:::::::::Nigeria Horizon:::::::: Alternative news for national development

Eight months after leaving office, the Obasanjo saga continues, and from the look of things, it is yet to abate. The melodrama playing out in the real life of this ex-President is of the stuff that will make Nollywood envious. It is now safe to say that the fate of Oedipus in the Sophocles’ play now pales in comparison to this real life tragedy that has befallen the man whose leadership accomplishments I’ve managed to separate from his moral failings long before now. Nigerians’ insatiable appetite for drama, real and or imagined is now on the loose, creating a much respite for a tethering government being run by Musa Yar’dua. Now is open season on Obasanjo. The hawks and vultures cycling over his hairless head for the past few months have now pounced. What do we see next? His political carcass? Only time will tell.

While this salacious scandal of lust plaguing Obasanjo is fit as the main course at the dinner table to celebrate our abysmal failure as a nation, it is pertinent to note that his domestic transgressions, as condemnable and reprehensible as they are cannot be compared to the state of inertia that has taken over the political landscape of the country as we speak. For all intent and purpose, Yar’dua seems to have gone to sleep, leaving Nigerians and their hope in one big dangerous lurch. This was no longer the man who was sworn in a while ago. This is a President who now appears disinterested in the highest office in the country, lets’ just back up a little bit:

Shortly after he was sworn in as the President of Nigeria, Musa Yar’dua pledged to be the leader who listens. He also said or implied that he was going to be the people’s President. The man actually looked believable then. He was gentle and quiet, a former lecturer and an ex governor. So how could you fault him except that he was the beneficiary of a very flawed electoral system? His handling of the labour crisis that enveloped the country shortly on his assumption of office earned him even more credibility as a leader who would listen and consult.

When the Supreme Court ruled that Governor Peter Obi would serve out his term as the chief executive of Anambra State, the President was swift and expeditious in carrying out the judgement. Nigerians were in awe of this President. Could he actually be real? When was the last time a ruling President actually obeyed a court judgement injurious to his political party? Or did he have an axe to grind with Andy Uba? That didn’t matter then. Nigerians were holding their collective breath praying and hoping that Yar’dua would finally emerge as the saviour that the country sorely needed.

That was then, this is now, and things do not look very pretty, not with the President and certainly not with Nigerians. The honeymoon has ended very badly between a President and his people. His New Year gift to his people was to allow the Ribadu debacle to simmer but more worrisome then was his stoic silence on the matter. While the Presidency was mired in a major show of incompetence of that proportion, the President unwisely elected to remain mute just as he did during “Ettegate.” Now if Yar’dua knows where he’s taking the people, he’s not saying. Rather than being abuzzed with a new sense of hope accentuated by a flurry of activities in the industrial, administrative, educational and personal levels, a pall has taken over the country in these hazy days of hammartan.

The only Minister in his Cabinet who’s making any waves is doing it for all the wrong reasons. By now everyone knows that Aondoakaa is the hatchet man or the fall guy for this government. The only problem is that he’s doing a very lousy job in that role. Lawyers, by their training and mien are expected to be refined, meticulous, and robust in making their points. The AGF seems like a street fighter who pays no attention to decorum or diplomacy. In his public carpeting of the Central Bank Governor, his refusal to cooperate with the London Metropolitan Police and his relentless but victorious war against Ribadu and the EFCC, Aondoakaa has shown no class. He’s more of an Aso Rock thug than the Attorney General of the country in charge of law and order.

I am sure that President Yar’dua is a fine gentleman and I do not envy his present situation, but as the leader of a nation, he has choices. He must choose either to serve the people of Nigeria as enshrined in and required by the country’s Constitution or pitch his tent with a few discredited friends. Since one is in opposition to the other, he cannot do both. I will appeal to him to render unalloyed service to the nation, that’s his calling, that’s why he’s the President of the country. He needs to move away from all the distractions around him now. He doesn’t need them and the people of Nigeria do not deserve them.

Back to ex-President Obasanjo and his litany of political misfortunes, only time will tell whether all the good things he did while in government will be obliterated by the bad ones. It was President George W. Bush who called his re election as a “political capital” that he intended to spend. Has he spent it well considering that the war in Iraq is still going on and that the American people are bracing for a recession? Obasanjo, in the same vein has used and misused power and he’s going to pay a hefty price for that. However many of those rejoicing today at his political demise enjoy far more dismal record in their public life than him. That’s why Nigeria is currently in a state of anomy. It takes a group of very powerful and mindless people to run a whole country aground. The same people have now mushroomed around Yar’dua and he no longer has any breathing space.

This is the time for all patriotic and progressive Nigerians to start the debate on why greed has become a national creed. If Gbenga Obasanjo fits the profile a sociopath who harbours a deep seated rage towards his perceived enemies, how does one describe the likes of Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, Ibori, Kalu, Ette and many more Nigerians who have plundered the country without any sense of guilt? It will be impossible for any government, as they are presently constituted to single handedly rescue the country from its present prone position.
Nigerians must start to look inwards as to what turns our leaders into mad looters and arch enemies of their people. A friend once told me that “the insect that devours the vegetable dwells in the vegetable.” The enemies of Nigeria are her own people. Obasanjo is in a mess today because only he’s not as sleek as IBB and has not picked his battles very well.

While we are still gushing over the revelation of cross family bodily contact, I will hasten to say that’s too much for me and therefore I am inclined here to defer to the late Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau who once told Canadians that “The state has no business in the bedroom of the nation.”
Today, Obasanjo is being blindsided on all fronts. All the houses he built are crumbling and crumbling fast. The personal family house he built is now dysfunctional beyond repairs, and whatever he was able to erect in the last eight years as the President is about to crumble. What a waste.