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2 Obasanjo Days Left!

May 26, 2007

The Guardian

Dear Compatriot: 

I wonder what you have.  I have a hangover, although I did not drink anything.   

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Actually, that is not completely correct.  I did drink.  I drank a lot of promises and pledges.  For eight years, I was on a steady diet of promises: some warm, some chilled, and others of indeterminate consistency.  Yes, it is enough to make a man have a permanent hangover.  


Yes, I did drink.  I drank dreams of a new day.  “Business as usual” was out, I was promised.  So were smoke and mirrors.  And official lying.  And mediocrity.  And bad governance.  Merit was in, and nepotism out.  Serving Nigeria was in.  I drank. 

 

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On May 29, 1999, at his inauguration, President Olusegun Obasanjo launched the season of promises with these, among other words: “You have been asked many times in the past to make sacrifices and to be patient. I am also going to ask you to make sacrifices, and to exercise patience. The difference will be that in the past sacrifices were made and patience exercised with little or no results. This time, however, the results of your sacrifice and patience will be clear and manifest for all to see. With God as our guide, and with 120 million Nigerians working with me, with commitment, sustained effort, and determination, we shall not fail. On my part, I will give the forthright, purposeful, committed, honest and transparent leadership that the situation demands.

 

“I am determined with your full cooperation, to make significant changes within a year of my administration. Together we shall take steps to halt the decline in the human development indices as they apply to Nigeria. All the impacts of bad governance on our people that are immediately removable will be removed, while working for medium and long term solutions.”

In 2003, following another awfully-rigged election, President Obasanjo was back in front of the microphone.  Again, among other things, he said:

 

“I have repeatedly called for moral rectitude,” he said at his inauguration, “and I will continue to repeat the message. I simply refuse to accept the cynical view that Nigerians prefer chaos to order. I cannot endorse the view that Nigerians are innately corrupt. I cannot believe that Nigerians would, in preference for a decent and civilized society, opt for one in which law and order is disregarded, and regulations are circumvented as the norm. I am a firm believer in the good nature of the Nigerian, and I will continue to appeal to that good nature. My unshaken and unshakeable faith, belief in and commitment to Nigeria is anchored in my equally strong belief in the intrinsic good nature of humans, and that, given the right environment and impetus, man can change for the better. 
 
”We all have a stake in Enterprise Nigeria and each of us stands a better chance in getting optimum dividends if, instead of asking "What's in it for me", we ask "what's in it for Nigeria", to determine our choice of action when our sense of duty and service is called upon. Among other things, this is the only way to ensure replenishment of that proverbial national cake, which we all love so much to partake of. This is the ultimate solution for combating such negative social tendencies as corruptibility, ethnicity, lack of patriotism, lawlessness, inefficiency, diminished sense of justice, and lack of dignity and mutual respect for fellow citizens.”

There are far too many preachments to quote, but it is eight long years since we began to hear them, and two days before we will never again have to give him the microphone.  At best, there is disquiet in the land.  Nobody is celebrating his exit.  We know when we have been robbed. 

It is not the failure of Obasanjo that is the issue, but his hypocrisy and arrogance.  The same man who asked that we place "what's in it for Nigeria" in place of "What's in it for me" routinely put himself above and before Nigeria.  For the 2003 election, he completely disregarded every existing or reasonable campaign finance regulation. 

He had Corporate Nigeria, led by Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke, illegally raise funds from the nation’s richest men and women for him.  Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke would be rewarded with the chairmanship of the giant Transcorp when it was set up.  And the same President that preached “Nigeria first,” saw no contradiction in privately buying millions of shares in the corporation for himself.  Little wonder again, that Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke would be the first to defend him.  A similar plan was used to raise funds for Obasanjo’s so-called Presidential Library.  A good idea ruined by the desire of the President for personal acclaim and profit.

Rather than focus on Nigeria’s education problems, Obasanjo has routinely competed with it for personal profit.  His privately-owned schools compete with Nigeria’s.  He saw nothing wrong with presiding over a Federal Executive Council meeting approving his own project. 

Rather than focus on feeding Nigerians, Obasanjo focused on his Otta Farms, which was worth nothing before he assumed the presidency.  Yet his office had the temerity two years ago to boast that the Farms were making N30 million per month.  It is for that same farm, by the way, that one Andy Uba, a presidential aide, used a presidential jet to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars into the United States.  He was indicted for it in the United States, but not before he had spent some of the funds buying equipment for the President’s farm.  And the President must have been quite grateful, because he single-handedly made Uba the governor of Anambra State. 

Speaking of travel, everyone now knows how the President loves expensive executive jets and helicopters.  By his own admission, halfway through these eight years, he had been around the world twice.  Meanwhile, civil aviation in Nigeria is a disgrace, and our road network a rumour.  

As Obasanjo lives office, pompously trying to persuade the world he must be listed among the gods, Nigerians are still hounded by armed robbers at home and on the road.  The human security we were promised is available only to the President and his friends.  It remains to be seen whether he will demonstrate the success of his tenure, and his popularity, by walking the streets of Abuja or Otta next Tuesday, or take the easy way out, and hide away from the hope and happiness he says he has brought us. 

We were promised transparency.  To be fair, Obasanjo did make the aroma of transparency available.  He launched a war on corruption, but he did not fight it.  He published state revenues, making it possible for Nigerians, for the first time, to see what their states are receiving from the federation account.   

But the same President did not extend transparency to himself, or to the implementation of federal programmes or budgets.  He has not permitted the monitoring of his economic reforms, perhaps because it is obvious that they fail miserably.  He now mentions his economic reforms in the most general of terms, as compared to what he did in 2004 when he was spreading wads of speeches about them.  Under his watch, Nigeria slid to the bottom 20 of the United Nations Development Index, out of 177 nations.   

But Obasanjo’s greatest failure is that he did nothing to change the way the Nigerian thinks about Nigeria, and the way the world thinks about us. 

The Nigerian, including Obasanjo himself, still thinks of Nigeria as his to exploit.  That is the foundation of our corruption and greed.  Obasanjo did not deploy his tenure to empower the Nigerian or to make him accept the rule of law.  He did not teach that we can do very well simply by being good, hardworking citizens.  On the contrary, he used his authority as a machete to clear the way for himself, not to create a path for those who came after him.  He spent far too little time discouraging the thieves and hoodlums—some of them being his celebrated friends—and too much time combating his private enemies.  He feared the responsibility of example, and could not rise up to it.  He has learned, one hopes, that it takes example and sacrifice, not preachment, to be a statesman. 

Internationally, the world thinks worse of us as a people today than it did 20 years ago.  With our vast revenues, they cannot understand why we cannot give our people even drinking water and basic infrastructure.  And as Obasanjo failed to give our 419 face the attention it deserves, every Nigerian is now guilty abroad, until proven innocent.   

That is why, although Obasanjo leaves office as a much richer man, he is also a much less respected one, and his performance and character will be questioned and investigated.  He leaves office as an unprincipled, double-sided, malevolent and arrogant old man.   In fact, he did great damage to the presidency, which he reduced, in the end, to the levels of juju and witchcraft accusations.   

Yes, I not only have a hangover this Sunday, I am also constipated. I have been force-fed too much idiocy. But it is only Sunday.   

That means I only have one long day left.  I do not know what the future holds; hopefully, it is not the past. 

 

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