Obasanjo: A Failed Statesman

Finally, the verdict of history beckons on President Obasanjo. As a man out of time, he once said he didn’t want to be popular while secretly coveting popularity particularly at other levels. He may not fully realise how unpopular he has become locally and internationally in the last three years of his administration until perhaps next Tuesday when his tenure ends. But for a nation notoriously noted for being short of heroes since the death of the famous leading nationalists of yore, we may have been condemned to another era of long wait for a national political icon. What ideally should have been an occasion for a worthy tribute, celebrations, homage and praises has instead turned into a season of dirges, regrets, tribulations and recriminations. And whatever his media and palace salesmen may say, Obasanjo is leaving the Presidency most disliked by people and a leadership failure. It is a dislike that cuts across generations; the depth I realized recently at two unrelated events. One at home and the other abroad. About three weeks ago, I had been invited as Chairman to the Valedictory Ceremony of one of the 38 schools in Lagos which my ministry in conjunction with the New Era Foundation of the Lagos First Lady has successfully developed an Advocacy Programme on Sanitation and Conservation in the last two years. The SS3 students would soon be leaving school and it was better to do the Valedictory before their final examinations. It was an occasion meant for prize giving to deserving students and speech- making on careers and counseling. The most interesting part of the programme was when 30 out of 121 graduating students were selected to speak about leadership, what they think it means, and which leaders in history have inspired them most. I became more interested in who their inspirational leaders were. Sixteen out of the 30 student speakers chose former Southern African President Nelson Mandela, 6 chose former American President Bill Clinton, and 2 would like to be like billionaire Bill Gates, and 2 girls chose Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Dora Akinyuli while the rest fluctuated between Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and former labour leader and Gubernatorial Candidate of Action Congress (AC) in Edo State Adams Oshiomhole. I instantly became curious. I wanted to find out more, particularly why no Nigerian political leader both present and past was chosen. I referred them to Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, Zik, and Aminu Kano among others, but they looked blank, as they knew little or nothing about the exploits of these past national heroes, a question mark on some contents of our school curriculum. I then came to the present and the first person I mentioned was President Obasanjo. I had not even finished pronouncing his name when a thunderous NO! filled the air as if I had committed an abomination. Curiously, I explored further as to why no single student chose his or her President. It was then I realised how our future generation has lost so much faith in the system. Individually, many preferred to go for further studies abroad. They have no hope of what the future has in stock for them. Many lamented about their senior brothers and sisters who had left University but can't find jobs and are still living on handouts from parents at home. Lack of electricity and high cost of living are the realities they confront daily and they felt the present Federal Government has failed to inspire hope in their future. Indeed, it was an experience worth revisiting in another one year or two to see if things have changed for the better. Then last week, I was in New York to represent the Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at a C40 Cities Climate Change Summit organised by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone in partnership with President Clinton Foundation. It was a conference that brought 40 Mega Cities of the world together being the most active in terms of environmental degradation. Only Lagos, Cairo and Johannesburg so qualified in Africa. It was a Summit that brought together the world's biggest cities' Governors and Mayors with President Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg of New York and Mayor Ken Livingstone of London. I had attended with Yemi Cardoso, Lagos State former Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget and now the Chairman of our World Bank Project on Urban Renewal and Environment, Lagos State Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP), the General Manager, Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and our Director of Ecology and Conservation in the Ministry. Introducing ourselves as the Lagos delegation was enough to arouse discussions on Nigeria particularly the last general elections. For many particularly the South Africans, Americans and Europeans, President Obasanjo has been a big disappointment given the hopes that they thought his inauguration in 1999 gave the world. Some who had visited Nigeria recently have been disappointed particularly at the poor state of infrastructure in the country as well as the government's human rights record and the inability to provide level playing field within the political space. For some, it was the last elections they felt so sad about. Yet some were disappointed that given the amount of resources Nigeria has and the democratic experiment of the last eight years, Nigeria ought to be the leading light in Africa. It was lamentation and Obasanjo to them has become another episode in Africa's litany of failed leadership. You needed to listen to some mayors and Governors during private discussions to really understand how Obasanjo has lost it including his previously well-known international reputation. I offered no defence and I could not have either, having being part of a government, which has been at the receiving end of Obasanjo's high handedness. In New York, I felt that if I were in the presidency, I would have recommended a refund of all monies spent by the Federal Government on public relations to burnish Obasanjo government's image by the likes of Andrew Young and Carl Masters. Beyond all the sentiments, however, there is need to make a critical examination of a leadership that held so much hope only to end up as a big disappointment. When the Military in 1999 anointed Obasanjo as its successor and next civilian president, those of us who had our doubts about his suitability given his antecedents were soon bought over within his first two years in office when his initial steps pointed towards a brighter future for the country. As a journalist, I was one of those who fought against his impeachment by the National Assembly, a fact I have since regretted. Obasanjo was already a statesman before becoming the President. The statesmanship in him propelled him in taking some good steps in his first two years; thereafter he lost it and allowed the African political disease to overwhelm him. The pursuance of his political enemies then became one of the primary objects of his administration. Apart from this, the outgoing President has one basic flaw-lack of vision. He is one man who has so much passion for the country yet he confuses this with vision. Vision requires broadmindedness, ability to see what others cannot see, tapping opportunities when they are present, creating synergy between resources and competent personnel, and meticulous planning. Great leaders in history have both. Love of one's country helps to propel vision. But if you have the former and lack the latter, you would only end up like a doctor who said the operation was successful but the patient died. Inability to see the bigger picture has been the hallmark of his government in the last eight years. Instead of seeing Nigeria on a large scale, he got consumed with mundane matters like competing with governors, local chiefs and career politicians over small issues. This explains why he works so hard with passion morning and night and junketing from one part of the country to the other, yet no improvement in the lives of his people. When he took over in 1999, the challenges facing him were quite well defined given the right vision. These were first, the civilian control of the military, fundamental reform and restructuring of the economy, security of life and property, provision and re-development of basic infrastructure to cope with the challenges of modern economy, combating mass unemployment and lastly building viable and enduring democratic institutions that would also have dealt with the larger issue of corruption. These were the issues arising from the long years of military misrule, but Obasanjo largely failed to put these issues in clear perspective and failed woefully at responding to them. Modern government secures confidence of the people if it fulfils the first basic law of governance: that is security of life and property. The experience of the last four years is that life has never been so short, brutish and unsafe in almost every part of Nigeria. When a president encourages lawlessness and subversion of other levels of government as we have seen in Oyo and Anambra, it only says how much the quality of national leadership has sunk. It is a disgrace, that in a nation seeking foreign investments, its police stations are always thrown into darkness at night with only kerosene lanterns to the rescue. While many Nigerians cities are short of enough policemen to combat crime, some of the president's cronies that thrive by telling him lies about his enemies at night go about with as many as 12 policemen as personal escorts and we claim to be running a transparent and fair government. Modern economy thrives on heavy investment in basic infrastructure such as roads, railways, electricity, information technology and security as we have learnt from Roosevelt in United States, Lee Kuan Yan in Singapore and General Park in South Korea. In eight years, this President cannot boast of a single new highway. We thought that by keeping money in external reserves, we were saving for the raining day and cultivating our creditors, when in fact we had set the economy back by another 10 years due to lack of investment in infrastructure and had also lost opportunity to create millions of jobs. It is part of the lack of vision that we failed to tap the opportunity provided in 1999 when Governor Bola Tinubu introduced IPP on electricity in year 2000, which was well frustrated only for the same government to turn to same IPP at its twilight. Our economy today resembles that of Russia otherwise called KGB economy where the Oligarchs backed by the state have taken full control. In our own case, we can best describe it as a Transcorp economy. It is an economy that favours few while killing the small and medium scale industries, the real engine of growth. Sadly, when the history of this era is finally written, it would definitely be devoid of any elements of statesmanship at a time when a long-suffering nation needed one.