OLUSEGUN OBASANJO AND THE ARROGANCE OF POWER

OLUSEGUN OBASANJO AND THE ARROGANCE OF POWER

There is a sense in which those that hold and exercise power over others see themselves as right when in fact, they are merely self-righteous. Power of course is fleeting, transient and ephemeral. In November 1999, President Obasanjo sent a contingent of Nigerian troops to the town of Odi in Bayelsa state on an ill-defined mission, to perform what he later called a civic duty. What was this civic duty? Their duty was to find the criminals who killed twelve Nigerian police officers. In his frustration over the inability of the police to find the killers, the president introduced deadly armed force in a constituent state of Nigeria BEHIND the back of the governor of that state, who incidentally was at a political party congress with him at the time this development was taking place. Unable to find the killers and confronted with resistance from hostile elements, the troops engaged in a deadly orgy of wanton destruction of life and property in this town of 60,000 people, such that only four buildings remained standing after the engagement. More tellingly, the troops wrote on the walls that still stood, ‘we shall kill all Ijaws’ ‘next time even the leaves will die’.

This incident attracted intense national and international outrage and indignation but inexplicably it elicited no remorse or contrition from the president of Nigeria. On Thursday, March 15^th, 2001, Obasanjo finally visited the traumatized citizenry of this town, almost eighteen months after their town was demolished. The president of Nigeria could not bring himself to identify with the plight of severe deprivation, untimely deaths, despair and homelessness that has been the lot of these people since soldiers invaded their town on his orders. Obasanjo seemed concerned more with the reported hostility towards his visit. Hear him, 'For me there is a no-go area in Nigeria, because I am by the grace of God and the vote of the majority of the electorate, the president of Nigeria. I should be free to go to any part of Nigeria any time as I feel.' The scripture itself says it is not all those who say my Lord, my Lord that will enter the kingdom of heaven, particularly those who invoke the name of the Lord so self-servingly. The image of the president of Nigeria, that remains firmly in my mind, was a picture of him on the front page of an edition of The Guardian, in June 1998. He had just been released from unjust incarceration and obvious ill-treatment in the hands of his jailers. He looked gaunt, disheveled, shrunken. The famous paunch was gone. The sight of him, with vacant eyes, staring from this newspaper, evoked strong emotions in me as a citizen of Nigeria. If a former first citizen of Nigeria could be jailed on trumped-up charges, made to live under reduced circumstance, and subjected to such severe deprivations on the mad ambition of one man, our society is a lot more cruel that many of us want to believe.

But I am not an admirer of Obasanjo, I see him as an impostor, someone who will reap where he does not sow, clever by half, an opportunist, a relevance-seeker who will take the expedient over the principled. The only reason he is president of Nigeria today, is because MKO Abiola died, or as we are now informed at the Oputa Commission, was done away with. If I were at home during the election in 1999, I would not have voted for him. He appears to be totally untutored and bereft of understanding of the fundamentals of federalism wherein lies, in my view, the future of Nigeria. This could be as a result of the mental overhang from his military background.

There are some Yoruba people who are excited that he is Yoruba; they seem to believe they rule vicariously through him or their feeling of alienation or marginalisation is assuaged through him . It is hard to believe that people would canvass support for a candidate who does not share your views or whose basic understanding of Nigerian politics you consider wrong-headed, simply because you share the accident of birth. The only plausible reason, why one would canvass support for a candidate whose views are variance with yours, is because our politics has degenerated into mere office-seeking and sharing of patronage. [Obasanjo authored a book in 1990, ‘Constitution for National Integration and Development’ in which he states the incredible position, that, a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious Nigeria should be a one-party state!!]

Most Nigerians today, of course have come to understand and grasped the nature of the Nigerian state, the political economy of our underdevelopment and it is too late in the day for anyone for foist a unitary system on Nigeria , without incurring a systemic implosion. The future, and prosperity of all the nationalities that make up the Nigerian state, will be better served in a wholesale restructuring and reconfiguration of our federal union and the terms of association of that union. But he is our president today, and all of us as patriotic citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, have a role to play, to make sure his government succeeds, by keeping his feet to the fire, to change course or make amends when he makes a mistake, such as the unreasoning and reckless one at Odi.

After he came out of jail, Obasanjo wrote a book titled,’This Animal called Man’ which is about the depravity and savage impulse that grip men of power. How quickly we forget? Did Obasanjo remember ? What was there to welcome about him at Odi? Did he notice the vacant eyes, the pain, the despair, destitution of the people who were obviously induced, coerced to ‘welcome’ him? The litmus test of a democratic society is the contract between the people and the state; whether the state can protect the weak from the strong, how those in power use that power, whether there is accountability. The allegiance/loyalty of the citizenry is rooted in the belief that the state will protect them from arbitrary use of power. The commander of the contingent of troops to Odi, Colonel Agbabiaka, who Obasanjo says went beyond his brief ought to have been subjected to disciplinary procedure.

What erodes the confidence of the people in the Nigerian project is the disconnect between the reality of the actions of those in power and their pious statements. On the walls that were still standing after the town had been destroyed, the soldiers wrote, ’we shall kill all Ijaws’, ‘next time even the leaves shall die’. Face to face with the man who gave the order that led to their present plight, [their paramount ruler died a few weeks to the Obasanjo visit, as a result of injuries received during the assault], the citizens [innocent children, old women, the sick, the destitute, old and young], heard no word of comfort, or commitment to their rehabilitation, on the contrary, they were harangued about law and order, good citizenship. Does the president see a connection between the protection of the people from arbitrary use of power by the state and loyalty of the people to the state? Is the state created for the people or are people created for the state? When the rights of citizens are abridged by the state, the state has an obligation to compensate them and make amends. What we have here is a case of flagrant and arbitrary use of power, compounded by official high-handedness, lack of contrition or remorse, intimidation, arrogance, insensitivity to basic human needs.

We all know our society is not yet a democratic one, hence we use the phrase ‘in transition’ or ’nascent democracy’ to describe our polity. The slogan ‘one Nigeria’ which Obasanjo is fond of invoking rings hollow to people whose livelihood and lives were destroyed. In the final analysis, the case of ‘One Nigeria’ will be made when all people have a sense of belonging, are free and protected from arbitrary and capricious use of power. It will be good if we can make small steps in that direction with this transitional government. President Obasanjo should revisit what happened to this town and make a public commitment to rehabilitate the community that was destroyed on his orders, particularly since he now admits that the soldiers went beyond their brief. This is the right and the honorable thing to do. This is the decent and civilized thing to do. It will demonstrate that the government of Nigeria is accountable and responsive to the people, that when it makes mistakes, grave mistakes, it atones for them and makes amends. It is steps like this, not platitudes and slogans, that will build the pan-Nigerian community that is obviously dear to the president.