What Really Matters To Obasanjo

The last thing he wants to hear is that he has any other ambitions save those that are beneficial to Nigeria. Olusegun Obasanjo, a hero of the Nigerian civil war, a two-term civilian president, a former military leader who oversaw the first post-war transition to civilian rule, and a highly sought-after African leader, thinks it is beneath his status to imply that he occasionally makes the wrong decisions for the country.

Over the years, he has developed make-believe uber-patriotism into an art form, masking his inflated ego. Yet, it wouldn’t be a terrible thing if he had the humility to acknowledge, even tangentially, that Obasanjo, being Obasanjo, often loses control of himself due to his enormous ego.

After separating church and state, Louis XIV is credited with saying, “I am the state,” as he famously stared out the window of his chateau in Versailles. He was, maybe for a time. Yet it wasn’t long before his conceit brought him into conflict with the Vatican and protestants, with devastating results.

Nothing is more coveted by the former president than the ability to make a single call and get two responses. While the election results were being announced on Monday, in the thick of his call for the annulment of “any elections that do not satisfy the credibility and transparency standard,” he knew exactly what to anticipate.

Obasanjo praised President Muhammadu Buhari for working to ensure a legacy of free and fair elections but expressed concern that the president’s efforts could be undermined by paid officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who were determined to rig the election under the supervision of its Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in one of the nicest public letters he has written to Buhari in his many years of epistolatory terrorism.

Obasanjo neither offered nor claimed to have any proof of the accusation. He naturally thought that because his word carried more weight than evidence and was more reliable than gospel, it was enough to convince Buhari to order INEC to halt all further announcements until he received approval from his hideout at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta.

I’m devastated that Obasanjo didn’t see the irony in his request. It is incomprehensible how the guy whose administration was responsible for one of the biggest electoral frauds in Nigerian history has the chutzpah to call for the suspension of election results mid-count on the basis of a suspicion. But, it seems that Obasanjo is too bolstered and preoccupied with his public dishonesty to give any thought to irony, a dimension of existence without which tragedy becomes overt.

Due to the enormous rigging of the general election in 2007, it was not Obasanjo who felt embarrassed. Instead, it was Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the candidate on whose behalf he manipulated the election, who expressed such great worry over the results that he vowed to do all in his power to become the last elected president to sip from such a poisoned chalice.

Both Maurice Iwu, the INEC chairman at the time and an accomplice of Obasanjo, who imposed that chalice on Nigeria to exact revenge for his foot soldiers’ $500 million expenditure to carry out his failed plan detailed in Too Good to Die, and Obasanjo have not expressed regret over the chaotic results of the elections. The outcome of that election, which took place 16 years ago as you read this article, is the only one that is still unfinished.

Yet, Obasanjo, whose administration oversaw that election, appears unconcerned about the possibility that delaying the compilation and publication of election results in the middle of the count may send the nation into the same catastrophe he said he was attempting to avoid. There is also a widely circulated recording of him by People’s Gazette encouraging young people to “go and occupy Nigeria” for whatever reason in what sounded like a low-budget Donald Trump speech.

This place is familiar to us. Anti-democratic elements delayed the declaration of the June 12, 1993 election results, which MKO Abiola had overwhelmingly won, and threw the nation into a critical crisis thirty years ago. Obasanjo was one of the plot’s most generous benefactors even though he may not have been involved in the original attempt to thwart Abiola’s victory.

His outrageous demand on Monday gave off the unsettling impression that he desperately desired a repeat of June 12—if not for himself personally, then at least for his followers.

The way the election was handled on Saturday wasn’t flawless. Yakubu over-promised and maybe mishandled expectations in his eagerness to produce a faultless drill. It was always going to be difficult to replicate what occurred in the off-season elections in Edo, Anambra, and Osun on a national level on the same day.

It didn’t help that voting supplies arrived in several locations after they were supposed to. Yet, the election legislation does not state that results that are not submitted are void. In reality, the commission has discretion over both the upload and transmission of results under Sections 60 (5) and 64 (6) of the Election Act.

The final results, which left the majority in suspense, largely dispelled any doubts that anybody may have had about the general manner in which the elections were conducted and their conclusion. A first-time presidential candidate from the Labour Party, Peter Obi, won 12 states nationwide after only nine months of campaigning, upsetting powerful political strongholds, making this election unlike any other in the last 24 years and seven general elections.

Obasanjo is determined to throw away this electoral baby along with the bathwater since it produced Obi, who received over six million votes and 25% of the vote in 16 states, something that in his time as president may have only occurred over his dead body.

Atiku Abubakar, the sixth-time presidential candidate and the most experienced of them all, lost the election due to a self-inflicted injury that cost him five governorships and his former running partner in a race where narrow margins were always going to matter.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the victor, was ensnared and sabotaged, yet he still prevailed amid cruel government measures and influential party leaders intended to crush his ambition. Despite all, he won, and because he did so with the lowest vote share (37%) since 1999, he is now obligated to collaborate with other parties to bring about the country’s healing.

What does Obasanjo fear? That Tinubu, a two-term governor, would suddenly join the exclusive group of presidents and chiefs of state, where he sees himself as the center of gravity? I’m not certain.

But it’s not inconceivable that he worries that this election could be the one that ultimately forces him into retirement—which, to be honest, won’t be a terrible thing at all—after supporting the wrong candidates in two straight for president.

Since 2015, there have been much fewer instances of court-awarded victory according to INEC’s post-election litigation record, which is a gauge of acceptable electoral results. How well this one holds up to legal examination will be fascinating to watch.

To further boost trust and transparency, INEC has come up with the bimodal system launch and increased use of technology. The fact that just 29% of the 87 million eligible voters cast ballots on Saturday, a record low even by Nigerian norms, should worry INEC.

The system and its operators shouldn’t, however, be completely destroyed as a result of the difficulties. Instead, they have to be thoroughly scrutinized and any intentional offenses dealt with to the system’s advantage.

More than anything else, Obasanjo’s request to halt and/or cancel outcomes and his dire warnings that it is either his way or the highway were made to feed his ego. It’s probably not too late for him to stop trying to emulate Mandela or compete with Wole Soyinka’s literary prowess.

Sadly, it is clear that, at this pace, he will need to do more than just work for a Nobel Prize in order to even come close to matching the record of these legends. He will need a little amount of humility. Since no man is the state, as he must be aware at this point.