This Enigma Called Obasanjo

Of all the governments that have ruled Nigeria, civilian or military, none compares with the one led by Olusegun Obasanjo in terms of the number of criminals in it. So, when the same Obasanjo stated, penultimate week, that armed robbers and rogues were in the state and federal legislatures, many wondered who was talking. The former president went on to demolish the judiciary, saying that “justice is now for the highest bidder”. He cleverly said nothing about the executive branch of government that has taken the greatest knocks for the monumental corruption afflicting the country.

Many of the accused lawmakers have ignored Obasanjo while a few have paid him back in his own coins. Without prejudice to the observations already made by the legislators, however, we can claim to understand the enigma called Obasanjo better: He has been able to call the lawmakers thieves and rogues because his daughter whom he once imposed on the electorate has been kicked out of the Senate. As to the judiciary, he has never hidden his dislike for law and order. The courts’ reversal of mandates stolen by his party, especially in his southwest zone, must have made him sick.

Obasanjo has the audacity to call someone else a thief  because he himself is an uncommon thief. He shared bribes to members of the National Assembly who, ultimately, refused to endorse his third term ambition. He abused his office by buying up public assets. Under Obasanjo, Nigeria never witnessed a true election: votes were freely stolen, ballot boxes were snatched and stuffed, election results were written well ahead of voting day. Every naira that he spends now is the proceed of a crime he committed while in office.

Nevertheless, Obasanjo’s statement contains a ring of truth. Had the nation’s justice system been better and the lawmakers more honest, Obasanjo would have since gone back to jail. But thieves are always allowed to roam freely in Nigeria. That’s why he is taking advantage of the undeserved freedom to attack the system itself.

It will be nice to see the lawmakers take Obasanjo to task, not because of what he said recently but in a bid to recover the funds he looted. He once went to jail because he aided and abetted a coup d’etat against Gen. Sani Abacha’s regime. After spending three years in jail, he was broke and had to be rehabilitated by those who unleashed him on the nation once more. Throughout his eight-year reign, the ex-convict was preoccupied with looting public funds as well as making trouble with, and taking revenge on, perceived enemies. Indeed, the seeds of all the problems afflicting Nigeria today were  sown by Obasanjo. His recent statement should serve as a wake-up call to both the legislature and the judiciary.

By LEADERSHIP EDITORIAL