The news started to filter in, in whispers towards Sunday evening. Once it was confirmed, it was as if everyone had been waiting to offload their thoughts on the departed. Platforms lit up with expletives that cannot be printed here.
Since the end of the First Republic on January 15th 1966, Nigerians have had a love/hate relationship with their leaders. After the lopsidedly executed coup d’ état of January 15th, 1966 failed, General Aguiyi-Ironsi took over. He did not punish the coup plotters. He treated them with kid gloves to the chagrin of the North. They believed the coup was lopsided and would not be persuaded otherwise. Add to that, the Unification Decree number 34 of 1966 which aimed to abolish the Federal system and establish a Unitary system of government, Aguiyi-Ironsi had built his own coffin. It did not take long before he was murdered in cold blood in a revenge coup on July 29th, 1966.
Enters, General Yakubu Gowon. We loved Gowon. He was young, he was handsome. We liked him. On his watch and mismanagement of the crisis raging in the nation amidst the killings of Igbos across the country and the threatened secession of the Eastern Region, he dropped the ball. A Civil War began, brother against brother, until 3 million people lay dead in the battlefield. He presided over an Oil boom but did not have a clue as to how to manage the new-found wealth. In his obvious deficiency, he declared, “Money is not our problem, but how to spend it.”
People like winners. He had won the Civil War. We gave him our love. Truth be told, it does not take much to make the average Nigerian happy. He reneged on his promise to restore Civil Rule. Hear him in his own words on October 1, 1974. He announced to a bewildered nation, looking us in the eye: “The year 1976 for the restoration of Civil rule is unrealistic.”
One day, we heard martial music. Gowon had been overthrown.
Enters Murtala Mohammed. He basically confessed his sins like the biblical Zaccheus the tax collector and made a decision to give back his loot. We applauded him. We saw a headline one day, unsmiling, eyes bloodshot. He declared to the world: “Africa has come of age.”
We fell in love with him. He inflicted a lot of pain on the Civil Service. The Civil Service has never recovered. A new dictum took hold.
“Every man for himself.”
The Civil Service came back with a vengeance upon seeing how honest men and women were retired by the Murtala government. It is reported today that over 70% of houses in the Federal Capital territory are owned by Civil Servants. That was Murtala’s legacy. He did not last long enough for us to see whatever wonders he would have done, had he lived.
Enters OBJ. “It is against my personal will and desire that I assume the position of Head of State today,” he announced to a mourning public. He captured the mood of the country with the first words out of his mouth. We watched him. He said the transition program begun by Murtala must go on. He had learned from the mistake of Gowon. He was not going to equivocate about the transition to Civil rule. We marched with him as he recorded one major achievement after the other. He launched Operation Feed the Nation. He governed by example. He called it low profile. He had fiscal discipline. He brought that to every facet of government. His personal prudence was an asset to a nation in search of healing and identity. If the true measure of a man is saying what he means and meaning what he says, then, Obasanjo as Head of State was without peer.
On October 1st, 1979, Obasanjo kept his promise. He handed over to Alhaji Shehu Shagari.
He inherited a robust treasury. Whilst he embarked on transformational projects like Ajaokuta Steel, Aladja Steel, and three major Steel Rolling Mills at Oshogbo, Kaduna, and Jos, he also built the Shiroro Dam and several River Basins to boost Agricultural output. His government tarnished itself in the elections of 1983 by largely subverting the will of the people through electoral fraud. Despite the glaring achievements of his government, the activities and profligacies of some of his Ministers and Party stalwarts caught the attention of a public averse to immorality. Nigerians were still innocent during Shagari’s time. The era of immorality was still far, further down the road.
His party, the NPN, was roundly rejected at the polls, but the NPN dug in.
On December 31st, 1983, we heard martial music playing. I was in Benin to see my mother for Christmas. I heard noises outside. People filled the streets, rejoicing that the election rigging government of the NPN had been thrown out.
Enters, Buhari as Head of State. His government swung into action. They launched the War against Indiscipline. We embraced it. He threw politicians in the dungeon without due process, the good, with the bad. There was no sifting of the wheat from the chaff. Former government officials were jailed by midnight tribunals for 200 years. The punishment did not fit the crime. He silenced the populace with Decree 4 of 1984: The Decree just fell short of imposing a life sentence on journalists who were going to be punished regardless of whether their publication was true or not, but especially if the publication was injurious to a public official.
His Decree could not be reconciled with the imprisonments he was dishing out to former political office holders. The natural thing for him to have done flowing from his ‘hatred’ for fraud would have been to encourage a vibrant Press to act as watchdog for his government to help expose corruption. In essence, Decree 4 was a shield—built to protect his government’s corrupt acts, present and future from being exposed.
Those were interesting times, living in Nigeria. The people had had enough when he hauled Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson into jail for writing articles which he considered injurious to public officials.
He made a law against Drug Trafficking. He made the law retroactive.
Three young men fell into the retroactive trap. Their names were Bartholomew Azubike Owoh, a 26-year old former employee of the Nigeria Airways, Lawal Akanni Ojuolape, 30, a spare parts dealer, and Bernard Ogedengbe, 29, a Sailor.
They were shot in an act of one of the greatest injustices the world had ever experienced. The Bible says, “where there is no law, there is no transgression.”
Not for Buhari.
He was a man of blood.
He was overthrown.
The people rejoiced.
He lacked empathy.
No milk.
No human kindness.
Enters, a gap-toothed General with sprightly bounce.
“Call me President,” he said. He set the captives free. We applauded him. He knew how to dance the Nigerian dance. We applauded him some more.
He came up with beautiful projects. He gave us the Third Mainland Bridge. He spoke handsomely. “Let a thousand flowers bloom,” he declared in one speech. “The voice of the gods,” the people applauded. It was a smokescreen. He literally woke the country up to alternative corridors of existence. Fraud, and deception became an instrument of government policy. Organized crime by individuals were allowed to go unpunished. Shadiness in financial matters by government officials and those who did business with them became the norm rather than the exception. He dribbled an entire nation as he led us through endless debates to do A or to do B. He led us down a blind alley of Constitution drafting with a caveat. “Leave the debate on Sharia alone,” he said. The Committee submitted its report. He doctored it. He inserted Sharia in it. All by himself. He gave us a gift that has kept on giving till this day. When he looks in the mirror everyday, it must be interesting to hear what he has to say to himself when he remembers the time God gave him absolute power to transform a nation—-but——
In the end, there are only so many goals even a Maradona can score as a football match lasts for only 90 minutes. On the 24th of June, 1993, after presiding over what was considered the most perfectly conducted election in the history of Nigeria, he turned around to pour sand in the pot of soup he had cooked so beautifully.
He is a wonderment of existence. Only Sigmund Freud could possibly psycho-analyze a man who cooks a beautiful pot of Jolof rice, invites people over to eat and decides to sprinkle sand in the Jolof rice.
What manner of man!!!!
He stepped aside on August 26th, 1993, leaving a nation in tears, tatters and terribleness, but not before foisting on the nation, a contraption known as the Interim Government.
After months of uncertainty, the interim government run by Ernest Shonekan, a captain of industry, was booted out by the jackboots of the ultimate jackbooter—the goggled one.
Like the infamous Maximilien Robespierre of France, during the era of the French Revolution, he embarked on a reign of terror. He had a goon squad. Their orders were simple, and straightforward—-to eliminate anything that looked like, smelled like, talked like —a Nigerian daring to think he knew better than anyone else, especially himself.
People fled the country. I said under my breath on the day of the ascendancy of the goggled one——“he will not be my president.”
I plotted my exit from a nation we all loved, a country that had given us so much in spite of Lilliputian-grade governance.
On June 8th, 1998, yet again, the people thronged the streets, not to mourn, but to rejoice at the inglorious passing of the goggled one. Never had the earth seen so much rejoicing at the death of a mortal. In life, he was invincible. How could he now lay still on a slate of wooden casket, covered with a shroud, his funeral presided over by others?
The only thing his passing could remind one of historically, was the passing of Josef Stalin. His evil was so pervasive that people thought him to also be a conqueror of death, but alas!!
And, here comes the midwife. A man not given to much talk. He carried the broken pieces of a broken nation. Humpty Dumpty was shattered into a thousand pieces. Who was going to put Humpty Dumpty back together?
Abdulsalami Abubakar did.
He was a man of peace.
He knew his role.
The nation was in need of healing. He was a balm.
He gave us a “new” Constitution. He ushered in a new government to be run by an old experienced hand.
The Second coming of Obasanjo straight from jail to an exalted place as President was nothing short of the Hand of the creator of all things, visible and invisible.
He rode on a horse, waving a flag of healing and fiscal discipline. He swung into action. He junketed around the world to secure relief for a nation entangled in debt. In his absence, which was frequent, his deputy plotted and ran rings around him.
The old wiz.
The old fox.
The young hawks underestimated him. He went on his knees to beg. He had been cornered by power hungry young men. They seemed to have forgotten that you do not suffer a Cobra to live.
They let him slide.
In 2003, he returned with a vengeance.
Right punch.
Left punch.
A duck, and then, an uppercut.
He delivered a political hemlock to anyone who had dared to dare him. His erstwhile deputy struggles till this day to ascend. Only time will tell.
Obasanjo achieved a lot, but he fell short the second time around. He failed to give us electricity after $16 Billion in the wind. GSM came out of no great effort of his, but somehow, we must give him credit for that.
Ultimately, like many men, he let himself slide into ordinariness.
Third term?
We gave him 8 years as Emperor. He had a “Constitution” which made him the most powerful president of a presidential form of government anywhere.
He left power, ungrateful to a nation that had given him so much.
No one clapped for him at his exit. He met a nation in darkness.
He left it in more darkness.
He did not stop there.
He attempted to foist on our nation, not anything near a Third Eleven team.
He went to an obscure part of the nation to fish out a sick man.
He gave him a nondescript man as his deputy. In his head, he thought—- “with these two weaklings, I will continue to call the shots from my farm.”
Unfortunately, our leaders have never been known to be students of history. If he had read Machiavelli’s—-“The Prince,” he would have learned one or two things about how power works. Machiavelli was not in a drunken state when he said the eternal truth about power:
Power corrupts.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
It did not take long for Yar’Adua to begin to upturn his policies. He, the beneficiary of a gift faulted the rightness of the gift he had been given. Hear him in his own words: “In view of the large scale irregularities in the conduct of the last elections——“
He was determined to heal the nation by telling us the truth—the mark of good upbringing.
He promised to give us a gift that he hoped, would forever keep on giving—-the gift of the Rule of Law —-as the fundamental underpinning for the sustenance of democracy—that the nation may long endure.
Unfortunately for a nation that had grappled with so much deception, he did not live to see through his dream of electoral reform. We mourned his passing. He was much beloved.
Enters, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
I met a man who worked for him as Minister of State, External Affairs. He described Jonathan as a good man, a man who would not raise a finger to fight for himself. He said the man had his baggage packed and ready to leave Aso Rock when the cabal led by the infamous warrior from a South-South State had chosen to ignore the Constitution.
Their theory was abhorrent.
The Senate sidelined them with a brilliant masterstroke called the “Doctrine of Necessity.”
Thus began the Jonathan era. He had a mandate to renew the hope of the country by giving us a new Constitution. He arranged a Constitutional Conference. People gathered. They came up with 114 recommendations to restructure the nation. He put the documents away. He had appointed women who bestrode the echelons of power like peacocks.
He demurred in reining them in. They ended up defining his legacy.
And then, Chibok happened.
Over 200 young girls had disappeared into the forest. The international community got involved.
There was an outcry.
He was accused of incompetence. In the end, he lost his grip. He has no one to blame but himself.
Harry Truman, President of the United States, (1945-1952), was a historical precedent for Jonathan to study. One may have to doubt if he knew who Truman was. If he had known, he would have ruled like Truman did. Firstly, he would have known that “the buck stopped at his desk.” Secondly, he would have known to carry out the constitutional reforms and not choose to run again. In Truman’s era, there were no term limits in America. He took a Bill to Congress. He refused to run again even though he could have. He made a law that precluded him from running, having finished the term of FDR.
He ran successfully in 1948. Goodluck in parallel history ran in 2011, and won by a landslide. He was legitimate in his own right.
He blew a great opportunity to transform Nigeria. In the end, he lost to a man who had tried several times in his quest for power.
The man, Buhari, clawed.
He cursed.
He threatened.
In 2015, a man from Bourdillon gave him his couch at Bourdillon. He said to him: “You have 12 million votes in your pocket from one tiny part of the country. You do not have enough to satisfy the Constitution. I will give you what you need from the rest of the country. After that, it will be my turn. Deal or no deal?”
In his desperate quest to rule at all cost during which he threatened that the “dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood,” he said, “Deal.”
The deal maker made him president and went back to Bourdillon to wait. He waited. He waited. He waited for 8 years without saying a word about his protégé.
The man mounted the saddle.
This entire story is the background leading up to his second coming.
Hear what a seasoned political strategist had to say: “I was one of those who went to beg Buhari to come out of retirement and run for office. He meant well. He fought hard. In the end, that was not enough. He was a public spirited activist.” He continued: “Good governance requires careful, studious preparation and knowledge. You cannot use the force of commitment to bring development. You cannot be president and be guided by prejudice. He did not rise to become president of the entire nation. Prejudice is a weakness in the construct of governance. As President, you must cover everyone. He held a mirror to others that he could not hold to himself. He could see what wrongs others did. But he was unable to do good. His big triumph was in inflicting pain on others. He inflicted a lot of pain.”
Can anyone disagree with my friend’s assessment of Buhari’s legacy?
I was sitting in an Uber on the evening of Buhari’s demise. The driver was lecturing me. “No one will miss him. His 8-year reign brought us a lot of pain. Our leaders do not like us. We do not like them. Somehow, we have to live in the same space with them.
They come.
They go.
We do not co-exist with them.
We survive them.”
I cannot write the next thing he said. It will be unprofessional and unworthy of my pen.
Permit me to quote Bill Clinton
when he was asked to comment
on the death of his chief tormentor, ‘the righteous man,’ Kenneth Starr.
It takes the mindset of a certain kind of man to write a salacious report of over 500 pages about the sexual indiscretion of another man.
Here’s the summary of my story in Bill Clinton’s words—-“I have nothing to say. Except to say I’m glad he died with the love of his family.”
Need we say more?
May God bless Nigeria.
May God teach our leaders to learn wisdom.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
O’meekey Ovienmhada.
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Egogonewshub.com.
