Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent letter to both chambers of the National Assembly has continued to generate reactions from many quarters both within and outside the circles of federal legislature. While some have described the letter and its content as unbecoming of a man of Obasanjo’s pedigree, others are quick to dismiss the letter petulant and perfidious at a time the former president is supposedly ripe for veneration just like what the Madiba, Nelson Mandela of South Africa enjoyed during his life time and which has not been diminished by his demise.
Among the hue of opposition, also comes those who believe that Obasanjo cannot be denied a say in matters of “urgent national importance” – to speak in the parlance of lawmakers. They not only support him, but venture further to validate his claims of corruption and financial impropriety against members of the legislature, howbeit through sweeping generalisation – without supplying concrete evidence that could lead to prosecution of those found to have abused their offices in the manner they want everybody to believe. Many have also castigated the ex-general for his stream of letters pointedly saying that the recent one said nothing that is not already in the public space.
He has since been the object of so many verbal missiles, both positive and negative. In his reaction, Chairman Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Dino Melaye, said: “The letter, I can see, is a misplacement of anger. Our leader is mistaking the 8th National Assembly as the same Senate that defrauded him in 2007; those who collected his money and refused to implement the 3rd term agenda.
On his part, the spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas, dismissed Obasanjo’s letter as one meant for the lawmakers who served while he was the president between 1999 to 2007. However, Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki simply told Obasanjo that his views were ‘appreciated’ and that he will personally reply his missive.
Many also believe that Obasanjo only took the recent pot shot at the National Assembly just to identify with the ongoing fight against corruption being driven by President Muhammadu Buhari. He, they say, like an Ostrich, has chosen to bury his head in Puritan sands while his body and the cleanness or otherwise of his hands remain visible even to the blind. They say he is right to have pointed at the speck in the eyes of the lawmakers but scandalously neglected to see the log in his own very eyes. According to them, Obasanjo is everything but an anti-corruption czar. They accuse him of not using his preeminent position as a former head of state, who had seen it all, to lay a solid foundation for national development when he assumed office as a democratic President in 1999. They further contend that, Obasanjo created the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) but that both institutions achieved little as regards their core mandates when Obasanjo was in the saddle. The anti-graft bodies initiated by Obasanjo at best, caught and prosecuted only the small thieves and left the big fish to swim unencumbered in the ocean of corruption. During his tenure they say, political dissent equalled corruption.
So those who were hounded by the anti-corruption goons of his era were those he had bones to grind with. Besides, they say that instead of focussing on how to raise the economic and political temperature of the country, he engaged in petty rivalries and war of attrition with members of the opposition from the South West who had rejected him in 1999. They still remember, how he decimated the states controlled by the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) through cunning and strong arm tactics.
Again, they recall the long drawn battle between Obasanjo and his former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Then came the Third Term debacle. They also say that when asked to investigate and prosecute a former military president, he demurred, saying he has not seen anything incriminating against him. When the 6th National Assembly invited him to appear before its ad hoc committee that probed the N16 billion power fund, he demurred and refused to attend.
I don’t think those who would rather want Obasanjo to keep still are fair. Where then is the fundamental liberty to speak. He is a respected elder statesman even though some of his actions and inactions are often incongruous to his revered status. Nobody can stop Obasanjo from talking. Therefore, whether what he says is credible is a different kettle of fish. Even though many tend to take the highway of absolutism by saying: “take the message and leave the messenger,” this column is of the humble view that there are times one should reject a message because of the demeanour and antecedent of its bearer. I think the messenger is crucial to the credibility of any message because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak. Exception being only those messages that are divinely dictated as in the case of prophets replete in our various religions. I don’t think it is hard to comprehend why a cassava tree cannot bring forth apples because even the scriptures say they will bear fruit according to their kind. After all, it is trite in law that “those that come to equity must come with clean hands.”
Obasanjo cannot be ignored because he has cleverly chosen to ride on the crest of the ongoing anti-corruption crusade to launch his attack. Those speaking out against him of course risk losing their reputation before the undiscerning public who holds that any blow thrown at corruption is well aimed notwithstanding who is doing the throwing.
Besides, our present socio-economic circumstance has largely been blamed on corruption. Unfortunately, the word “corruption” has lost its potency to appropriately capture the ravages of the disease that has so plagued our country with attendant monumental consequences. Buhari is presently engaged in a slugfest to kill corruption. For most Nigerians, the mention of corruption has become a battle cry against poverty, joblessness social dislocation and underdevelopment. So, Obasanjo’s bile against the National Assembly happens to jell with the heartbeat of the generality of the people, most especially the down trodden, who believe rightly or wrongly that the National Assembly has not been transparent enough or lived up to its billing in checkmating the excesses of the executive as provided for in the Constitution. This column abhors corruption.
I have elected to continue to speak out against corruption no matter whose ego is bruised. Corruption almost snuffed life out of our nation and whatever we can do to bruise its head we shall not fail to do. For this war to succeed, I strongly hold that all pretenders must be exposed so that they don’t claim victory for a battle they never fought.
This column is of the view that Obasanjo writes out of catharsis possibly to free himself from psychological ennui after years of failure to live up to his billing. He writes to beguile and intimidate. To conquer and to imprison. Obasanjo believes, that he is endowed with the Wisdom of Solomon. Every leader, whether young or old, he fathoms, must drink from his cup of self-adulation or be damned. He dresses his enemies with vitriol, weaken them with bad names in preparation to destroy them. He claims a moral high ground always, yet his life is full of absurdities he unabashedly adorns like freshly sewn garments.
To his daughter, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo Bello, Obasanjo is never totally altruistic. She had described him as a man who preaches what he does not practice. In sum, let Buhari be wary of the ex-general because we don’t know who he is really after this time.
LEADERSHIP
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