The Trouble with Obasanjo’s Wish

The problem with Obasanjo’s Wish

A New Year’s Day letter by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo endorsing Peter Obi, one of the three presidential candidates in the February presidential election, has sparked a firestorm. But Obasanjo being Obasanjo, he hoped. If the letter of endorsement at Workers Feastcandidate has been ignored, not criticizedand un-reply, then it is not Obasanjo’s letter.

The letter had barely gone in when the All Progressives Congress (APC), the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and, in fact, the Presidency all attacked, with the PDP being the mildest.

Whatever the misgivings of those affected, most can agree on the main message: young people who make up 65 percent of Nigeria’s population and, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 76.5 percent of the nine million newly registered voters, will play. important role in the upcoming general elections.

Those who were only eleven years old when President Muhammadu Buhari, who promised change, was elected only to witness #Endsars six years later when the President is in the first year of his second term, are now of voting age.

And among those who have registered will vote first, if not participate massively emigration train, famously called the “spellwave”, sweep the country (about 17 million Nigerians currently live in different countries, of which about 36,000 arrived in Europe by sea in 2017)

It evokes memories of the “Andrew check-out” era of the 1980s. However, if you have seen the lines at any of the embassies in Lagos or Abuja lately – the lines spilling out onto the sidewalks and main roads from behind the large iron gates and turnstiles manned by enormous private embassy security men, against a desperate, frustrated young face. – then you’ll realize that what we have on our hands today is worse than the Andrews of the 1980s.

It was Andrew plus a mini-exodus election after 1993 annulled, only more gifted and determined than the two combined. This is what Obasanjo wants to anger, rage and frustrate #Endsars and the economic woes are now an electoral wave that will sweep away the old order.

Affected parties also know that Obasanjo’s target – the rest listed are not yet in “spell wave”, whose block is curious, generally agnostic, adventurous and irreverent – can play an important role in this election.

Apart from being the largest vote bank in the country, three regions – North-West, South-West and South. South – currently has the largest concentration of this youth population. According to records from the National Population Commission (NPC), five states – Kano (3.4m); Lagos (2.7m); Oyo (1.7m); Kaduna (2.1m); and Rivers States (1.8m) – have the highest youth population between the ages of 20 and 34 among the top 10 in Nigeria.

Another problem that Obasanjo correctly identified was the scale, scope and complexity of the work required to take Nigeria from the brink. With inflation at 23 percent; youth unemployment at 33 percent; scarcity of foreign exchange; reduced production and receipts from oil sales; and the looming debt crisis, even Obasanjo’s worst critics can agree that Buhari seems to have used up his successor’s honeymoon.

Then, what is the problem with Obasanjo’s letter? Of course, he has the right to vote and his opinion which, despite its weight, is not always of consequence in all elections.

Apart from 1979, when the military government that foisted Shehu Shagari in the country, MKO Abiola won in 1993; and Buhari in 2019, both despite him. And even though he was a candidate, he lost badly in his own state and his southwestern backyard in 1999, only to win the region in a do-or-die subterfuge four years later.

Hair-splitting this time did not exceed the value of Obasanjo’s election. What he had left was depleted by his ego, meddling and lust, until it was not enough to win the decisive vote in Totoro /Soroki Ward 11, even though he is on the ballot today.

It seems that some people are concerned not with Obasanjo’s right of choice or advocacy, but what he could have done, early on, to make it easier to pave the way for an Igbo president.

As president for eight years, Obasanjo strongly rejected suggestions to help restructure the country, which would have given the region, especially the South-East, a fairer footing and created a more equitable and inclusive federal system.

An indispensable person, he wanted so much power for himself and spared no cost to acquire it, that is Obasanjofoot soldiers invest at least $500 million in ghost third-term projects, according to Chidi Odinkalu and Ayisha Artifacts in his book, Too good to die for.

It is a measure of the complexity of the animal we call man, that the PDP, the party where Obasanjo was alpha and omega for eight years – and apparently still – cannot pave the way for the Igbo presidency. APC, the Siamese of PDP, is getting worse. Ironically, it is Workers Party, the child of the political needs of the color and forebears Obasanjo wanted to crush, that has produced the cornerstone of his newfound love.

During his presidency, the South-East suffered a significant infrastructural decline, while he raised a privileged small class to manage conjugation areas or disrupt political crises. Not once, not twice, but thrice, he proposed the removal of the Igbo Senate president (incl Chuba Okadigbo) who have a mind of their own. However, they were lucky.

NBA Onitsha branch chairman, Barnabas Machine and his wife, they killed in what is suspected to have been a politically motivated murder – a record of blood, which littered not only the South-East, but up and down the country, admitting on the trail of a supposed friend of Obasanjo and the Attorney General and the Attorney General. Minister of Justice, Bola Ige. The killers are still at large.

If Obasanjo was less lustful of power, less controlling and less eager to be the best just in neighborhood that must be snarled, the deadly ferment in Igboland today which is a product of decades of injustice can be mitigated. Moreover, the region is now locked in the politics of self-mutilation and fratricidal violence to air grievances, perhaps having an easier path to power.

Obi, who was first tapped by Obasanjo as Atiku Abubakar’s running mate in 2019, once again deserves Obasanjo’s support and deserves it. But what Obasanjo is offering is not support; it is almost five and a half decades too late, self-interested redemption disguised as patriotism; it is worse than the Greek gift.

It is a gift with history. And the young man to whom the letter speaks may well be remembered. It is true as stated in the letter that he became a military head of state at the age of 39. If you want to know how much Obasanjo loved the youth in his heyday, ask those who witnessed the “Ali-Must-Go” student protest in the year 1978. .

The protest by students against the increase in school fees at the time, remains one of the most brutally repressed in the history of student protests, the foreshadow of #Endsars. But that’s not all.

The year before Ali-Must-Go, the “unknown soldier” burned down, also, the youth shelter, Fela you Kalakuta Republicans, and beat citizens with rifle butts and iron bars. Fela youThe mother, Olufunmilayo, was dragged by the hair and thrown out loft. He survived the fall, but died on impact.

And for those who are too blind to see the oppression they are doing clearly, Obasanjo’s military regime sent some offshore, to an Island 100 km off the coast of Lagos, called Outside the Farm, where critics of the military regime were imprisoned. This is a place of disrespect, interestingly, Buhari not only holds back, but also expanded when a military coup took place four years after Obasanjo handed over civilian government.

All this hardly detracts from Obasanjo’s incredible international record, his appetite for the limelight and, of course, his love of drama. Or indeed their right to suggest who they think is best to lead Nigeria. If the superior candidate does not think he is still important, then he will not belittle him and give him support for his ego. He shouldn’t be throwing a tantrum right now. Obasanjo was exactly where he wanted.

Young people can be fooled, but not old people who see Obasanjo as a leader, in and out of uniform, on the farm, on the podium, and in their homes. If Obi knows Obasanjo as I think he does, my unsolicited suggestion is that he should read the former president’s letter of approval to the end. Somewhere there, in small print, he’ll find the words: “Buyer Beware!”

Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

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