When Matthew Aremu Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo says that Nigeria is going
to explode, you better believe him. If any of you reading this does not
take that prediction seriously, I do, and here is why.
When Matthew Aremu Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo says that Nigeria is
going to explode, you better believe him. If any of you reading this
does not take that prediction seriously, I do, and here is why. I know
Obasanjo arguably better than most of you reading this.
Obasanjo has remained an enigma for all of the years I have been
knowing him. I came to know Obasanjo serving in the Corps of Engineers
and I fully understood how he came to replace Benjamin Adekunle the
black scorpion as the Commanding Officer of the Third Marine Commando
who eventually ended the Biafran War for Nigeria. I was privileged to
read classified materials in my capacity as Assistant Secretary and I
took mental note of all important documents that passed thru my desk as a
historian and a very inquisitive mind. I was 26 at the time and my mind
was very sharp.
There is no greater wizard and tactician than Obasanjo even though
his look and persona would make you think of him as a light weight. He
was a brilliant man and he still is. If Obasanjo opens his mouth to say
something, you better pay attention because that man is something else.
His stomach is as deep as the well, and Nigeria cannot and must not
ignore him as long as the man lives. He knows a lot more about Nigeria
than the rest of us.
That is just the plain truth and information is power and a big
tool for decision-making. He is also a prolific writer who knows what he
wants and how to get it. He has been everything he has wanted to be in
Nigeria because he has seen it all. He speaks Hausa with the dexterity
of a Dan Maraya. He has contacts everywhere in Nigeria and abroad, and
he can use it if he needs to.
He was at one point in his career the only southerner the whole of
the powerful North could trust. He became the longest serving President
of Nigeria for that reason and he wanted Yar Adua’s regime to be his
third term and Jonathan’s regime to be his 4th and could have achieved
both on a platter of gold but for the sudden death of Yar Adua and
circumstances totally beyond his control.
Obasanjo was on his way to become the successor to Butros Butros
Ghali of Egypt as the Secretary General of the United Nations. He lost
the chance to Kofi Annan by a whisker. I was a local staff at the
Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the United Nations serving under a good
friend of mine, late General Joseph Garba and I knew how the Maradona
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida managed to play him out of that job
without appearing so to do.
Obasanjo lost to Kofi Annan of Ghana in large part because America
trusted Kofi Annan more than they did Obasanjo who was a military
dictator before seeking that office. Kofi Annan was a product of MIT in
Boston. Today Obasanjo is Chairman of the Committee of former Heads of
State of the whole world with many more contacts than any former or
current President could ever muster.
No Nigerian executive Head of State has ever achieved such lofty
height. It takes a lot of guts to be what Obasanjo has been to Nigeria
in a country of 180 million people.
Obasanjo has done 3 things that no other Nigerian President has
ever done. He introduced the Land Use Decree to the South thru
subterfuge and he got away with it. He quietly diversified the
concentration of military bases in the North and he took them to all
other parts of Nigeria without pulling punches. By so doing, he has made
it literally impossible for military coups to ever succeed again in
Nigeria. That was a cardinal achievement in my opinion.
He built a Presidential Library, the first on the African
continent, and second only to the American presidential Libraries. Love
him or hate him, Obasanjo has gone down in history as the greatest
political leader of his era in Nigeria, if you are judging him by his
milestone achievement as a leader.
Buhari and his Government would be insane to ignore Obasanjo. The
prediction Obasanjo has just made is a fallout from the recent
announcement by Buhari that his quest to stop Corruption in Nigeria is
going to go beyond the Jonathan Administration and spill over to Yar
Adua, to Abdulsalam Abubakar to Abacha, to Ibrahim Babangida and
predictably to Obasanjo himself.
If Buhari does that, Obasanjo’s prediction is sure to come true. I
would have to agree with Obasanjo on that knowing what I know. To probe
all previous Administrations in Nigeria is a desirable goal to
contemplate but one mission impossible to accomplish or actualize. If
Buhari tries it, he can begin to sing his “Nunc Dimitis” because he
would not survive the fallout from it for reasons which I will briefly
elaborate upon with the remaining segment of this write-up.
I have long cautioned Buhari for playing “Ijapatiroko Oko
Ayanrinbo” in Yoruba mythology. “Ijapa” the tortoise once upon a time
went round the whole world looking for the key to wisdom. He gathered
all the wisdom everywhere he could find them, and he locked them up in a
calabash and he kept the key to himself because he wanted to be the
wisest man in the world if not the only wise man.
I see Buhari as the “Ijapa” who thought he was the only wise man
and the only man who could solve all the problems of Nigeria in one fell
swoop. It is a crazy idea for a 73 year old man in a mid-life crisis to
even contemplate. He could only do but so much, because Nigeria is so
deep in corruption that Buhari would have to jail more than a million
Nigerians to get anywhere close to what he wants to do.
If his goal is to go beyond the Jonathan Administration. The
Nigerian Judiciary is going to mess him up and slow him down as it is
already doing. He is going to make so many enemies along the way that he
would end up becoming his own worst enemy. It is then that he would
realize that he has been riding on the back of a tiger all along, and
that he could predictably end up in the belly of the tiger when
disembarks.
If he had learned any lesson at all from the 1985 Coup that sent
him into the Turkey farm, he would not take the Obasanjo’s prediction
lightly at all.
I know that many would say that Obasanjo is trying to save his own
neck by making the prediction. That may well be so, but I strongly
believe he has a bona fide intention in offering that advice ahead of
time so Buhari can think again and not start a job he cannot finish.
The man must always remember he has only 4 years to prove his
mettle and that he has so many enemies who will be kicking and screaming
just to distract him and to make him fail. I am able to give him this
word of advice because I want him to succeed.
If Buhari thinks that everybody who smiles at him is his friend, he
still has a long way to go and would never reach his destination even
if he works 24 hours a day. There is a chance he would suffer a burnout
in a short time and leave the country in a far worse shape than he met
it. That is what Obasanjo is talking about and that is what I am talking
about.
I rest my case.
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