By Pius Mordi
TUESDAY AUGUST 2 2016-At the end of the latest of his now regular visits to Aso Rock to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former president, used the opportunity provided by the gathered national and international press to stock the fires of the lingering discord between the National Assembly and the Presidency. In calling the federal lawmakers thieves over the accusations and counter accusations of budget padding, Obasanjo, not unwittingly, gave the impression that that may have been part of the thread of his discussion with Buhari.
The frequency of his visit to Buhari and the manner he wades into trending issues make it difficult to understand Obasanjo’s motives. Is he seeking attention, trying to influence the direction of government, or up to something sinister? The former president’s declaration on the steps of Aso Rock, whatever may have been his intention, only served to distract attention from the unfolding drama. He nearly took the narrative away from the issue of great concern to Nigerians to his infamous bid for third term. Some of the lawmakers have duly responded to the accusation with Deputy Senate Leader, Bala ibn Na’Allah, promptly resurrecting the third term failed bid and the N50 million alleged bribe from Obasanjo he said he turned down.
Obasanjo’s regular theatrics is one of the challenges with political leadership in Nigeria where past leaders refuse to let go and carry on as private citizens. On handing over to then President Shehu Shagari on the advent of the second republic, Obasanjo had expected that his successor would turn his Otta farm into a citadel of sorts where his successor would seek counsel over every matter of state. Of course, Shagari did not and Obasanjo took exception to that. He still nursed the same expectation on handing over to President Umaru Yar’Adua and even during President Goodluck Jonathan’s time.
I am not sure what inspires Obasanjo in his quest to be the all-knowing counsellor of every occupant of Aso Rock. If he had watched ongoing developments in the United States of America as the struggle to replace President Barack Obama in November unravels, he may have been counselled himself. In his speech at the Democratic Convention, Obama spoke of his confidence that he is handing over the Democratic Party to Hillary Clinton as he prepares for life as a private citizen. Even though the Bush clan with two former presidents was not enamoured with the Donald Trump candidacy of the Republican Party, they only opted to make their stance known by keeping away from the Republican Covention where Trump was formally nominated.
When Obasanjo was being drafted to become the president in 1999, I recall that his initial response was he did not forget anything in the Presidency and wondered how many presidents would be made of him. As it turned out, he did forget something in Aso Rock so much that he actively sought albeit unsuccessfully an unconstitutional third term to retrieve it. With the frequency of his visits to the current tenant of the seat of power in Abuja, could he be seeing himself as the landlord who has to routinely check on and collect rent from his tenant?
Obasanjo deserves credit for the legacy of personal memoirs, My Watch I and II, he bequeated. Whatever may be the perceptions of his recent two-volume memoirs, the fact that he did write has set the stage for robust discussions. It is something his predecessors and politicians of his generation never did and have failed to do. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo laid the grund norm on leadership by clearly stating their political and ideological convictions in their seminal works. Their followers and successors have proved too intellectually lazy, ideologically empty and administratively inept to live up to the templates offered by these two icons.
Even though Buhari and Obasanjo are contempories and apparantly have a lot in common, the nation has gone beyond the latter’s era. After Obasanjo, there were Yar’Adua and Jonathan with whom he shared the same party platform. Yes, Obasanjo did not have much complimentary comments about them in his memoirs, but Nigeria’s narrative has gone beyond him.
Faced with genuine discussions on corruption, we do not need distractions from Obasanjo as Nigerians put the two arms of government under the klieglight on a monster everyone is unanimous on the need to defeat or at least curb – corruption.
Obasanjo set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the extent to which he deployed the agency in combating the scourge is well documented and well known to Nigerians. Constituency projects and the subject of budget padding did not come up under Buhari like the big bang. If Obasanjo accommodated it alongside the budget padding in his time under any guise, it will be as the case between the ousted chairman of the appropriation committee in the House of Representatives, Abdulmumini Jubrin and Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
Jubrin accused Dogara and some principal House officers of orchestrating the budget padding by making representations to him. But having sworn an oath to uphold the best interests of the country, Jubrin made his position untenable by not affirming that he disregarded such solicitations in his report on the budget to the House.
Having brought corruption to the front burners of public discuss, it is everybody’s hope that it will ultimately take a life of its own and be free of any colouration and manipulation. Buhari is still struggling to sell his anti-corruption war as a dispassionate and altruistic war. Obasanjo is hardly a candidate to aid Buhari in changing any pessimism. We have moved on from Obasnjo’s era. So should he.
Pius Mordi, a Nigerian journalist.
