Last week, in its “Headlines News” segment of the programme, AIT splashed across its screen: “Obasanjo To Control Aso Rock From His Farm”. The headline was enough to ruin my day and send me into depression. As I walked into the freezing January cold, I could think of nothing but Obasanjo’s fierce, fearless and forthright candour. Yes, to many Nigerians, a statement like this might be associated with a pompous and pretentious twaddler that could only come from Owu. When you live with chicken all your old age, you then begin to develop chicken mentality.
But Obasanjo is not a mere chicken. He is a cock. And cocks are known to be cocky and crow to announce their presence, prestige or power. Chief Matthew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo embodies presence, prestige and power. With sheer messianic radiance, he governed Nigeria twice. In military khaki and out of khaki. The mandarin elevation we accord our past leaders is still working in Obasanjo. His poppycock desire to rule Nigeria from his animal farm is an excellent example of his political bravura.
Obasanjo is a divisive mortal in the luckless universe of Nigeria. His name can heat up a discourse. His name can provoke either affection or repulsion. His name can provoke the image of an emperor, oppressor, dictator, saviour, redeemer or plain megalomania. To the people of Odi, Rivers State, he is a footloose warlord. Odi sons and daughters are still in bubble of expectation that someday Obasanjo will answer to his genocide charge. To Nsoro, the Akwa Ibomite I met in Ikorodu, Lagos State in one of my travel sorties to Nigeria, Obasanjo is a messiah that we fail woefully to understand. To Gbenga, his son, he is a shameless philanderer. How can a dad go to the futon with his son’s wife? And yet that man still commands our respect? And yet, that man still has access to the corridors of power in Nigeria. His shame, excesses, moral decay, political irreverence, greed, controlling spirit and provoking wit have all come to represent the symbol of a modern Nigerian who has access to power and wealth.
Malam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai’s book, The Accidental Public Servant, is a luxuriant profusion of political bombasts and inanities commonly associated with Nigerian politicians. el-Rufai stated this of Obasanjo: “Well, nothing will change, you know. I will be in Ota but we will be running things. Everything will remain the same, you know. You will remain in the government, the economic team will remain. Nothing will change. Only I will move to Ota and Yar’Adua will be here but we will be running things.”
In his recently published memoir, Rufai, an Obasanjo confidant and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, said: “Obasanjo had singlehandedly ensured that the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded him in 2007. He nevertheless planned to administer the country from his Ota Farm. He described the 2007-2011 period as a transition because all his pointsmen, including the “economic team” would remain in office.” Then in the garb of a stentorian orating on governance, el-Rufai also queries the leadership recruitment processes, noting that it is at the root of the nation’s problems, as it sacrifices merit. He said that the choice of the late Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as president and vice-president by Obasanjo was “the final nail in the coffin of any meritocracy or track record of governance in Nigeria.”
I reserve a small applause for Rufai for telling the nation, or reporting Obasanjo to us all. Except one is an ignoramus, we all know that public posts or positions in Nigeria is done through automatism and not merit. Avuncular Rufai has morphed into a libertarian grammarian. He has recently been pointing out the connections between official bombasts and the suffering of Nigerians in his many colourful but hard-hitting profusions against the high and mighty. Rufai is an eloquent voice striving to promote the virtues of merit, excellence and hard work. And that is astonishingly epiphanic for a man who once rode the crest of power with all its barmy excesses, especially in Nigeria.
Back to Obasanjo’s honest effusion. In our torn and conflated politics, an illuminati from Ota farm may be something we silently desire. Of course, it may sound like a poppywash. Except you believe in galoshes, President Goodluck Jonathan’s governance has been lacklustre. There is yet no spark of genius in areas of fighting corruption, job creation, security, Boko Haram’s terrorism and his own medieval profligacy in a nation where majority of Nigerians live on $1 or equivalent of N150.00 per day. Jonathan needs a tried, tested and steady hand to guide him. He may need Obasanjo’s military bravura on policy formulation. He may need his fearlessness to unshackle his governance from powerful interest groups who have been stalling his transformational agenda.
If Obasanjo were to be a car, the guy is a full speck Mercedes Benz – speed, agility, handling, efficiency, prestige, robustness and durability. The joy or sadness of it all is that Obasanjo is aware of his proficiency. His fully loaded stature! He is aware of his own omnipotence. He is aware of the symptomatic self-adulation Nigeria bestows not only on its past leaders but also on even public looters. Lastly, Obasanjo is aware of his own totalitarian irrationalism. Whether this desire to rule Nigeria among his chickens and pigs is a lofty or colonial hallucination, we have to concede that Obasanjo’s ghost still walks the corridors of Aso Rock as I write.
Sadly, the pervasive effect of our political immaturity and blindness have perpetually delivered this nation into the hands of occult grand masters, polygamists, philanderers, perverts, schemers, criminals, destabilisers, dictators, looters and self-exalting statesmen, of which Obasanjo is leader of the pack. If Matthew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo were to be a Tony Blair, he would have been sunk far beyond the depth of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean. His air of certitude would have been deflated. But he is a Nigerian where we make demi-gods of the privileged, the powerful and the stupid.
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