This is the story of how former President
Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun
Obasanjo and former Vice President, Turaki
Atiku Abubakar, first met, and how their
relationship blossomed before nose-diving
over political ambition. In his soon-to-be released auto-biography, ATIKU ABUBAKAR,
THE STORY OF MY LIFE, Sunday Vanguard
discovered that whereas Obasanjo appointed
Atiku as his running mate in 1999, there are
pieces of information before that fact to
suggest that the former may indeed be indebted to the latter. This is an exclusive
report.
Atiku and Obasanjo He was arrested on March 13, 1995. But before
Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun
Obasanjo was picked up that day, he had been
forewarned. It was the second meeting
between one Atiku Abubakar, then known as a
politician who made massive waves during the Social Democratic Party, SDP, presidential
primaries held in Jos, the Plateau State capital
– the SDP primaries took place in March, 1993,
some two years earlier. That day, Atiku (who is one of the few
Nigerians identified by their first name) visited
Obasanjo at his Temperence Farm, Otta, Ogun
State, in the company of Oyewole Fasawe, a
mutual friend and business partner of both
men. They were there to forewarn Obasanjo about a possible impending arrest in
connection with a coup plot. In a rare snippet by Sunday Vanguard into the
soon-to-be-released autobiography of Atiku, it
was found that, contrary to the generally held
belief that prior to the politicking of 1998/1999
which produced the presidency of Obasanjo/
Atiku, both men had never been close; it came to light that their relationship dated back to
1993. In the book, ATIKU ABUBAKAR, THE
STORY OF MY LIFE, Sunday Vanguard
discovered that Atiku had, indeed, gone to the
same Otta for avuncular consultation with
Obj,as Obasanjo is fondly called. Just some weeks before the landmark June 12,
1993, presidential election, Atiku, who
withdrew at the last minute in the run-off
primaries to allow for Bashorun Moshood
Kashimawo Olawale Abiola gather some
gravitas against Babagana Kingibe, visited Obasanjo. His request was simple: “Please
prevail on my boss, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, to
support the presidential bid of Abiola at the
general election”. Although Sunday Vanguard could not confirm
whether Obasanjo indeed prevailed on the
elder Yar’Adua to support Abiola, Obasanjo’s
statement during the crisis that trailed the
disputation over the election, to the effect that
“Abiola is not the messiah” betrayed the workings of the mind of the former President. The second meeting between both men,
according to the book on pages 247 – 248, is
reproduced, verbatim, here: “The United States
Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington,
picked up the information on Obasanjo’s
impending arrest. He immediately alerted the former Head of State who was attending the
UN social summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Obasanjo returned to the country, confident
that he had not committed any crime. Atiku had also been tipped off about
Obasanjo’s impending arrest. “He went to the
retired General’s farm in Otta, Ogun State, to
alert him. He had hardly finished speaking to
Obasanjo when the divisional police officer in
Ota arrived with some plain-clothes security officers to arrest Obasanjo. “What has he
done? What is his offence? Is this the way to
pay him back for the services to the country?” Oyewole Fasawe, who was with him at Otta,
emembered Atiku asking the security agents
as they led Obasanjo away. “I had never seen
Atiku so angry as he was that day. He was ready
to fight them if we had not restrained him”,
Fasawe recounted. Atiku and Fasawe left Otta to break the news of Obasanjo’s arrest to many
prominent Nigerians. “Obasanjo’s arrest and
detention brought closer international
attention to the reign of terror in Nigeria”. Obasanjo was tried for being part of the coup
plot against the maximum dictator of the time,
General Sani Abacha; he was sentenced to life
in prison. Owing to international pressure, this
was later commuted to 15 years – the pressure
came from friends abroad, including South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, former US President,
Jimmy Carter, and former German Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt. After his sentencing, Obasanjo was taken to
the SSS (now Department of State Services,
DSS) Interrogation Centre in Ikoyi. From there,
he was moved to KIRIKIRI Maximum Security
Prison alongside Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. But something happened there as you would
discover later. Mind you, the recent
controversy over character, leadership and
integrity was ignited by Obasanjo at the 4th
Annual Ibadan Sustainable Development
Summit organised by the Centre for Sustainable Development of the University of
Ibadan, an engagement in collaboration with
the African Sustainable Development Network. The former President, characteristically, waxed
pontifical when he declared that the younger
generation of leaders under 50years has
betrayed the nation because they lacked
integrity. He mentioned the likes of Atiku,
whom he said he picked as his deputy but was soon to “show his true colour”. Obasanjo also took on Bola Ahmed Tinubu,
referring to his controversial scholarship and
academic qualification, insisting that it was not
different from the scandal which led to the
removal of Speaker Imam Salisu Buari in 1999.
However, what Obasanjo did not mention was the fact that he fought tooth and nail to retain
Buari as Speaker of the House of
Representatives, even in the face of Buari’s
glaring folly of claiming what he was not. Back
to Atiku! Obasanjo launched a sweeping
diatribe against Nigeria’s younger generation of politicians whom he accused of lacking the
integrity, character and credibility to lead
Nigeria to progress and development. According to Obasanjo, he didn’t know Atiku
well enough and that the former Vice President
had not met his expectation as a credible
successor. Now, at the risk of holding brief for
the former Vice President, the questions are: Is this claim altogether correct? Was Obasanjo
trying to be economical with the truth? What
degree of familiarity was Obasanjo talking
about? At what point did he realize his
knowledge of Atiku was not comfortable
enough? Did he complain to Atiku at any point that this lack of familiarity could disqualify the
former Vice President from succeeding him?
What degree of personal familiarity could
qualify a politician to be nominated to become
a running mate to a presidential candidate of a
political party? What is the length of time needed by one
politician to trust another? Did Obasanjo not
invite former governor of Rivers State, Sir
Peter Odili, to Aso Rock Presidential Villa for
morning prayers after which the former broke
the news to the latter that he should drop out of the presidential contest? Could all those Obasanjo bullied out of the
presidential contest be described as lacking
integrity too? As earlier stated, contrary to
Obasanjo’s claim, he and Atiku had met twice
closely before 1999.
Atiku and Obasanjo In any case, pray, Could an enemy have visited
an adversary to warn him about the imminent
risks to his life or freedom? Could an enemy
also have extended such goodwill fraternal
visit? How many years would an individual need
to know a man who had wanted to put him out of harm’s way? Yet again, destiny played a fast,
very fast one on both men. Sunday Vanguard learnt from very authoritative
sources that Atiku it was who arranged for and
warned Obasanjo, as an inmate (a prisoner), not
to allow himself to be injected or his blood
taken. Sunday Vanguard gathered from very
impeccable sources that “this warning became necessary following confirmed reports that the
late Major Akinyemi and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua
were both injected with lethal viruses that
eventually led to their untimely deaths”. In fact, dependable sources close to the family
of Major Akinyemi confided in Sunday
Vanguard that the sentiments being expressed
in favour of those who operated at the very top
echelon of the security machinery of the late
General Sani Abacha junta is misplaced because the officers devised very sinister ways
of eliminating those they considered as
troublesome subjects. In the instance of Akinyemi, the now infamous
military medical doctor through whom a series
of eliminations was carried out, walked into his
cell in the company of another serving military
officer and demanded to extract blood from
the incarcerated Major. He refused. They pressed him. “But he maintained”, according to
a source close to the family, “that he had
neither complained of any ailment nor was he
afflicted by any. His refusal almost led to a
scuffle. But the serving military officer simply looked
outside the cell, nodded to two body guards
who were waiting in toe, and gave them
instructions to subdue Akinyemi. “Worse still,
rather than extract the so-callled blood from
the Major, the military doctor brought out a syringe that was almost filled with some form
of solution. Having been held down by the
bodyguards, the doctor injected the Major”. Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that
it was later learnt that the solution injected into
the body of Major Akinyemi was nothing but
the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus,
otherwise known as HIV. By the time the Major
was released from prison, it had developed into almost full-blown Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome, AIDS. He gave his life to Christ
afterwards and began a ministry which
ministered to prisoners. Sunday Vanguard was
told that during one of his ministrations, Major
Akinyemi returned to Kirikiri where he again met with the serving military officer who
superintended the administration of the lethal
injection on him but was now doing his own
time. The officer saluted Akinyemi in military style
and apologized for what had happened about a
decade earlier. The Major was said to have laid
his hands on the now-jailed officer, prayed for
him and told him that he was forgiven of the
dastardly act. It was gathered from multiple sources last
week that had Obasanjo “not heeded Atiku’s
warning, only God knows how they would have
dealt with him too”. At least, if they could do
that to Yar’Adua, they could do it to anybody.
God used Atiku’s to save Obasanjo’s life”, the source concluded. Beyond that, however,
Sunday Vanguard learnt of the details of how
Atiku and some associates engaged a strategy
that ensured that Obasanjo was moved from
Kirikiri Prisons in Lagos to far away Yola
Prisons. The thinking of those in the corridors of power
at that time was that Yola, considered distant,
would serve a more punitive purpose. However,
what Atiku and his people actually schemed
was for Obasanjo to be close to the former’s
base in Yola, Adamawa State. Indeed, there were reports that there was a
systematic engagement strategy that was
perfected by that regime to eliminate known
opponents of the military junta. According to mutual friends of both Atiku and
Obasanjo, the claim by the latter that he did
not know the former until a year into their
tenure of office is equally beyond
comprehension, considering the facts as
written in at least two earlier unchallenged books that Atiku and others made life easier
for the former the President in his stay in
prison by arranging his meals and doctor’s
visits. Obasanjo’s late wife, Stella, was said to
have been privy to these arrangements. In truth, Atiku got ever closer to Obasanjo in
1999 when his Peoples Democratic Movement,
PDM, threw its weight behind Obasanjo to
become the PDP presidential candidate.
Obasanjo invited Atiku to become his running
mate immediately after the Jos convention of the PDP. He sought reassurance from Atiku that he
would be loyal if he made him his running mate
and the Turaki Adamawa, who was then a
governor-elect of Adamawa State, pledged his
allegiance. Perhaps, Obasanjo should have told
Atiku that loyalty included supporting constitutional breaches. Indeed, Obasanjo, in a
self conceited manner, junked an earlier
consensual agreement by leaders of the PDP
on how to select his running mate, by
unilaterally picking Atiku. The beginning of the distrust between both
men started with the botched impeachment
attempt on Obasanjo – an attempt which was
alleged to have been masterminded by Atiku. Then came Atiku’s politics of attrition which
dragged into the eve of the presidential
primaries of the PDP sending jitters down
Obsanjo’s spine when he threatened contest
for the ticket against his boss – Atiku actually
set some state governors against Obasanjo and the agenda to dump the then President
almost succeeded. But the third term agenda
of Obasanjo in 2006 brought their mutual
disdain into full public glare. Atiku openly
disagreed with his boss over the attempt to
extend his constitutional term limit of eight years. It remains plausible that any other Vice
President could have faced the same hostility
from Obasanjo once he had opposed the idea
of the third term project. However, Obasanjo
had always been a very rambunctious individual
who, in the process, does himself in. A sample: Just about six years ago, a summit was held in
South Africa where leaders came together to
jaw-jaw about global issues. They were called the ELDERS. Obasanjo was
not deemed fit to be invited. Reason: He had
taken a tumble from the high pedestal of grace
to the abyss of irrelevance on account of that
single- most destructive thing which he did to
himself – lust for power and more power. He attempted to elongate his tenure as President.
It failed. A Man of Might As President and Commander-in-Chief, from
his early days in office, Obasanjo caused his
party and the Senate to pick a wrong choice for
the Senate presidency – Evan(s) Enwerem was
made Senate president against the party’s
position that Dr. Chuba Okadigbo should be the one; Obasanjo launched an onslaught against
opposition; he captured the South West geo-
political zone states except Lagos; when his
Third Term bid failed, he paid the polity back by
imposing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the PDP
candidate and then made him President; when the Yar’Adua illness saga started, Obasanjo it
was who, after obtaining incontrovertible
evidence that Yar’Adua would not survive,
played on the polity by coming out to admonish
Yar’Adua to resign if he knew he could no
longer discharge his responsibilities as President and Commander-in-Chief; once
Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan became first,
Acting President and later President, Obasanjo
moved to take charge as godfather. But
Obasanjo it was who told Emeka Offor, at the
height of the Anambra PDP crisis in 2002, that he was behaving like a man with an elephant on
his head but who still wanted to catch a cricket. The same Obasanjo, during the first term of
Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State,
insisted that his choice must be the Olowu of
Owu, allegedly tearing to shreds the paper on
which votes of the king makers were recorded.
He had his way as he always did. Goodness, Once Upon a Time To be fair, Obasanjo is not a
totally bad man. He had (yes, had) his qualities. Here was a man
who has accomplished much more than most
African leaders. Here was a man who, while the
great Nelson Madiba Mandela was in prison,
bestrode the African continent and the globe
like a colossus. Here was a man who, as co-chair of the
Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, EPG, a
journalist had thought he could embarrass
Obasanjo by accusing him of bias in the report
of the group sometime in the late 1980s, citing
Obasanjo’s nationalisation of British Petroleum, BP, (which became African
Petroleum, AP), but got more than what he
bargained for. Obasanjo’s response was simply
that had he seen and known what he saw and
got to know during the tour by the EPG, while
he was a military head of state, he would have done more to hurt the British. That was the end
of the discussion for the journalist. Again, here was a man who could have refused
to hand over power but did so – even if under
duress – to the consternation of his peers in
Africa in 1979. The question to then ask is:
What happened? And how did a man so
accomplished drop so low? He had his own construct of how everything must work. He allowed himself to fall into that trap which
fuels a feeling of omnipotence and
omniscience. But talk about staying power,
Obasanjo had it. One way or the other,
Obasanjo’s selfishness has robbed Nigerians
of great deeds. Because Obasanjo was selfish even to himself, he became selfish to the
whole of Nigeria. Till date, no Nigerians leader,
dead or alive, has had the opportunities
Obasanjo has had. Yet, he continues to conduct himself in a
decidedly shambolic manner. Former Speaker,
Dimeji Bankole, once described Obasanjo as
the Ebora Owu – the spirit of Owu – an allusion
to his sometimes indecipherable disposition. Well, it is hoped that the gods would guide and
help him guard against outbursts that only
ridicule the former President.
Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun
Obasanjo and former Vice President, Turaki
Atiku Abubakar, first met, and how their
relationship blossomed before nose-diving
over political ambition. In his soon-to-be released auto-biography, ATIKU ABUBAKAR,
THE STORY OF MY LIFE, Sunday Vanguard
discovered that whereas Obasanjo appointed
Atiku as his running mate in 1999, there are
pieces of information before that fact to
suggest that the former may indeed be indebted to the latter. This is an exclusive
report.
Atiku and Obasanjo He was arrested on March 13, 1995. But before
Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun
Obasanjo was picked up that day, he had been
forewarned. It was the second meeting
between one Atiku Abubakar, then known as a
politician who made massive waves during the Social Democratic Party, SDP, presidential
primaries held in Jos, the Plateau State capital
– the SDP primaries took place in March, 1993,
some two years earlier. That day, Atiku (who is one of the few
Nigerians identified by their first name) visited
Obasanjo at his Temperence Farm, Otta, Ogun
State, in the company of Oyewole Fasawe, a
mutual friend and business partner of both
men. They were there to forewarn Obasanjo about a possible impending arrest in
connection with a coup plot. In a rare snippet by Sunday Vanguard into the
soon-to-be-released autobiography of Atiku, it
was found that, contrary to the generally held
belief that prior to the politicking of 1998/1999
which produced the presidency of Obasanjo/
Atiku, both men had never been close; it came to light that their relationship dated back to
1993. In the book, ATIKU ABUBAKAR, THE
STORY OF MY LIFE, Sunday Vanguard
discovered that Atiku had, indeed, gone to the
same Otta for avuncular consultation with
Obj,as Obasanjo is fondly called. Just some weeks before the landmark June 12,
1993, presidential election, Atiku, who
withdrew at the last minute in the run-off
primaries to allow for Bashorun Moshood
Kashimawo Olawale Abiola gather some
gravitas against Babagana Kingibe, visited Obasanjo. His request was simple: “Please
prevail on my boss, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, to
support the presidential bid of Abiola at the
general election”. Although Sunday Vanguard could not confirm
whether Obasanjo indeed prevailed on the
elder Yar’Adua to support Abiola, Obasanjo’s
statement during the crisis that trailed the
disputation over the election, to the effect that
“Abiola is not the messiah” betrayed the workings of the mind of the former President. The second meeting between both men,
according to the book on pages 247 – 248, is
reproduced, verbatim, here: “The United States
Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington,
picked up the information on Obasanjo’s
impending arrest. He immediately alerted the former Head of State who was attending the
UN social summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Obasanjo returned to the country, confident
that he had not committed any crime. Atiku had also been tipped off about
Obasanjo’s impending arrest. “He went to the
retired General’s farm in Otta, Ogun State, to
alert him. He had hardly finished speaking to
Obasanjo when the divisional police officer in
Ota arrived with some plain-clothes security officers to arrest Obasanjo. “What has he
done? What is his offence? Is this the way to
pay him back for the services to the country?” Oyewole Fasawe, who was with him at Otta,
emembered Atiku asking the security agents
as they led Obasanjo away. “I had never seen
Atiku so angry as he was that day. He was ready
to fight them if we had not restrained him”,
Fasawe recounted. Atiku and Fasawe left Otta to break the news of Obasanjo’s arrest to many
prominent Nigerians. “Obasanjo’s arrest and
detention brought closer international
attention to the reign of terror in Nigeria”. Obasanjo was tried for being part of the coup
plot against the maximum dictator of the time,
General Sani Abacha; he was sentenced to life
in prison. Owing to international pressure, this
was later commuted to 15 years – the pressure
came from friends abroad, including South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, former US President,
Jimmy Carter, and former German Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt. After his sentencing, Obasanjo was taken to
the SSS (now Department of State Services,
DSS) Interrogation Centre in Ikoyi. From there,
he was moved to KIRIKIRI Maximum Security
Prison alongside Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. But something happened there as you would
discover later. Mind you, the recent
controversy over character, leadership and
integrity was ignited by Obasanjo at the 4th
Annual Ibadan Sustainable Development
Summit organised by the Centre for Sustainable Development of the University of
Ibadan, an engagement in collaboration with
the African Sustainable Development Network. The former President, characteristically, waxed
pontifical when he declared that the younger
generation of leaders under 50years has
betrayed the nation because they lacked
integrity. He mentioned the likes of Atiku,
whom he said he picked as his deputy but was soon to “show his true colour”. Obasanjo also took on Bola Ahmed Tinubu,
referring to his controversial scholarship and
academic qualification, insisting that it was not
different from the scandal which led to the
removal of Speaker Imam Salisu Buari in 1999.
However, what Obasanjo did not mention was the fact that he fought tooth and nail to retain
Buari as Speaker of the House of
Representatives, even in the face of Buari’s
glaring folly of claiming what he was not. Back
to Atiku! Obasanjo launched a sweeping
diatribe against Nigeria’s younger generation of politicians whom he accused of lacking the
integrity, character and credibility to lead
Nigeria to progress and development. According to Obasanjo, he didn’t know Atiku
well enough and that the former Vice President
had not met his expectation as a credible
successor. Now, at the risk of holding brief for
the former Vice President, the questions are: Is this claim altogether correct? Was Obasanjo
trying to be economical with the truth? What
degree of familiarity was Obasanjo talking
about? At what point did he realize his
knowledge of Atiku was not comfortable
enough? Did he complain to Atiku at any point that this lack of familiarity could disqualify the
former Vice President from succeeding him?
What degree of personal familiarity could
qualify a politician to be nominated to become
a running mate to a presidential candidate of a
political party? What is the length of time needed by one
politician to trust another? Did Obasanjo not
invite former governor of Rivers State, Sir
Peter Odili, to Aso Rock Presidential Villa for
morning prayers after which the former broke
the news to the latter that he should drop out of the presidential contest? Could all those Obasanjo bullied out of the
presidential contest be described as lacking
integrity too? As earlier stated, contrary to
Obasanjo’s claim, he and Atiku had met twice
closely before 1999.
Atiku and Obasanjo In any case, pray, Could an enemy have visited
an adversary to warn him about the imminent
risks to his life or freedom? Could an enemy
also have extended such goodwill fraternal
visit? How many years would an individual need
to know a man who had wanted to put him out of harm’s way? Yet again, destiny played a fast,
very fast one on both men. Sunday Vanguard learnt from very authoritative
sources that Atiku it was who arranged for and
warned Obasanjo, as an inmate (a prisoner), not
to allow himself to be injected or his blood
taken. Sunday Vanguard gathered from very
impeccable sources that “this warning became necessary following confirmed reports that the
late Major Akinyemi and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua
were both injected with lethal viruses that
eventually led to their untimely deaths”. In fact, dependable sources close to the family
of Major Akinyemi confided in Sunday
Vanguard that the sentiments being expressed
in favour of those who operated at the very top
echelon of the security machinery of the late
General Sani Abacha junta is misplaced because the officers devised very sinister ways
of eliminating those they considered as
troublesome subjects. In the instance of Akinyemi, the now infamous
military medical doctor through whom a series
of eliminations was carried out, walked into his
cell in the company of another serving military
officer and demanded to extract blood from
the incarcerated Major. He refused. They pressed him. “But he maintained”, according to
a source close to the family, “that he had
neither complained of any ailment nor was he
afflicted by any. His refusal almost led to a
scuffle. But the serving military officer simply looked
outside the cell, nodded to two body guards
who were waiting in toe, and gave them
instructions to subdue Akinyemi. “Worse still,
rather than extract the so-callled blood from
the Major, the military doctor brought out a syringe that was almost filled with some form
of solution. Having been held down by the
bodyguards, the doctor injected the Major”. Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that
it was later learnt that the solution injected into
the body of Major Akinyemi was nothing but
the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus,
otherwise known as HIV. By the time the Major
was released from prison, it had developed into almost full-blown Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome, AIDS. He gave his life to Christ
afterwards and began a ministry which
ministered to prisoners. Sunday Vanguard was
told that during one of his ministrations, Major
Akinyemi returned to Kirikiri where he again met with the serving military officer who
superintended the administration of the lethal
injection on him but was now doing his own
time. The officer saluted Akinyemi in military style
and apologized for what had happened about a
decade earlier. The Major was said to have laid
his hands on the now-jailed officer, prayed for
him and told him that he was forgiven of the
dastardly act. It was gathered from multiple sources last
week that had Obasanjo “not heeded Atiku’s
warning, only God knows how they would have
dealt with him too”. At least, if they could do
that to Yar’Adua, they could do it to anybody.
God used Atiku’s to save Obasanjo’s life”, the source concluded. Beyond that, however,
Sunday Vanguard learnt of the details of how
Atiku and some associates engaged a strategy
that ensured that Obasanjo was moved from
Kirikiri Prisons in Lagos to far away Yola
Prisons. The thinking of those in the corridors of power
at that time was that Yola, considered distant,
would serve a more punitive purpose. However,
what Atiku and his people actually schemed
was for Obasanjo to be close to the former’s
base in Yola, Adamawa State. Indeed, there were reports that there was a
systematic engagement strategy that was
perfected by that regime to eliminate known
opponents of the military junta. According to mutual friends of both Atiku and
Obasanjo, the claim by the latter that he did
not know the former until a year into their
tenure of office is equally beyond
comprehension, considering the facts as
written in at least two earlier unchallenged books that Atiku and others made life easier
for the former the President in his stay in
prison by arranging his meals and doctor’s
visits. Obasanjo’s late wife, Stella, was said to
have been privy to these arrangements. In truth, Atiku got ever closer to Obasanjo in
1999 when his Peoples Democratic Movement,
PDM, threw its weight behind Obasanjo to
become the PDP presidential candidate.
Obasanjo invited Atiku to become his running
mate immediately after the Jos convention of the PDP. He sought reassurance from Atiku that he
would be loyal if he made him his running mate
and the Turaki Adamawa, who was then a
governor-elect of Adamawa State, pledged his
allegiance. Perhaps, Obasanjo should have told
Atiku that loyalty included supporting constitutional breaches. Indeed, Obasanjo, in a
self conceited manner, junked an earlier
consensual agreement by leaders of the PDP
on how to select his running mate, by
unilaterally picking Atiku. The beginning of the distrust between both
men started with the botched impeachment
attempt on Obasanjo – an attempt which was
alleged to have been masterminded by Atiku. Then came Atiku’s politics of attrition which
dragged into the eve of the presidential
primaries of the PDP sending jitters down
Obsanjo’s spine when he threatened contest
for the ticket against his boss – Atiku actually
set some state governors against Obasanjo and the agenda to dump the then President
almost succeeded. But the third term agenda
of Obasanjo in 2006 brought their mutual
disdain into full public glare. Atiku openly
disagreed with his boss over the attempt to
extend his constitutional term limit of eight years. It remains plausible that any other Vice
President could have faced the same hostility
from Obasanjo once he had opposed the idea
of the third term project. However, Obasanjo
had always been a very rambunctious individual
who, in the process, does himself in. A sample: Just about six years ago, a summit was held in
South Africa where leaders came together to
jaw-jaw about global issues. They were called the ELDERS. Obasanjo was
not deemed fit to be invited. Reason: He had
taken a tumble from the high pedestal of grace
to the abyss of irrelevance on account of that
single- most destructive thing which he did to
himself – lust for power and more power. He attempted to elongate his tenure as President.
It failed. A Man of Might As President and Commander-in-Chief, from
his early days in office, Obasanjo caused his
party and the Senate to pick a wrong choice for
the Senate presidency – Evan(s) Enwerem was
made Senate president against the party’s
position that Dr. Chuba Okadigbo should be the one; Obasanjo launched an onslaught against
opposition; he captured the South West geo-
political zone states except Lagos; when his
Third Term bid failed, he paid the polity back by
imposing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the PDP
candidate and then made him President; when the Yar’Adua illness saga started, Obasanjo it
was who, after obtaining incontrovertible
evidence that Yar’Adua would not survive,
played on the polity by coming out to admonish
Yar’Adua to resign if he knew he could no
longer discharge his responsibilities as President and Commander-in-Chief; once
Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan became first,
Acting President and later President, Obasanjo
moved to take charge as godfather. But
Obasanjo it was who told Emeka Offor, at the
height of the Anambra PDP crisis in 2002, that he was behaving like a man with an elephant on
his head but who still wanted to catch a cricket. The same Obasanjo, during the first term of
Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State,
insisted that his choice must be the Olowu of
Owu, allegedly tearing to shreds the paper on
which votes of the king makers were recorded.
He had his way as he always did. Goodness, Once Upon a Time To be fair, Obasanjo is not a
totally bad man. He had (yes, had) his qualities. Here was a man
who has accomplished much more than most
African leaders. Here was a man who, while the
great Nelson Madiba Mandela was in prison,
bestrode the African continent and the globe
like a colossus. Here was a man who, as co-chair of the
Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, EPG, a
journalist had thought he could embarrass
Obasanjo by accusing him of bias in the report
of the group sometime in the late 1980s, citing
Obasanjo’s nationalisation of British Petroleum, BP, (which became African
Petroleum, AP), but got more than what he
bargained for. Obasanjo’s response was simply
that had he seen and known what he saw and
got to know during the tour by the EPG, while
he was a military head of state, he would have done more to hurt the British. That was the end
of the discussion for the journalist. Again, here was a man who could have refused
to hand over power but did so – even if under
duress – to the consternation of his peers in
Africa in 1979. The question to then ask is:
What happened? And how did a man so
accomplished drop so low? He had his own construct of how everything must work. He allowed himself to fall into that trap which
fuels a feeling of omnipotence and
omniscience. But talk about staying power,
Obasanjo had it. One way or the other,
Obasanjo’s selfishness has robbed Nigerians
of great deeds. Because Obasanjo was selfish even to himself, he became selfish to the
whole of Nigeria. Till date, no Nigerians leader,
dead or alive, has had the opportunities
Obasanjo has had. Yet, he continues to conduct himself in a
decidedly shambolic manner. Former Speaker,
Dimeji Bankole, once described Obasanjo as
the Ebora Owu – the spirit of Owu – an allusion
to his sometimes indecipherable disposition. Well, it is hoped that the gods would guide and
help him guard against outbursts that only
ridicule the former President.
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