REVISITING THE SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK (1)

PRESIDENT OBASANJO: GO BACK TO YOUR SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK OF JUNE 1998 ON JUNE 12.

by

Professor Omo Omoruyi

For those who are wondering about Olumo Rock, Olumo Rock is located at Abeokuta, the home of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. It was at Abeokuta located on Olumo Rock that he, as a man of God made certain pronouncements about the June 12 in June 1998 on the first Sunday immediately he was released from Abacha’s Gulag.

Of course, Abuja is located near the Aso Rock, the Seat of the Federal Government where as President Obasanjo, he decided to adopt a benign neglect to anything that has to do with his Olumo Rock pronouncement about the June 12. This is by way of clarification of terms.

Another clarification is to emphasize that the title of this essay is restricted to one incident about President Obasanjo involving June 12 at a Church ceremony in Abeokuta in June 1998. It is not about the views of General Olusegun Obasanjo before the election, during the election immediately after the annulment and much later after the annulment before he was taken to Abacha’s Gulag.

For the record, it should be noted that General Obasanjo was a supporter of Chief MKO Abiola even though he had his doubts about Chief Abiola’s ability to scale seven hurdles. He then advised Chief Abiola to watch out for problems from (1) IBB, his friend, (2) the North, (3) the Igbo, (4) the Military, (5) the Yoruba, (6) the international community and (7) Chief Abiola himself. General Obasanjo then warned Chief Abiola that any of these hurdles could pose problems for him.

It is also a matter of record that General Obasanjo abandoned the June 12 as soon as he was briefed by General Babangida’s appointed Generals and General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and came to the conclusion that it was a military affair. It was well known then that General Obasanjo worked hard to legitimize Chief Ernest Shonekan as Head of the Interim National Government (ING) in the international community. The reason General Obasanjo gave then was that any civilian rule elected or appointed was better than any military regime of the kind headed by General Babangida.

It should be noted that General Sani Abacha did not go after General Obasanjo because of his commitment to the June 12 or because he was a democrat or because he as an obstacle to his self-succession plan. General Abacha took him away to try his (Obasanjo) popularity at home and abroad and nothing happened. General Obasanjo must have been surprised that no Nigerians wept or demonstrated on his behalf except maybe his family and certainly members of the Nigerian Baptist Church, who kept praying for him. Even the international community, including his friend, President Jimmy Carter only made plea for his life and not for his release.

By the time General Abacha became the Head of State, General Obasanjo had forgotten everything about June 12 because Chief MKO Abiola was not the ‘messiah’ Nigeria was looking for. In fact, I witnessed the Abuja incident of the ill-planned effort of Generals Obasanjo, Adebayo and Diya with some selected Traditional Rulers in 1994 to get Chief Abiola to apologize to General Abacha or to the country for the harm he, Chief did to Nigeria. To add to injury Chief Abiola was to renounce his mandate as a condition for his release. Chief Abiola rejected both.

As a matter of record, the renunciation of mandate as a condition for his release was there from the beginning because Abacha knew he could not embark on his self-succession plan with Chief Abiola still a pretender to the throne. He was bent on keeping him in detention until he renounced his mandate even onto death.

It should be noted that the renunciation of mandate as a condition for release did not start under General Abubakar. It first came to the open in July 1994. It started with General Obasanjo in league with some Traditional Rulers in 1994. General Diya and some Abacha’s handlers in Yorubaland as a condition for bail later picked this up.

There is a definitely a relationship between the decision of the military to pick General Obasanjo to succeed the military and the organized pressure in the international community on Chief Abiola to renounce his mandate. Of course, General Obasanjo knew he would not survive in the Southwest, if Chief Abiola was alive and in detention and still a pretender to the throne. The international community led by the US and Britain and South Africa that wanted General Obasanjo had to mount the pressure on Chief Abiola to renounce his mandate until they killed him in the process and paved away for the July 20 1998 transition program. They too knew that a winner of a free, fair and credible election had legitimacy to lay claim to his mandate unless he voluntary renounced it. They knew that it would be morally indefensible to foist a new election as long as the June 12 was still valid with a winner. Instead of making Chief Abioa part of the solution they thought that easier option was to hasten his demise. This was what came to light at the Oputa Commission.

It is sad to note that only the ‘weeping Generals’ from Yorubaland, (Diya, Adisa, and Olarenwaju) failed to discuss the death of Chief Abiola as they were too concerned about what Abacha did to them. But Major Mustapha, General Sabo and Bamaiye were sure that there was a relationship between the search for a successor after the death of Abacha and the immediate death of Chief Abiola. I will leave this line of inquiry about relationships to others.

What General Obasanjo did during the period of Abacha, which led him into trouble with Abacha in 1995, had nothing to do whatsoever with Chief Abiola who was in detention. It certainly had nothing to do with the fate of June 12. By this time General Abacha decided to humiliate General Obasanjo, General Abacha had through his handlers (Ofonagoro and Ikimi) declared the June 12 dead. General Obasanjo had virtually agreed with this position even though he did not like the way General Abacha threw out Chief Shonekan.

OBASANJO: A NEW CONVERT TO JUNE 12 IN ABACHA’S GULAG.

But when General Obasanjo was in Abacha’s Gulag, a new situation arose. A voice must have come to him that June 12 should not be pronounced dead. He started to have a second thought about the whole matter. He sought God’s face and in the process, God also revealed to him what June 12 meant and what he should do if he ever had an opportunity to communicate with Nigerians about the political problems facing the country. That opportunity came when Abacha died suddenly and he was released from Abacha’s Gulag. He became a convert to the June 12 and wanted the issues in it resolved. Why did he change his mind later? This is the subject of this paper.

One of the reasons why I strongly have my doubt about supporting him beyond one term for the current President is the way he went back on what he was directed to do by God about the June 12 as soon as he was released from Abacha’s Gulag. I just want to bring to the attention of Nigerians who are wondering as to what I am talking about that the President as Chief Obasanjo once prophesied as soon as he was released from Abacha’s Gulag on the fate of June 12. This prophecy was in what I choose to call the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK’. Chief Obasanjo told Nigerians and the international community what God revealed to him in Abacha’s Gulag on a variety of issues. He was told what to do about the June 12, the military and lingering political problems afflicting the country since 1993.

Chief or Preacher Obasanjo definitely wanted the convocation of a National Conference to raise, discuss and resolve the lingering political problems afflicting the country arising out of the ‘events of the June 12’. This will be the subject of the second essay.

In my search for an answer to why Chief Obasanjo had a change of mind on June 12, it would appear we are dealing with two faces of Obasanjos. Many groups in Nigeria, oil producing areas, the Ndi Igbo and the Arewa have their stories of two ‘faces’ or two ‘phases’ of the man. But Nigerians want one face of Obasanjo before and after he became the President in May 1999. I am not one of those who secured some commitments from him before the election. My concern is that President Obasanjo’s face in Aso Rock should be the same as that of Chief Obasanjo who told us his divine inspiration for the future of Nigeria in June 1998. If he could breach this divine injunction, which he confessed to Nigerians and the international community in a Church in 1998, why should the Niger-Delta or other groups in Nigeria expect him to honor his commitments to them?

Chief Obasanjo was a man of faith and spirit filled in June 1998, just out of the Abacha’s Gulag and itching to tell Nigerians and the international community what God revealed to him in Abacha’s Gulag. We are today seeing Chief Obasanjo as a President Obasanjo surrounded by men of power, who did not know what the President as Preacher Obasanjo and a man of God knew and confessed to in June 1998. Only President Obasanjo can reconcile the apparent conflict or dissonance. Nigeria is suffering from it, Mr. President.

If I were his adviser, I would have urged him to go back like the great men of faith in the Holy Bible, which he is fond of quoting to what he was divinely inspired to prophesy to in what I now call the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK. Why is it that Christians do not keep to what God tells them while they are in office? The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has a lot of work to do here. Maybe time has come when CAN should organize a seminar on ‘Christians in Politics’.

The Muslims have no problem with what to go for in politics, as the Koran is explicit on the duty of the faithful under a non-Muslim government. It is to subvert it. This is the root cause of Jihad in history. It is a matter of record that Nigeria became an integral part of the Islamic world by the fiat of a military regime, which decreed that ‘Nigeria is a Muslim country’. This was how Nigeria became a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) under General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida in 1986 and became a member of the D8 under General Sani Abacha. For the information of Nigerians, D8 is made up of 8 Islamic countries, ‘Nigeria’, Iran, Pakistan Egypt, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey. How much of this is known in Nigeria? Muslims know what they want and go for it. Recently they want the hajj to be further subsidized by the Federal Government. From what source one may ask? Oil money, certainly not from taxes! Maybe from VAT from liquor!

But Christians have no other code of conduct in politics other than the Biblical injunction of giving unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God things are Gods. Maybe time has come when ‘Christians in politics’ ought to be told in concrete terms that they should constantly seek God’s face in whatever they do and be guided by His Word always while in office.

This is what I like in my Muslim friends. I really do. They are smart chaps. They usually adhere to what Allah reveals to them even if Allah says they should take over government from a fellow Muslim by force and kill in the process if need be. We saw how the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan wanted to stop the aircraft carrying the Army Chief and other passengers from landing because of power, even when it was obvious to the Prime Minister that the fuel in the plane would not carry the plane to another location.

I like my Muslim friends, who use a non-Muslim, in fact a Jew to crate a fellow Muslim and kill him if need be. I still recall how President Shagari wondered aloud when I visited him in Yabo, Sokoto after his release from detention about his treatment in the hand of a fellow Muslim and a fellow Fulani for that matter (Buhari). Alhaji Umaru Dikko has his story to tell in his memoirs. These are Muslim qua Muslim conduct because Allah sanctions it; but the Christian God would frown at such behavior. I stand to be corrected.

Mr. President, you will recall what you said in the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK that

‘the prophecy of the dictator’s (Abacha) Guru,

his own blood would be spilled’.

The Arewa leaders who are harassing you today knew that Abacha was bent on spilling the blood of innocent Christians in the south in order to maintain himself in power in the interest of the north. No one in the north had been able to contradict the revelation of Chief Obasanjo that Abacha’s Guru actually told Abacha that he must ‘spill blood’ as a condition for his survival in office.

The question one should ask is this was just ‘guru’ or the work of the marabout or Satan, who littered the Aso Rock during that period? Evidence in Oputa Commission has not led to this yet. One of General Diya’s women who was picked up from Diya’s house once confessed to how she too was Diya’s spiritual soul-mate based in the United Kingdom and prophesied to the travails of Diya long before Diya encountered them. She wanted Diya to flee the country immediately after the bomb attack on him.

I am urging Mr. President to use the name of God to do justice, just as your colleagues in the past used the name of Allah to do injustice and commit murder.

THE SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK IN THE VANGUARD OF JUNE 21, 1998.

After the turbulent period of General Sani Abacha, Nigerians should have been given the opportunity to take a deep breathe and ponder over the issues in the annulment and why the annulment was sustained with such ferocity. When General Obasanjo was a victim of such ferocity, no member of his Club of former Heads of State (Gowon, Buhari, Babangida and Shagari) came to his rescue.

But Mr. President, if you had not been told, let me tell you that you were an object of joke at Lincoln University in April 1998. It was reported that when one of your fellow members of the Club of the former Heads of State arrived at the venue of the Abacha funded Seminar at Lincoln, he appeared to be shocked for not meeting General Obasanjo there. This former Head of State knew where General Obasanjo was when he left Nigeria but he still had to express his surprise why General Obasanjo was not in the Seminar because he was told that all Nigerians former Presidents were invited. This was in one of those Abacha’s self-succession seminars to sell General Abacha to the US community organized by some African-Americans opinion leaders.

By the time of Abacha’s self-succession plan, General Obasanjo was dreaming in the Yola prison. Only God saved you Mr. President with the prayers of fellow Christians. I was one of them. Because you are failing us and not because of the pact you entered into with the north, that is why you would have no basis for asking for a second term. This is the time to commence a peaceful stepping aside and allow the south decide on its future.

Mr. President when you were just General Olusegun Obasanjo before you became the President, you are on record as having proffered an answer in the affirmative in 1998. I am calling Nigerians’ attention to General Olusegun Obasanjo’s SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK’’ at the Baptist Church, Abeokuta immediately he was released from Abacha’s Gulag. I am referring to the account in the Vanguard of June 21, 1998 reported by Kolade Olarenwaju. Has the President forgotten this? Mr. President, you should not because you laced the sermon with many apt Bible verses. I believed you then and so too many Christians did.

Unfortunately, Mr. President, no one in the media or among the members of the political class has ever called the President’s attention to this sermon. No one has ever asked you Mr. President why and when you decided to change your mind by substituting what God revealed to you in Abacha’s Gulag with what you promised the Arewa political leaders in Abuja. I am going to take Nigerians through what you said at the Church service with the hope of asking the President what went wrong?

SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK AND THE MILITARY

General Obasanjo, you are a man of faith in the sermon and a seasoned General of the Nigerian army. You were very clear in your mind that the army you saw and who dealt with you mercilessly in 1995 could not be the kind of army you used to associate with in all your life as an officer gentleman. You could not imagine that that was the same institution that produced you as the Head of State, Commander in Chief (1976-79). In your analysis of the genesis of the Nigerian lingering political problems you came to one conclusion that the source of Nigerian political problem was the military. In the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK, Chief Obasanjo characterized the military in the following words:

THIS IS FROM THE ‘SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK’ BY OBASANJO.

The distinguished General and a man of God was right in June 1998. What has the President done to turn the military around is a subject, which I had reasons to comment upon in other fora. I am also on record as proffering the two Ds’, Demobilization and Depoliticization as the only empirically sound panacea for the problems of the highly ethnicized, regionalized, politicized and morally depraved armed forces.

Unfortunately, the political and professional heads of the armed forces are not equipped to undertake the fundamental demobilization and depoliticization of the armed forces. Mr. President, the military is still the same, as you rightly preached in your ‘SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK’. You were applauded for the cosmetic retirement of some officers, who held political appointments since 1983. No one has called your attention to the political generals, who wore Abacha’s medal in the past and still claim allegiance to dead Abacha.

The use of the US Marines to undertake the assignment of professionalizing the Nigerian military is the wrong step and a recipe for disaster; the decision to use the US Navy to monitor the Oil producing areas after the genocide in Odi in Bayelsa State is ominous. My essay on the ‘Nigeria-US Military Pact’, which I called a ‘Recipe for Danger’, which appeared in The News of October 2, 2000 earned me the title of an ‘alarmist’ within the military circle. But the outburst of the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, General Victor Malu complaining of the hidden agenda of the US military (Vanguard January 22, 2001) did not refer to my warning of the ‘Greek Gift’ in the essay earlier published in The News of October 2, 2000.

I also recently called attention to my paper on the implications for professionalism the revelations at the Oputa Commission on Human Rights Violations, which was reported in various local and international media. I thought that with the revelations at the Oputa Commission and the conduct of the Chef of Army Staff, the President should have asked the Chief of Army Staff to resign.

OBASANJO’S SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK ON JUNE 12.

What I shall be offering for discussion under this heading is General Obasanjo’s prophecy in the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK, as it applies to June 12. In that sermon, Chief Obasanjo made a profound statement never to be associated with him in the past before he was taken to Abacha’s Gulag. Certainly, he did not repeat it, since he became the President. In that same sermon, Chief Obasanjo proffered a sophisticated mode of resolving the lingering political problems arising from the event of June 12, to which the highly depraved, ethnicized and politicized armed forces would form an integral part.

Men of faith to which the President is a leader believe in their leader to be able to stand up and be counted. They expect their leader to provide leadership and stick to what the Spirit of the Lord told them. I would like to remind Nigerians of what the President, as General Obasanjo and as an undisputed man of faith said after he was released from the Abacha’s Gulag in June 1998. It should have been obvious to him that he was not only speaking to the flock in the Baptist Church in that SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK alone. He should have known or he ought to have known that he was speaking to Nigerians and the international community who looked up to him to lead in the resolution of the lingering political problems afflicting the country. Maybe I should remind the President if he forgot what he said in that sermon then in his own words.

on the resolution of the issues of June 12’.

THIS IS FROM THE SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK BY OBASANJO

This was what many of us who knew what happened to the June 12 had always had in mind. I saw it in June 1993 and warned the military President then General Babangida that the country would not be the same if the annulment was announced and sustained. I hope readers had the opportunity to read my account of the episode in my book, The Tale of June 12.

Naturally we were gladdened when we heard the distinguished man of God with Spirit filled came to the conclusion that the issues in the annulment should be resolved as a way of moving Nigeria forward. Mr. President, it was reassuring that you came to the conclusion after seeing the face of God in Abacha’s Gulag that ‘the Nigeria’s future as a democratic, united, and stable country was dependent on the resolution of the issues of June 12’. It was a welcome relief to many Nigerians who were denied their right to human dignity as a result of the annulment and since the annulment. That pronouncement was hailed in the US. A friend called my attention to the web’s rendition of the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK and I quickly copied and kept in my file before it disappeared. It strengthened my lectures in many fora in the US. I told many Americans that there was an election; that there was a winner; that the decision to annul had nothing to do with the official reasons given by the military junta; and that the stories peddled in the US by Abacha’s handlers were paid for from petro-dollars

That Sermon was prophetic. You were right then. Mr. President, may I remind you that those of us who subscribe to the auspices under which you spoke and had the opportunity to read what you, as General Obasanjo said in June 1998 are at a loss today. They want the President to go back to that sermon.

Mr. President, read the Bible verses you freely quoted that day and the prophecy that came out of your mouth. Should all these be in vain? Christians take this very seriously. If the President could go back to what he prophesied to in 1998 in public and in a Church before all believers, why should he be required to keep faith with political groups in the Niger-Delta, the Arewa and the Ndi Igbo? This is the kind of question Nigerians are asking as the clock ticks and 2003 becomes an issue.

When Christians hear the President engaging in games about the May 29 as ‘Democracy Day’ in preference to June 12, they are saddened; they are devastated. Mr. President, those who heard you in the Church in June 1998 are asking the pertinent question if anything had changed since then and what that is?

All that might have changed was that General Obasanjo the Baptist preacher in June 1998 was elected President, a year later. And so what? Did that change the prophecy? Mr. President, do you know what Christians are saying? Mr. President do you know that Christian are saying that the President changed his mind on what God told him in Abacha’s gulag when faced with those Nigerians who held the view that Allah decreed the annulment. Are they right to hold this view? They are asking if the Allah’s believers made General Obasanjo the President so that he might walk away from what he told Nigerians and the international community in the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK? Only President Obasanjo could answer this question.

What one would want to know is whether the President saw his election of 1999 as a solution to the event of June 12? Or whether he saw his election as an opportunity to raise, discuss and resolve the issues in the annulment? This is the dilemma facing the President. President Obasanjo should unravel this apparent dilemma.

If I were President’s adviser, I would have made it clear to him that his election only offered him and the country an opportunity to raise, discuss and resolve the issues in the annulment.

If I were the President’s adviser, I would have placed before him that the fact of his emergence as the President did not and should not constitute a solution to the annulment saga.

If I were his adviser, I would have above all told the President that addressing the issues in June 12 would have been in furtherance of the position he prophesied to in the ‘SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK’ of June 1998 after he was released from Abacha’s Gulag. As a believer, the President knows that he could not void the Word of God, especially when it has come out of his mouth.

Nigerians should remind our President that he should go back to what he witnessed to and confessed to and finally told Nigerians and the international community in June 1998 in the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK.

FURTHER PROPHECY FROM OLUMO ROCK BY GENERAL OBASANJO

The esteemed General before he became the President is also on record as making another prophetic confession in that sermon in the following words:

(maybe some years of isolation in the Abacha;s gulag),

that the non-resolution of the issues of June 12 will remain

for the political development in the country’.

THIS IS FROM THE SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK BY OBASANJO.

Does the President know this today? Does he not know that the Arewa’s grievances are part of the issues in the annulment, that an autonomous Southerner (someone loved by his people and someone who reciprocates that love for his people) cannot be the President of Nigeria. My trilogy on the Arewa’s agenda and what the President should do to overcome such anti-democratic and anti-southern agenda still remains there for the President’s handlers to use.

Mr. President, I know the way the leaders of the Arewa think and I can assure Mr. President that their agenda is exclusive, which could be a threat to the democratic order that the President would want to build in Nigeria. The solution short of surrendering to the demands of the Arewa Consultative Forum is for the President to call off their bluff and run the country in the national interest. Mr. President I am on record as counseling you, Sir that capitulation to the Arewa Consultative Forum will be a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately you are doing this everyday. Nigerians are asking why you are handling the issue of ‘resource control’ by the south and the ‘politicization of religion’ by the Arewa political leaders differently. Sharia for the north is unconstitutional, but it is politically correct to allow it to blossom. Resource Control in the south is unconstitutional, but it is politically correct to fight it in the Supreme Court.

It should have been obvious to the President by now that it is the non-resolution of the issues in the June 12 that are manifesting in many ways. Mr. President, you were right when you rightly said that that the Nigeria’s future as a democratic, united and stable country was dependent on the resolution of the issues of June 12. You were right; you did not say that Nigeria’s future as a democratic, united and stable country was dependent on President Obasanjo or on the National Assembly or on the Traditional Rulers or on the political class in general or on the US or on Britain. If God had revealed otherwise to you, you would have said so then.

SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK ON MODE OF RESOLVING CRISIS._

President Obasanjo, as Chief Obasanjo just out of Abacha’s Gulag, you will recall you defined the crisis and called the country’s attention to the danger of sweeping it under the carpet. You were worried that sustaining the annulment and sweeping the issues under the carpet would reduce the country into two societies. Let me use your words.

You did not end here. You advised Nigerians based on what you were told by God and testified to in the SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK in your own words that

‘Let all Nigerians have a sense of belonging and

Finally you pleaded that Nigeria’s progress ‘must be founded on justice, equality and equity’.

Mr. President, you were right that God gave you the rarest opportunity to come to Th. foregoing conclusion. You were kind to Nigerians when you revealed it to the country. Mr. President, you will recall you did not end with just analyzing the enormity of the crisis. You told Nigerians what God revealed to you as the mode of resolving the impasse. Can you remember what God revealed to you, as the mode of resolving the issues in June 12? It was through the ‘National Conference’.

I agree General Obasanjo would argue that he did not use these words, but the words General Obasanjo used in conveying the mode of resolving the lingering political crisis are not different from the implications of a National Conference’. It is the President who had reason to play games with the future of Nigerian and went back on what he said he was divinely inspired to tell Nigerians as the mode of resolving the Nigerian crisis. This will be the subject of the next essay, ‘OBASANJO’s SERMON ON OLUMO ROCK AND NATIONAL CONFERENCE’.

 Professor Omo Omoruyi

Research Fellow

African Studies Center

Boston University

Boston, MA