Taking pointers from Talking Point :

An analytical response to President Obasanjo’s BBC interview.

By

D. S. Dauda, MD

Ternopol, Ukraine

I was not opportuned to listen live to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent appearance on the BBC inter-active question and answer session "Talking Point" presented by Robin Lustig. Thus I jumped at the chance to read the transcript of that programme posted by Dr. Aluko at the Gamji website. I knew it was going to make interesting as well as enlightening reading, but nothing prepared me for what was coming. Below is an attempt to present my perception of what transpired and a short analysis on the issues raised and the President’s stand on these issues.

It is common knowledge that in any civilised, democratic society people take direct or indirect responsibility for acts of commission or omission leading to such tragic events. Officials resign from posts or at least tender their resignations, inquiries are made and if there is evidence of any wrong-doing, the appropriate steps are taken to punish wrong-doers and measures are taken to forestall future occurrences. So the first caller wanted to know who had, in this case, taken responsibility for an arms dump explosion as a result of which about a thousand innocent Nigerians lost their lives.

Unfortunately this happened in Nigeria, where nobody is ever responsible for anything and hardly anybody resigns his plum post on matters of principle. Instead of facing up to this fact, Obasanjo tells us that he has so far not received any information of about any life lost in the cantonment itself and that those who died did so as a result of panic and the resulting stampede. The question here is would these people have panicked and stampeded without the explosions? Or are they to blame for trying to flee? As if this was not enough Mr. President repeated twice in the course of his response the phrase "If there was any responsibility to be taken…..". I take it that by using that "if" Mr. President still has doubts about the fact that somebody ultimately has to take responsibility for the deaths of 1000 people. Again : "If somebody has to be punished….". Statements such as these make it very hard if not impossible to overlook (assuming one had any reason at all to do so in the first place) or blame the President’s temper for that infamous outburst when he arrived at the scene of the catastrophe.

Of course somebody is responsible and has to take responsibility! We are told that investigations will be initiated. The only fear here is that the person or people that take decisions as to where and how much bombs are stored will definitely not be indicted. I can not imagine the President, Minister of Defence or even the Army Chief losing his job as a result. At most that Brigade commander (or is it the Divisional commander? General Obasanjo himself does not seem to know who it was) who purportedly 3.5 million Naira six months ago might just be slapped on the wrist. Well, after all it is going to be a military investigation and only "panicky, stampeding bloody civilians" died. This is all in a country where troops move in to raze whole villages to the ground when fewer of their own lose their lives (no panels, no investigations).

So far Chief Obasanjo has been prevaricating on the issue of his intentions come 2003. He has repeatedly informed us that he is waiting for some sort divine intervention before he makes his decision. However, it should not take a rocket scientist to deduce from events of the past few months that the decision has been made. Otherwise one would have a hard time explaining why those who did so went to all the trouble of trying to force down our throats that unpalatable doctored electoral bill, designed to constitutionally deny Nigerians their democratic rights.

I can not help but agree with Mr. President’s statement that his and Mandela’s situation are not the same. Mandela came out of jail to write his name in African, nay World History in gold. To a great extent he managed to reconcile his people, giving them hope of a brighter future, the foundations of which, alongside true democratic structures, he helped lay. Obasanjo can hardly claim reconciling anybody, he has neither delivered on his on his numerous promises nor has he given any hope to anybody (Well, with the exception of the hangers-on and sycophants a la YEAA urging him to re-contest). Mandela left public office even more respected than when he came in. I seriously doubt that Obasanjo will command the same respect he had before his "second coming" when he eventually leaves office. If only to save face and keep intact some of his post-1979 reputation, Obasanjo should be intelligent enough to know that the time has come to "step aside".

When reference was made to the fact that 10,000 people have so far violently lost their lives since the inception of his administration, the Chief Security Officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could find no better way of avoiding an honest response than to wonder how many people have died in the United States of America in the past 3 years! Up till that moment I was all along under the naive impression that the President of Nigeria was responsible for Nigerian, and not American lives. I for one can not imagine what would have happened in America had President Bush attempted to "comfort" his compatriots after the tragic events of September 11 by wondering how many lives were lost somewhere else. In any case, if it is comparisons we are after then it would not be out of place here to ask Mr. President how many of the said Americans died as a result of ethnic cleansing, religious clashes, arms dump explosions or wholesale annihilation of entire communities by the very own army whose sworn duty it was to protect and defend them? What has the government done to curtail the activities of OPC, Yandaba, Bakassi Boys or even common armed robbers?

Listen to our President : "In a situation of unemployment all over the world, even in your country, when there is depression, as friendly as they are, they become nasty to foreigners, because they believe that people are taking jobs from them"

Now we know that Igbo and Hausa traders and residents are really just "foreigners" who are taking jobs away from the indigenous OPC/ Area Boys! Recently racist skin-heads went on rampage in Moscow attacking foreigners (mainly from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) and destroying shops and other means of livelihood. The Russian security operatives swiftly swung into action and in a matter of a few days, those responsible as well their leaders were arrested and duly arraigned before the courts. These are the actions of a responsible government. Are we to assume that those responsible for similar acts in Nigeria against fellow Nigerians are not known or is it that for one reason or another the government can not or does not want to deal with the situation? If Obasanjo does not know, maybe he should contact the Lagos governor who from his "intelligence reports" apparently happens to be more informed.

In my view, the lackadaisical attitude of this government to this security issue is amply demonstrated by the this statement : "We took over 120,000 policemen to 120 million population. You can see that it was 1 policeman to 1 million". I am sorry Sir, I have really tried but I can’t see 120 million divided by 120,000 amounting to 1 million. Is it a simple lack of attention to detail we are talking here or something much more serious? With all due respect , if you want to quote figures, have someone do the homework first, for crying out loud! "Small" lapses such as these have a way of conveying a message of a lack of seriousness on the part of the person quoting figures to present facts.

The impression of a lack of grasp of the essence of the problem is once again conveyed here : "….when I came, I realised I thought that it was the fault of the men, I sacked the first lot, but I discovered that it was not theirs alone but the cumulative fault of the previous administrations". This is an admission that he made promises to Nigerians, gave deadlines and sacked people (some of them undeservedly) from their jobs without even getting to the root of the problem! It is indeed sad that even in this day and age people without any programme or plan of action or even a simple grasp of the issues at stake mount podiums to make promises so that they are elected into office only to give excuses. It is hard to comprehend how one can decide or even aspire to lead over 100 million people only to come in to tell them "I did not realise the extent of rot in the system, that is why I promised what I did and now cannot deliver within this period ". In other places people who aspire to public office do so ready with their programmes. They say: "this is what I plan to do, this is how much it will cost, this is how I plan to finance it and these are my projections as to the actual time in which I plan to execute the plan". In our case every campaigner promises to eradicate corruption, poverty and illiteracy, provide potable drinking water and electricity, build roads and, more recently, end fuel scarcity without an inkling as to how any of these is done. Some thought Obasanjo at least with his experience will be an exception. Sadly one must admit otherwise.