By Mobolaji Sanusi
“Inordinate ambition and the belly are the two worst counselors.”
— Anonymous
The Olusegun Obasanjo phenomenon will no doubt occupy a conspicuous chapter anytime and anywhere the history of this colonially-designated country called Nigeria is to be chronicled. He served as both military and civilian ruler of this great country.
His legendary public service actions and inactions, mischiefs, and his holier-than-thou assessment of himself, makes him a sui generis rabble-rouser in the annals of public service of the land.
While in power, Obasanjo believed he knew it all even though politically discerning millions of his countrymen believed his opinion of himself was exaggerated. Outside power, he still believes those steering the ship of state are incompetent, corrupt, and confused. This, again, if true, especially since the advent of this 1999 democratic dispensation, is traceable to Obasanjo’s incorrigible pettiness, hubris, and avaricious disposition to governance, being the pioneer president of Nigeria’s ongoing democratic experiment.
Deludingly, except it’s Obasanjo’s verdict, other verdicts are inapposite. No wonder he tries at every given opportunity to deflect questions on his open secret Third Term Agenda. The numerous evidential proofs of hundreds of millions of naira deployed by point-men in the former president’s government to bribe then National Assembly members remain a stain on Obasanjo’s less than real credibility. Actually, some former National Assembly members, out of disdain for Obasanjo’s lies, routinely admitted to having collected the slush funds meant to induce them. As much as Obasanjo tries to make his public denials count, his conscience, being his tormentor-in-chief, creates nightmarish tension in him.
If not, how else can one describe Obasanjo’s recent admonition to African leaders against pursuits of tenure elongation in their countries. Sadly so, he remains, undeniably, the renowned architect of unsuccessful tenure elongation in the continent.
Yours sincerely read with disgust what Obasanjo reportedly said at a Democracy Dialogue recently organized by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana. He was quoted to have brazenly denied the open secret truth that he craved tenure elongation that is otherwise known as Third Term Agenda in the twilight of his second term as president of Nigeria.
His dubious refutation: “I’m not a fool. If I wanted a third term, I would know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian, dead or alive that would say I called him and told him I wanted a third term.” He also reportedly said that debt relief that he commendably secured for the country was more important to him than any Third Term Agenda even when his close buddies as president and the political party that brought him to power, PDP, were actively involved in the pursuit of the infamous idea.
Obasanjo’s challenge to any “living or dead Nigerian,” exposes his nightmarish mindset since he knows that most people in the know of that sordid agenda hardly take him serious whenever he utters his gibberish about that catastrophic idea.
Obasanjo was at his hypocritical best when he reportedly observed at the occasion that any belief in “one’s indispensability” is a “sin against God.” The truth that those at the dialogue, including our own revered Catholic Bishop, Mathew Hassan Kukah, forgot to remind him is that he actually played God and indeed wanted, and planned his ill-fated Third Term nonsense.
Isn’t it a mockery and a misnomer for organisers of such an important democratic dialogue to have extended an invitation to an Obasanjo who, as president, never masked his disdain for democratic tenets. Obasanjo superintended over a civilian reign that showed the greatest contempt for democratic doctrines during his two terms of eight years as president of this country.
Obasanjo had no regard for institutions of state, be it constitutional or traditional. The country witnessed the worst electoral abuses under Professor Maurice Iwu as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with Obasanjo’s presidentially discerned body language and consent. Even his successor in office, late President Umaru Yar’Adua publicly admitted that Obasanjo’s organized election that brought him to power was flawed.
The era of ballots stuffing, falsification and concoction of election figures, unleashing of electioneering/political rascality, political party imposition amongst other anti-democratic tendencies were prevalent and obviously taken to another level during Obasanjo’s years in power.
Obasanjo behaved as if without him, Nigeria would die but the country is still existing to his chagrin. He masterminded the removal of several senate-presidents, declared state of emergencies in states where their governors refused to toe his despotic paths: At the heights of Obasanjo’s high-handed reign, his political party, the People’s Democratic Party’s then national chairman, Ahmadu Alli, publicly declared that the PDP would rule Nigeria for the next sixty years.
But God intervened and just as Obasanjo’s Third Term Agenda was truncated in 2006 by the National Assembly, by year 2015, a conglomeration of national opposition parties coalesced to wrest power from the deludingly pompous PDP.
In my efforts to unravel the bottled anguish that General Obasanjo has been battling over his aborted Third Term Agenda that he tries at every opportune time to deny, l decided to consult Wikipedia. It is from there that a leading insight was given about the nightmare that the former military cum civilian ruler of Nigeria is facing. Wikipedia defines Nightmare as a dream “that is often connected to unresolved anxiety and trauma that our brain has not fully worked through…” Further scrutiny elsewhere revealed that nightmares as currently being suffered by Obasanjo over his failed Third Term bid might be a consequence of his “unmet psychological needs and/or frustration…..”
Jacky Casumbal, a clinician describes nightmares as “dreams that are often connected to unresolved anxiety and trauma that our brain has not fully worked through.” Justin Alcala’s descriptive phrase of “dissatisfied reality” aptly captures Obasanjo’s failed Third Term agenda and must have indeed been querying and tormenting his statesmanship status every day he wakes up from his sleep.
This is further simplified by Megan Chance in her ‘The Spiritualist’ when she said that persons like Obasanjo had been traumatized by nightmares because they “run from what they feel” and to avoid the madness that denial inflicts on them, she says the only way out of being imprisoned by their conscience is to “own up to their misgivings.” Obasanjo is, because of pride, not willing to own up to his misgivings on third term.
The only way out for Obasanjo’s unresolved feelings over his aborted Third Term agenda, is for him to avoid further nightmares over it. This can be achieved if he publicly confronts the difficult truths inherent in his deceitful denial of the agenda he secretly nurtured but aborted in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly in 2006.
Rather than do this, Obasanjo has shamelessly continued his puerile dismissive rhetoric each time questions regarding that dark episode of his leadership history are asked. During such periods, he becomes unnecessarily defensive, uttering patent lies that further diminish his supposed leadership worth in Nigeria, Africa, and global politics generally.
The duplicity in Obasanjo’s denial of his Third Term bid cannot stand the test of time, not even with the praiseworthy reintroduction of history as a subject in school curriculum in the country by the current administration. The Balogun of Owu in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital did everything to obliterate, especially recent and not too recent, political history of the country. It was his government that needlessly removed the teaching of history from the school curriculum. For selfish reasons!
His motive is to circumvent important historical documentation so that many Nigerians of forty years and below demography will never know his role in the demonization of late Aare MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12,1993 Presidential election. He didn’t want forgetful and historically bereft Nigerians to know that his military constituency used his presidential candidacy to pacify the aggrieved South-west Yoruba people who were greatly pained by the annulment of the June 12 presidential election and the eventual conspiratorial deleting of Abiola, their kinsman, from the face of the earth.
Furthermore, Obasanjo didn’t want Nigerians to know how he quelled the democratic wishes of Nigerians in various states of the federation where Professor Maurice Iwu’s INEC perpetrated an outlandish electoral process riddled with falsification of election figures, amongst others, under his watch.
Now that history as a subject of learning is back in schools, students will now be taught of how Obasanjo sidetracked democratic institutions and treated governors of his time as if they were his errand boys. Our students would be taught how Obasanjo destroyed internal democracy in his and other political parties through his high-handed picking of candidates for election: How he masterminded the removal, unilaterally, of any of the governors, during his tenure, that disobeyed his self-serving orders.
Obasanjo cared less about the opinions of others. He allowed electoral heist against notable candidates contesting for governorship and presidential positions in the country. He victimized Rasheed Ladoja, Ayo Fayose, Joshua Dariye, Diepreye Alamieyesiegha, James Ibori, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Akinrogun Segun Osoba who in 1999 were governors in Oyo, Ekiti, Plateau, Bayelsa, Delta, Lagos and Ogun states respectively.
Just because he did all these and nothing happened, he thought the next stage was for him to absolutely enslave Nigerians by toying with the notorious idea of staying put in power, through tenure elongation. Nigerians, through their determined federal legislators, headed by Senator Ken Nnamani, then senate-president, threw away his detrimental Third Term agenda, which, as it stands today, remains the nighmare that will continue to haunt Balogun Obasanjo.
•Sanusi, former LASAA MD/CEO is a managerial psychologist and current managing partner of AMS RELIABLE SOLICITORS.
