imbecility”. Imbecility! Now, that is a
very strong word. According to Obasanjo, INEC can only convince us
otherwise if it redeploys Ms. Amina Zakari, the INEC commissioner
in charge of the collation of results who happens to be related to
President Buhari by marriage, and by conducting free, fair and
credible elections.

The big take-away from the 16-page commentary is Obasanjo’s
concern about how the Buhari administration seems to have
compromised all institutions of state, and how in recent times, it
has also taken on the task of humiliating and denigrating the
Nigerian judiciary. The unkindest cut is the comparison of
President Buhari to General Sani Abacha. This comparison is not
helped by the fact that President Buhari himself once described
Abacha as a “hero”. Many Nigerians consider Abacha a villain. He
presided over a period in Nigerian history, 1993 – 1998, regarded
as the “years that the locust ate”. When he died, there was
‘dancing in the streets”. The people jubilated and said: “Never
Again”. When President Obasanjo says we are back to the Abacha era,
he is clearly saying that Nigerians are currently under a military
dictatorship. He notes quite instructively, that “criticism, choice
and being different” have become near-impossible under President
Buhari. These are very carefully chosen phrases.

They constitute the very essence of democracy and fundamental
human rights – to deny citizens the right to speak, the right to
choose, and the right to be different is an assault on everything
that makes us human or a nation. Why for example should an Igbo
person not be good enough for the position of Inspector General of
Police or any other security chief position? Why must everyone who
criticizes the government consistently suddenly have a problem? Why
should the membership of the ruling party become a form of life
insurance? Obasanjo makes a strong case for democratic principles,
and the urgent need to protect those principles from being violated
by those who are committed to self and selfish interests.

Obasanjo is so impressively quotable, virtually every line from
his pen drips with venom and journalistic topicality, his words
sound like stones, hitting their targets with devastating force,
drawing “blood” and pain. He does the job of the opposition in this
January 2019 piece, barely 28 days to Nigeria’s general election,
better than the opposition itself. Obasanjo may not always be
right, and he has had cause to revise his assessment of people and
circumstances when confronted with a different set of facts and
variables, but his timing is always carefully chosen, his courage
to speak up is unmistakable, and he is probably the only Nigerian
statesman alive today who speaks, whenever he does on public
issues, with a startling combination of poignancy, histrionics and
a ricocheting effect. For this reason, he manages to capture the
attention and imagination of both local and international
audiences.

His blistering, bleaching, blinding attack on President Buhari
is the last thing a sitting President seeking a second term in
office, wants or needs at this time. Obasanjo has just told the
whole world that Buhari is planning an “electoral coup” against the
people of Nigeria: their right to choose, their right to differ,
their right to be different. In addition, he says: “It is clear
from all indications that Buhari is putting into practice the
lessons he learned from Abacha. Buhari has intimidated and harassed
the private sector, attacked the National Assembly and now
unconstitutionally and recklessly attacked and intimidated the
judiciary to cow them to submission.” So, who is left? Perhaps, the
media, wrongly omitted by President Obasanjo.

Whatever happens, Obasanjo has achieved his objectives. One, he
has managed to put down the Buhari administration. The last time he
did that to a sitting President, the opposition quickly rushed to
him and made him the arrow-head of the “anybody-but-Goodluck
Jonathan” coalition. Their conspiracy succeeded and Jonathan lost
the Presidency. The myth that Obasanjo can make and unmake any
Nigerian President became part of the national folklore, and it
continues to flourish. The flip side of that however, is that if
Obasanjo fails this time around and Buhari for any reason
whatsoever wins the 2019 Presidency, and the myth thus evaporates,
he, Obasanjo and others who are staking everything on Buhari
leaving Aso Rock, may be the ones who may have to leave town. This
is what their characterization of the Buhari administration tells
us.

Two, whatever happens, Obasanjo and others who share his views
have already raised very serious legitimacy questions about
President Buhari and his party. Less than a month to Nigeria’s 2019
Presidential election, they are already hacking down any claims to
legitimacy in the event of an APC victory. The APC can claim all
the votes, but the election will be dismissed as fraudulent. Ahead
of the elections, the APC has been set up for a post-election
legitimacy crisis, the implications of which no one can fully
imagine. But if the APC loses, that may well not be an issue. The
result will be praised as a true reflection of the people’s wish.
You may not like Obasanjo, but he is not just another voter with a
PVC, the way many of his critics respond to him simplistically. He
has a voice, a voice that resonates across continents. He has
international credibility, the kind of credibility that transcends
local bickering. The relationship between him and President Buhari
has been a stuff of classical romanticism. With his latest
commentary, that has ended in a bitter, feuding divorce.

Three, his statement is couched in the language of
statesmanship. He is raising “concerns” and calling for “action.”
It is not a crime under any jurisprudence for a former Head of
State and a former President who is also a global eminent person to
raise such concerns about his country. The world will listen. And
Obasanjo knows.

However, the standard response from government spokespersons is
to dismiss every piece of criticism as sour grapes and to impugn
the integrity of the critic. This is a default position in the
government-public communication process. It is so, I must explain,
because what is called criticism in Nigeria can be sometimes
biased, uninformed, partisan, sponsored or downright malicious.
This in itself is a reflection of the level of our development. In
Third World politics, the stomach rules the head, emotions suppress
reason, idiots become kings, imbeciles pose as wise men. In
practical politics, every political leader believes his own vision
of reality. In his mind, he wants to do his best for his people. He
wants them to love him. From the little that I have seen, there is
no political leader who wants to be disliked. Power is like an
injection: people react to it differently.

It is something about the DNA. It is also something about the
level of exposure, belief-system, competence, knowledge, strength
of character and the quality of the environment in which the leader
finds himself. Nonetheless, when someone comes along and sticks a
pin into that balloon, and bursts the bubble, those who protect the
leader, and the leader himself are bound to fight back, oftentimes
viciously. To that extent I can understand the viciousness with
which President Buhari’s handlers have gone after President
Obasanjo in the last 72 hours. I have been through that route
before. When President Obasanjo attacked President Goodluck
Jonathan under similar circumstances a few years ago, it was my
duty to put out a quick rebuttal. I dismissed the attack on
President Jonathan as “mischievous and reckless”. The President
himself later took on the battle and responded to every point
raised by President Obasanjo in what became a famous epistolary war
in Nigerian politics. That war produced at least three books!

Both Presidents have since reconciled, and have been visiting
each other, but there are persons in Abeokuta who have not forgiven
me till today for responding to Baba because as far as they are
concerned, it was wrong of me to support a man they regard as a
“kobo-kobo” against a man they consider an icon. The Jonathan
administration’s crisis with President Obasanjo had its long-term
effect, but when the fire burned, it was Mrs. Patience Jonathan who
stepped in to stop further responses from our end. The only witness
to that story is Senator Andy Uba. I will tell that story some
other day.

Despite that experience, I must confess that I am shocked beyond
words by the official responses to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s
January 2019 state of the nation statement. The counter-attack is
pointless, for it is exactly the kind of tonic Obasanjo needs. It
will be difficult to convince anybody locally or internationally
that Obasanjo is uninformed or that he has some ulterior motives,
or that he is sponsored. The man has earned a global reputation
that grants him the privilege to pronounce on world matters with
the credibility of an oracle. The totality of his public career has
brought him to that place of security, and that is why his almost
life-long spat with his arch-rival, Professor Wole Soyinka has not
had any effect on either of the two well-placed gladiators’
reputation. INEC promised to study Obasanjo’s submissions and has
offered a polite, reassuring re-affirmation of its resolve to be
independent and run a free and fair election. In comparison, the
Presidency has embarked on a name-calling offensive as various
officials and party chieftains raise questions about Obasanjo’s
moral integrity – his record as military Head of State, and later
as President – the usual things – Third Term, Odi massacre, and
anything else that can be thrown into the net. They forget that
Obasanjo is not running for President. By calling him names, they
merely reinforce his claims and the more they abuse him, the more
they give further credence to his declaration that the Buhari
administration does not tolerate “criticism, choice and being
different.” Obasanjo set a trap for them. They have walked into it,
so unwisely.

In a strange twist, Garba Shehu, the alternate Presidential
spokesman, in a written response even suggests that President
Obasanjo is sick, and he should “please get well soon”. He refers
to him as a “coward” and a “90-year old liar.” Garba Shehu was a
Presidential Assistant during the Obasanjo years (1999- 2007).
Obasanjo was his boss and benefactor even if he worked directly
with Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Now, the same Garba Shehu says
Obasanjo is sick! Does he have a medical report to confirm that?
Who really should get well soon? Garba Shehu’s current boss or
Obasanjo?