abdulraheem
The last time I wrote on this page was on March 24, 2005. The new-fangled anti corruption drive had revved into top gear , and to show how serious he had become as a thief catcher Obasanjo had appeared on national television, to announce that he caught a very significant thief in Adolphus Wabara, erstwhile Senate President, a charlatan imposed by Obasanjo himself I imagined then that Obasanjo must have engaged in a chest-thumping, self-adulation for his noble act, but Nigerians knew even then, that Adolphus Wabara, was actually what Ilorin people would call, OLE-ILE, or just one of the many thieves in the house! I spent a part of my vacation at home in Ilorin, trying to soak-in the atmosphere, touching base with friends and folks and also trying to gauge the feelings of Nigerians towards the goings-on in the polity. If you recollect, I had likened the Obasanjo, Wabara event to a road show, with a great deal of razzmatazz, but with the audience in the final analysis, ending up as the losers. While it lasted, the Obasanjo group tried as much as possible to extract even the last drop of propaganda juice out of the thief-catching prowess of the president. He was presented in the media as a ‘Saint Mathew’ out to cleanse the Augean stable of Nigeria! The kli eg lights were trained especially on the National Assembly, and we were expected to join in the ridicules of that tier of government, which is allegedly a drag on the train of sanitization of our polity that Obasanjo is driving towards the destination he alone has mapped out, and which he alone can achieve, thanks to his near super human qualities! Those who have been less enthusiastic about the intentions of Obasanjo in respect of his anti-corruption offensive do not condone whatever criminal activities might have been perpetrated by members of the National Assembly. It is also right to prosecute whoever infringes the law; no matter that such an individual is a member of the National Assembly. This has never been the point of contention. What the problem is, is the general attitude of Obasanjo to the constitutional existence of the National Assembly as a different arm of government in the democratic setting. Obasanjo has consistently taken steps since he came to power in 1999, to emasculate the independent existence of the National Assembly, in order to carry on the business of governance, like a medieval tyrant. The down side is that he has been responsible for the disaster that has been governance in Nigeria in these six years. Of course those who are part of the Obasanjo ensemble have made an art of the dernonization of the legislative arm of government in a way that even those ‘who ordinarily should soberly analyse the goings-on around them, abandon a more rational premise for the emotional outbursts about the irresponsibility of the legislators! And they have often behaved irresponsibly. No doubts. But the manipulative web that Obasanjo has woven around that tier of’ government has ensured that the legislature is held more in contempt than it otherwise would he. The obverse is that our villagebully of a president carries on almost like a train engine that has lost its brakes and consequently rams through all that should edify a democratic polity: separation of’ powers: a robust political party culture: a tradition of consensus building devoid of blackmail and treachery and an open democratic, inclusive space that extend the tenure of Obasanjo by an extra two years or even get him to add another term of six years. Where this cannot be achieved, then the succession process would be sufficiently manipulated to ensure that a pliant crony is installed to cover the tracks of the last six years, and hope Nigerians would some how forget all the transgressions against them by Obasanjo and his cronies. But even such a ‘soft landing’ cannot be guaranteed to be fool proof, as the fall out between former Zambian President Fredrick Chiluba and his chosen successor Munawasa has shown, not to forget the scenario that is developing in Malawi between former president Bakili Muluzi and his successor President Bingu Wa Mutharika. When puppets are installed, usually the social groundswell of feeling in a country seeps into the political space. What follows is that to ensure his own legitimacy, even the puppet becomes obliged to revisit the crimes that his mentor has committed against the people, while in office! The only way to ensure that the retribution the Obasanjo entourage dread will not be visited on them is to retrace their steps, but I think the regime is far too gone along the route it has chosen: the systematic ruination of Nigeria, by its political, economic and ideological choices over the past six years. I believe that the leading operatives of this government would have a lot to answer for in the future.
