Opinion: OBJ, IBB: Beyond good and evil

Posted by admin Headlines, Ibrahim Babangida (1985-93), Olusegun Obasanjo (1976-79, 99-07), Presidency Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

There’s something quite riveting about these two men: it’s all about their life stories and “great exploits” done at grave expense to the country. Their stories are both edifying and unsalutory in almost equal measure. And their saloon of admirers are always ready to defend their masters’ positions.

For sure, the stories of these ex-soldiers are no longer matters untold, or unexplored. But, because they are both talkers and tacklers, their stories entertain the public. They act as the oxygen of publicity which keeps the media buzzing with interesting headlines. Don’t take them at their face-value, because the stories concerning these two interesting characters seem deceitful. It is so because their deceits have become as astonishing as their conceits.

Clearly, during their regimes, honesty, accountability and transparency were the main casualties. Indeed, no two individuals were gifted by providence, an opportunity to make amends as Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (Obj) and Ibrahim Badamasi Babaginda (IBB) have had.

Yet, their regimes had a momentum of classic drama, unpardonable errors of judgment and opportunities missed. But none of them will admit he made, not just “school boy” errors, but grave mistakes that have become the prime exhibits of Nigerian’s present sorry experience. Which is why everyone in Nigeria seems to know someone who knows someone who has a tale to tell about OBJ and IBB. And how history and historians will judge them may be too early now to say, but theirs may well be the case hubris and nemesis, and of failed leadership. All of this leads to one interesting question:

Have you pondered why so many people in our land today are so taken in, so turned off, so suspicious, so resentful of these men, and view them as sore thumbs, joy killers who bring more evil reports than good news wherever they appear or whatever platform they speak, a kind of reproach that must be avoided at all cost? I think these two men are acutely aware of the public perception of them as “collateral risks” that must be avoided. Yes, they know. In an outburst sometime in 2010, OBJ said, “a day will come when women who have miscarriages would blame it on Obasanjo”.

Could that be how disgusting his name has spread hatred across the land? But does this man care? I wrote in this column last year (May 25) that this man (OBJ) “No send”, a metaphor for his intolerance to criticism. We will come to that shortly. IBB is perhaps more sober and reflective of his place in history as far as public image is concerned than OBJ. This much he admitted in an interview he granted The Source magazine (edition Sept 18, 2000). In that interview, he said, among other things, “well, I have come to accept my fate that everything that goes wrong, everything that confounds anybody, anything that people cannot figure out, either as a result of laziness or something, the easiest way is to heap it on IBB.

Heap it on him and there will be no problem.” He ruefully added, but “I have come to live with that”.
Lately, both men have made headlines in the media. Their names have once again become folders of the sordid past and with a distinctive smell that evokes sad reminders why things seem to remain the same, despite decades of efforts. Now enter the tacklers. It was enfant terrible, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai who was brought into national limelight by Obasanjo, first as the pioneer Director General of Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) and later, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), who opened the pandoras box on Obasanjo regime as regards government’s privatization. El-Rufai was a star guest to the senate Ad-hoc committee on Privatization and commercialization probing the sale of Federal Government companies. The erstwhile BPE boss broke Obasanjo’s kneel-cap when he alleged that the former President ruined the privatization efforts.

Further allegations have been made about how OBJ used his position, using his first son, Gbenga as front to sell choice government companies to friends and cronies. El-Rufai also accused Obasanjo of having a disdain for due process. Many calls have followed since after el-Rufai’s fusillade of attack, all calling for the trial of the former President. For instance, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma, who also served as Minister during OBJ’s first term in office (1999-2003) has already indicted Obasanjo on the matter and called on the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Finance Crimes Commission (EFCC) to use el-Rufai’s allegations and put ex-president on trial.

The senate has declined to summon him, neither has EFCC obliged the NEF’s call. Only last week, in an interview granted to journalists to mark his 70th birthday, IBB pummeled Obasanjo’s regime as a colossal failure. Comparing his 8 year rule as military president to Obasanjo’s 8 year administration as civilian President, IBB claimed that during his period in office, was able to “manage poverty and achieve success, while Obasanjo, for the same number of years, “managed affluence and achieved failure”. Left, right and centre, OBJ is besieged by enemies. Not having him around us would be like losing your best enemy.

True to type, OBJ has since replied. His attack on IBB packed a wallop. He called him (IBB) a “fool at 70”, and a “drowning man”. Defending his years as military Head of State and later civilian President, Obasanjo, responding to IBB’s description of his years in power as a failure claimed that on the contrary, he did more than anybody before him in government. Sounds messianic? That’s OBJ for you, straight from the heart. But this may not be the end of the mud throwing. It’s looking like roforofo fight.

But, if El-Rufai’s allegation is true, OBJ must have lost whatever integrity he was left. Reason: right from inception of his administration in 1999, he promised severally to make privatization a critical plank of his socio-economic agenda. He said his government envisaged full or partial divestment of its interest in over 60 companies it had controlling interest.
Undoubtedly, any deliberate policy of restructuring the public sector in the country and making it efficient and service-oriented, a transparent sale of government concerns must be beyond question. Otherwise, public service institutions cannot guarantee customer-satisfaction.

So far, what has been leveled against Obasanjo approximates to what Plutarch wrote in his book Life of Alexander, that “the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of vice or virtue in men, that sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclination than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battle”. Could it be that el-Rufai’s testimony is that less-fancied moment that has informed us better of the vices in OBJ? Or, could all of this be an orchestrated plan to rubbish Obasanjo’s “good name”? Has politics got anything to do with it just to paint OBJ black as a weaseling man, a double dealer? Sometimes, politics can be spooky and can be likened to a tale of great love affairs that always end in tears. It’s simply ironic how things have fallen apart between OBJ and his old pals, among them IBB, El-Rufai and T.Y Danjuma.

There have been endless stories, some true, some facts, others purely the imagination of critics, how these ex-generals, once good pals, have now become foes. Few things remain valid about OBJ and IBB. Both men have been at the vortex of power, one arguably more privileged than the other. One thing common in them is that both are big ‘disciples’ of SUN TZU’s tactic in ‘war’ called shih. Both cannot be trusted, but each applies this deceptive strategy of outwitting the opponents differently.

It is because each of them, though stupendously wealthy, has split personalities. Their personalities approximate to what Fredrich Neitzche calls Beyond Good and Evil. (from which I borrowed this headline today) The fact is that both men think and act as if they were the Sun around which other planets must revolve. That both men failed at the topmost leadership level – the presidency – has so much to do with their delusion that every nation’s destiny is different from the people and that those who lead them. A leader runs aground immediately he confuses his own destiny with the collective destinies of the citizens. That is where Obasanjo and IBB have lost us. That’s why they failed. And that’s why history may judge both of them harshly.

By Dan Onwukwe ( 08023022170 dan_onwukwe@yahoo.com )wp_posts

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Posted by admin on Aug 23 2011. Filed under Headlines, Ibrahim Babangida (1985-93), Olusegun Obasanjo (1976-79, 99-07), Presidency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry