This architect of Nigeria’s
misfortune appears to cherish some Nigerians’ proclamation that he was a
much better “leader” than, say, President Jonathan. Such flattery
proceeds from a short memory as well as a profound misreading of
Obasanjo’s role in misshaping our present.
The starkest evidence yet of Nigeria’s despairing circumstances could
be glimpsed in the fact that Minna and Abeokuta have become major
destinations for a certain kind of political pilgrim.
In the last two weeks, a number of governors from the northern part
of Nigeria have visited two former Nigerian rulers, General Ibrahim
Badamasi Babangida (ret.) in Minna, and former President Olusegun
Obasanjo in Abeokuta. Both pilgrimages were seen, above all, as part of
the tactical maneuvers for the 2015 elections.
Yet, that the governors consider Mr. Babangida and Mr. Obasanjo
worthy of consultation or enlistment speaks to the bankruptcy of their –
and Nigeria’s – project. Babangida and Obasanjo are alike in several
vital respects. They’re big-time authors of Nigeria’s misfortune,
vectors of the political, social and economic crises in which the
country is mired, and eloquent examples of failed leaders.
What does it mean, then, that all political roads are leading to both
men’s doors? In a few words, that Nigeria is in big, big trouble – if
not altogether doomed. The voyage to the hearths of the two men is akin
to trusting that a problem is the solution.
To cast both men in negative light is not to suggest, however, that
anybody who came before and after them was stellar. No, Nigeria has been
luckless in its leadership and, in fact, in the quality of its broader
elite. But Babangida and Obasanjo found ways to intensify Nigeria’s
malaise, their policies and style helping to amplify and entrench some
of the most debilitating symptoms of a sick, floundering country.
Take Babangida. He became Nigeria’s military ruler in 1985, unseating
the duo of Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon that had
imposed a plastic version of discipline on Nigerians. A charismatic man
with a ready, gap-toothed smile, Mr. Babangida seemed the perfect
corrective to Buhari’s (and Idiagbon’s) dour, cheerless mien. Before
long, however, it dawned on Nigerians that real leadership demanded much
more than personal charms.
It may well be the case that the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP),
the centerpiece of Mr. Babangida’s economic policy, was both inevitable
and the perfect panacea for the country’s indolent, over-regulated
economy. What was undeniable, however, is that SAP almost overnight
zapped Nigeria’s fledging middle class out of existence, creating two
veritable classes: the opulently wealthy and the desperately wretched.
It was a thoroughly painful adjustment, an era in which civil
servants could not afford to buy decent cars and some lecturers took to
driving cabs in their spare time. Through it all, Mr. Babangida preached
patience, assuring us that the gains of policy awaited us at the end of
the transition.
It would have been marvelous if he adopted his own counsel. The
evidence, clearly, is that he did not. While Nigerians writhed in pain
and did their inventive best to scrape through harsh times, their ruler
was in plain view accumulating riches for himself, acquiring a hilltop
mansion that would provoke an Arab oil sheik into fits of envy, and
amassing a huge cache of cash. In other words, the man who asked the
rest of us to accept privation for a period of time did not have the
discipline – the vision and temperament – to take his own bitter pill.
Babangida compounded his awful statecraft when he announced an
ostensible program to return Nigeria to a liberal democratic culture.
Unwilling to contemplate his eventual withdrawal from power, he turned
the time-table for democratic transition into an expensive, deceptive
scheme. In the day, he pretended to be committed to ending military
rule; at night, he and his cohorts plotted to sabotage the process – the
better to perpetuate himself in office. The culmination of this charade
came in Mr. Babangida’s annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential
election.
That remains a defining part of Babangida’s legacy. In some ways,
Nigeria is still reeling from the aftermath of that act of perfidy.
And then there’s Obasanjo. This man may well be the luckiest
Nigerian, alive or dead. Born into poverty, his childhood ambition was
to be a roadside mechanic. Instead, he found his way into the military,
rose to be a general, and made two tours as Nigeria’s ruler – once as a
military dictator, the other time as an “elected” president. His
“election” in 1999 completed a script that had slight echoes of the
experience of Nelson Mandela, the South Africa sage who commands
near-universal admiration. Mr. Obasanjo had emerged from (Abacha’s)
prison to become Nigeria’s president.
Gifted with a unique opportunity to become a true hero, Mr. Obasanjo
seemed determined, instead, to surpass Mr. Babangida in all the trivial
ways. He may have set up two anti-corruption agencies, but his
administration was notorious as an enabler of graft and money
laundering. He exhibited a shocking propensity to dine with and empower
all manner of shady characters, the exceptions being those who were
reluctant to massage his imperial ego. For all the speeches he read on
accountability and transparency, he ran a shop where – under his very
gaze – his confidants and associates stole Nigeria blind.
As I stated, Obasanjo’s one obsession seemed to be to best Babangida
in some egoistic game. He dwarfed his rival by becoming, by far, the
person with the longest tenure as president. He and his coterie acquired
enough riches to tower over the man from Minna and his crowd. A slave
to imitation, he acquired his own hilltop mansion in Abeokuta.
Obasanjo’s gravest crime was not that he was a mediocre leader. In
the end, mediocrity in a leader is forgivable. His greatest blemish was
to participate, actively and fervently, in the devaluation of Nigeria
and the debasement of the Presidency. How did he do so? He empowered
rustics like the late Lamidi Adedibu and Chris Uba to use police
contingents to sack or hijack two governors. He belittled the judiciary
by ignoring judicial verdicts that went against his government. He
squandered cash in the neighborhood of $10-16 billion on a scam
announced as a mission to offer Nigerians “regular, uninterrupted power
supply.” He looked the other way – and compelled the anti-corruption
agencies to do the same – when his political friends pillaged public
funds. He weakened the National Assembly by constantly meddling in its
affairs, including dictating who their leaders must be.
Instead of lending himself to the goal of strengthening democratic
values, Obasanjo became an apostle of do-or-die, a zestful rigger of
elections. Drunk with power, he was willing to gut the Nigerian
constitution in a bid to grant himself a third term in office – and a
virtual life presidency. As Nigerians groaned for infrastructure and
livable wages, Mr. Obasanjo mindlessly sank billions in scarce funds to
bribe his way to a third term – all the while denying that he wanted to
stay on. Denied his illicit third term dream, he imposed Umaru Yar’Adua,
a feeble, dying man, and Goodluck Jonathan, a nondescript governor, as
the PDP’s ticket – and then imposed them on Nigeria.
This architect of Nigeria’s misfortune appears to cherish some
Nigerians’ proclamation that he was a much better “leader” than, say,
President Jonathan. Such flattery proceeds from a short memory as well
as a profound misreading of Obasanjo’s role in misshaping our present.
Properly understood, Yar’Adua and Jonathan are part and parcel of
Obasanjo’s legacy. If the current president’s performance is subpar,
perhaps we should ask Obasanjo, again, why he guaranteed to us that he’d
chosen the perfect team to take over from him.
In a society where leaders are held to strenuous standards, neither
Babangida nor Obasanjo would be able to show his face in public. That
some northern governors – and other politicians – are flocking to both
men’s separate hilltop is a clear sign that Nigeria will remain a mess
for a while to come.
