When a president runs out of steam

When a president runs out of steam

Soon after Olusegun Obasanjo was released from jail by divine intervention, he presented himself in the image of a 17th Century reformed evangelist determined to transform the Nigerian society. His public statements were laced with quotations from the Bible. Nigerians were amazed at the depth of Obasanjo's religious transformation while he was under incarceration. His distended tummy, always the subject of pun by editorial cartoonists, had also begun to recede. Rather than be confronted with the tough and no-nonsense military image which Obasanjo carried for years, prison experience made him look softer, more humane and compassionate. It seems that under military regimes, Nigeria's prisons, an equivalent of the legendary former Soviet labour camps, have become more effective than anything else has in reforming men and women of all classes. Like all things human, Obasanjo's new public face did not last long. Less than two years into his presidency, so many things about the man have changed.

Some weeks ago President Obasanjo visited Bayelsa State. The trip itself was historic but shrouded in controversy. At one point, no one but Obasanjo and his security chiefs knew whether or not the trip would go ahead. There were hints of threats on the President's life. Of course Obasanjo knew why. He bore a burden of guilt. As President, he was responsible for ordering the military bombardment of the village of Odi. In Bayelsa, President Obasanjo's name is just about the most unpopular. This does not surprise Obasanjo. He understands the reasons, one of which is that since the incident in Odi, President Obasanjo has not been humble enough to acknowledge that he made a serious error of judgment in ordering the army to shoot the innocent villagers and he has not even offered an apology. The second reason is the vexed question of environmental damage caused by oil exploration in the area and federal inability to adequately compensate the oil producing communities. Tied to this is the lingering problem of inequity in sharing the revenue derived from the resources of the country. This is presently the subject of litigation between the 36 states and Obasanjo's Federal Government.

Eventually Obasanjo went to Bayelsa. But it was his utterances in Bayelsa that brought out the mischief in this President. Incidentally it was the demand by the people of Bayelsa for a more equitable sharing of resources that took Obasanjo to the path of untruth. Because Obasanjo had no meaningful and acceptable answer to the people's demands, he tried to engage his audience in a dangerous game of ethnic politics. Obasanjo told his listeners: "The entire nation fought a bitter 30-month civil war to ensure that the resources of the nation are kept intact. Since the whole country fought for it, it would be wrong now to allow a few people to control the resources of the country simply because it is within their territory. This is unfair." President Obasanjo's statement was illogical, unacceptable and meaningless. The reference to the civil war was in bad faith. It was also misleading. Continuing on the civil war theme, President Obasanjo said: "The Biafran war was more of a war for resource control ... If Nigeria had lost, that man (Emeka Ojukwu) would have cancelled Rivers State which gave birth to Bayelsa. If Ojukwu had won, I know I would be dead by now and so many other people would be dead, too."

It is regrettable that Obasanjo should be breathing the fire of the civil war more than 30 years after the end of the war. Obasanjo's statement was irresponsible, highly mischievous, irascible, irreverent, un-presidential, reckless, misleading and an exercise in political chicanery. Not only did Obasanjo give a wrong account of the reasons for the civil war (in which he participated), he also personalised the war as a confrontation between himself and Emeka Ojukwu. Obasanjo does not wish to learn from history. After taking the flak for presenting himself as the invincible warrior in his much-reviled book My Command Obasanjo ought to realise that being egotistical is next to being self-conceited.

Despite the seriousness of Obasanjo's flawed account of the civil war, it is rather curious that the Nigerian press and the legion of commentators, columnists and professional reviewers kept silent and pretended as if Obasanjo was right. Of course he was wrong on all accounts. Apart from Fred Ohwahwa, editor of The Guardian on Sunday, who gave a robust refutation of the President's misreading of history, the Nigerian press remained mostly nonchalant. Editorial opinions were devoted to some rather pedestrian topics. But there are many reasons why Obasanjo's comments ought to have been condemned.

In a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, a President is a symbol of unity and integration. In his actions and pronouncements, the President must endeavour to avoid anything that could incite one ethnic group against another. The President must not be seen to be taking sides in contentious issues. In Bayelsa State, President Obasanjo deliberately adulterated the history of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war for personal gains. It is regrettable that Obasanjo, a principal player in that civil war, should utter provocative statements designed to disparage one ethnic group. As Fred Ohwahwa rightly pointed out, the Biafran war was not fought because Ojukwu and his generals wanted to control the oil producing states. Not only has Obasanjo's accounts of the civil war shredded the truth out of history books, he has given an extra credit to public perception of politicians as degenerate liars. Sadly, not all politicians can be classed as degenerate liars.

In his analysis of the President's misreading of history, Fred Ohwahwa dismantled Obasanjo's wrong interpretation of history in the following words: "For the president to claim that resource control led to the Civil War is to ignore the crisis in the Western Region; the coup of January 1966 and the counter-coup of July of the same year and the subsequent pogrom that took place in the North against Nigerians of Igbo extraction. Col. Ojukwu simply articulated the grievances and fears of his people and since the Nigerian federation couldn't guarantee their safety, it was better for everybody to retreat to his enclave."

By telling the people of Bayelsa that the entire nation fought for the civil war which would have obliterated their communities from the Nigerian map, Obasanjo acted like a winter lizard desperate to secure a good position of sunlight on a damp and cloudy day. Obasanjo told the people in Yenagoa that they owed Nigeria tons of thanks and a duty of obligation to remain loyal to their fatherland because the Nigerian soldiers saved them from Ojukwu's blood-thirsty soldiers. How low could a weak President go to dodge the legitimate demands of the Bayelsa people? Obasanjo's remarks must be seen as the incoherent comments of a man whose political boat was on the precipice of diving into a deep gorge and who had no option but to clutch at anything to survive. In Bayelsa, President Obasanjo clutched at straws because he had no satisfactory answers for the poor people. By his comments, Obasanjo tried unsuccessfully to pit the people of the oil producing communities against their Igbo-speaking counterparts. This is politics of divide and rule, politics of autism, politics of ethnicity and politics of desperation. Obasanjo's public utterances are beginning to sound as discordantly as the jarring noise of a broken CD player.