Ex presidential aspirant,
Prof. Pat Utomi, said that Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo was
also responsible for some of his allegations against President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Sharing his point of view
on Facebook December 18 in a message titled “Obasanjo and the Burden of
History”, Utomi said that Obasanjo, like Jonathan, entertained gossips from
those around him. He also touched upon several other issues described by
Obasanjo in his autobiography “My Watch”.
Read full post below:
“As with “My Command” his
civil war memoirs, Army General Olusegun Obasanjo who served as Head of the
Nigerian state in uniform, and years later, in mufti (agbada), has managed to
get many hopping mad with his new memoirs reflecting on political life. He seems
determined that whether you love him or hate him, you could not ignore him.
Let us forget for a second
that he is an attention-junkie and that he is judgmental about others in a way
that bothers on the indecent, the question his new excursion into memoirs
writing raises for me is whether there are points in what he is saying we can
ignore only at our own peril.
This is important because
with the Obasanjo nature it is easy to get so taken by the messenger that the
message is forgotten. This course of action is made easier by Obasanjo’s
evident split personality which makes’ it easy to say of him, “look the kettle
is calling the pot black”.
Take corruption for
example. No one is in doubt that corruption was widespread when Obasanjo was
president and that there is ample evidence or perception of his use of corrupt
means to either secure the impeachment of an unfavoured Senate president or
seek a change in constitution to allow him a third term. But is Obasanjo wrong
to say corruption is on the increase?
Many businessmen I interact
with say corruption, described in the Hope and Chukulo book on corruption and
Development in Africa, as systemic in Nigeria; compared to widespread in Ghana
and, rare, in Botswana, has truly reached a point of shameless “legitimization’’
in these times. I sat once with a fairly depressed lawyer who described a sad
meeting he had just come out of with a minister and some American Businessmen.
The minister had promised
to write a simple letter which would have facilitated commitment to an
investment initiative. He dictated the letter in their presence. For weeks they
went to the minister’s office to pick up the letter but were unsuccessful. On
the day in question the lawyer returned to the minister. They were warmly
welcomed. The issue was raised and the minister after a while simply asked the
lawyer if he was not able to read the tea leaves. He needed his bribe. Lawyer
tells minister he cannot advice his clients to do that as they would be liable
to a jail term back in their home country for that. All attempts to sell the
upside for the country and even personally to the minister got strong push back
from the Minister who said such talk was the reason some of his predecessors
were languishing in poverty. He wanted his return upfront, not in nominating
partners down the value chain.
Bottom line is corruption
has had a more crippling effect on economic life today than a few years ago
when things were considered quite bad. Inspite of a climb in the transparency
index, where Nigeria is up two notches, the consensus is corruption is more
rampant now. That is what President Obasanjo was speaking up on and most would
agree on that.
Under Obasanjo, a high
powered team was empanelled by the Presidency to study and propose a structure
for the institutions of transparency and accountability in government. The team
included a Deputy Inspector General of Police, Heads of Transparency in
Nigeria, Convention on Business Integrity, past president of NACCIMA, Dr. Ngozi
Okeke, Prof Asisi Asebie of ASUU and even, a representative of Transparency
International from London Neville Linton I was privileged to chair that
committee managed by Ambassador Emeka Azikiwe then SA to the President. Little
was seen of the report after it went to General Obasanjo yet the truth is that
impunity did not harm transparency as much then, as it now seems to.
Another issue General
Obasanjo raised in his book in criticism of Jonathan was the attitude of the
incumbent, and their Party, The PDP, to criticism. He lashed out in his
reflections at a PDP and presidency that sponsors discredited people to smear
honest critics, saying a democracy is nothing without critics.
He is quite right in that
criticism. The amusing thing for me, as one who has experienced this reaction,
from both parties, is that Obasanjo here well describes both now and the time
of his watch with those lines.
I had the pleasure of being
part, indeed head, of the policy advisory team that worked with candidate
Obasanjo in 1998. As President he lapped up all kinds of gossips stemming from
my critical views on matters.
I had previously come face
to face with why it is easy to push back on Obasanjo without listening to him,
an irony because he has poor listening skills, like he never heard of Stephen R
Covey and seek first to understand then to be understood.
Remarkably when by October
1999 there was the view widely held that the Obasanjo government lacked policy
direction Gen. Obasanjo invited me to a dinner with his top team including his
Vice- President Atiku Abubakar, Finance Minister Adamu Ciroma, Chief Economic
Adviser Izoma Philip Asiodu and Secretary to the Government Ufot Ekaete. There
he advertised I had worked with him on policy and asked that Professors Dotun
Phillips, Ibrahim Ayagi and I join Chief Asiodu to produce an economic policy
blueprint that could be carried around like, in his words, “Gaddafi’s green
book”.
Having worked closely with
him as chair of policy advisory group that met daily with candidate Obasanjo I
had come to both respect and feel pity for a man who was obviously his own
worst enemy that I was careful just to make my quiet contribution and move on.
On more than one occasion
people like the late Waziri, Mohammed and Oby Ezekwesili asked about my
membership of AD and my closeness to then Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu
which seemed to upset General Obasanjo. I was never a member of AD and my
working relationship the Lagos Governor was a citizen duty. They all concluded
too many people were carrying gossips to him and he was getting sucked in, Even
if I was AD what business of Obasanjo’s would that be?
When the private sector
nominated me as lead person from the sector for national honour I asked them
not to bother because I knew how Obasanjo dropped Prof Ibrahim Gambari from the
National honours list on petty gossips before some pleaded with him the next
year. Was not surprised he did same with me which gave me a chance to tease Sir
Remi Omotosho, then Lagos Chamber of commerce Director-General who spent much
time trying to persuade me to sign off on the nomination as I argued that I was
uncomfortable about signing off on accepting an honour.
Obasanjo is not wrong in
his accusing Jonathan on the quality of people around him gossiping. The irony
is he is guilty of same.
Another accusation in the
book was of killer squads from the Presidency. Being a targeted survivor of the
Abacha Killer Squad, that accusation was hair – raising for me. I hope it
proves to be incorrect or unfounded, if not, the road feared, which leads to
Somalia, may be beckoning. Knowing the chill from reading state security files
on how I escaped being target of shooting practise by the Sgt Rogers squad
makes me feel for those who could be current targets.
On the insurgency in the
North East I think the alert was important, but the key is in keeping so
dangerous a challenge to the sovereignty of the country above personal quarrels
and partisan quibbles.
The burden of history is on
the older man on this issue. The direction of the crises was long foretold. Had
President Obasanjo recognised that errors of Judgement on his watch when
incipient extremist adherents began to get training in North Africa is the
reason it went so bad, he should have taken a different approach. He should
have sought to build bi- partisan support as an elder statesman to confront the
nascent insurgency. Blaming the incumbent for the mishandling the North East
insurgency has valid basis in their early lethargy but with his experience he
should have sought to rally the country in a bipartisan war cry, perhaps
bringing the concert of former heads of state into it.
The real burden of history
on General Obasanjo is that his duty as statesman is being vitiated by a
tradition of lack of charity in dealing with others, which today makes it easy
for people who should recognise truth when it comes from him, dismissing him as
acting in-character without charity. Few men in Nigeria have been given easy
passage to immortality by circumstances as Gen Obasanjo. His lack of charity
manages to be a tragic flaw that seems determined to consign him to a sad
footnote in history. Still this does not mean his voice should be ignored. In
his moments he speaks great truth to power and he understands Nigeria better
than most. He should not be ignored.”
The introduction of OBJ’s book triggered a lot of discussions that won’t stop
almost two weeks after the publication.
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