Former President General Olusegun Obasanjo or Baba Iyabo as he is fondly called is one Nigerian that loves to be in the spotlight, giving sermons, criticisms and homilies on self righteousness. Even though he sees the press as mindless and godless folk and placed them in the same category with dogs, Baba still revels in using whatever medium he finds to pontificate on national issues.
You see Obasanjo as a statesman has a thing for criticizing everybody, a habit he found too pleasant years ago when he was a potbellied military head of state. He loved taking potshots at the nation’s greats and even the likes of Azikiwe and Awolowo were not spared from such diabolical like criticisms.
Away from power, Obasanjo kept up the boogie, waltzing and traipsing with his Asheju rhythms in which he told every leader who came after him his life history. He chalked up points with the general public for his barbed like litany of polemics, he hemmed and hawed criticizing everything under the Nigerian sun, unfortunately when fate ushered the General in for a second stint as president, the same Obasanjo could not live up to his “talk on policies with a human face” or his disdain for the corrupt elite, Obasanjo’s eight years as president witnessed in monumental proportions the very issues he criticized all for.
So when an Obasanjo engages in a shadowy denouement of President Buhari’s yet to be completed tenure by stating that the incumbent had done his best to proffer solutions to the security challenges confronting the nation and that expecting more from the Katsina-born retired major general was akin to kicking a dead horse.
This is vintage Obasanjo, Obasanjo the all knowing, Saint Obasanjo, the man who disappointed his numerous supporters like us so early in his tenure and yet here he is attempting to eclipse the Buhari administration two years to the end of his tenure.
Obasanjo in that missive simply dismissed whatever hopes Nigerians are expectant of in President Buhari in terms of security. Now while this is not to say that President Buhari in his six years as President has been on top of his game as our Commander in Chief, in terms of results. it is however common knowledge that no President in the annals of Nigerian history has sought to tackle the nation’s insecurity problems like President Buhari. Critics like Obasanjo who seek to dismiss such efforts by Buhari should simply tell Nigerians how much arms they procured for the Nigerian Army or how well did he or his administration try to boost the morale of the armed forces or other security agencies? What did Obasanjo do with the security reports he received on Mohammed Yusuf’s numerous activities which metamorphosed into Boko Haram, perhaps had Obasanjo being more proactive the NorthEast would not have become a theater of war as presently witnessed.
So it can be seen that Obasanjo is merely chasing shadows on the performance of President Buhari in terms of security, Obasanjo in his criticism does not even care to proffer solutions on how to help nip the situation in the bud like every statesman worth his salt ought to do. It’s just one form of mindless criticism, to make the incumbent look weak and indecisive.
Did Obasanjo do anything to nip kidnapping and the series of crisis which his government experienced such as the Plateau crisis or Niger Delta crisis in the bud when he was President ? Did it not take the gentle diplomacy of the late President Umaru Yar Adua to restore peace and normalcy to the area years after Obasanjo had left office? Where is Obasanjo’s scorecard on security, unlike Buhari where are the milestones or achievements of the Obasanjo administration on security? Should I delve into the numerous political assassinations that happened under his watch, including that of his Chief Law Officer, Chief Bola Ige, Marshall Harry, Aminosoari Dikibo and countless others that have today remain unsolved , did these men just drop dead or as Professor Soyinka candidly put it that there were vipers in that nest that did strike inwards?
Finally, I do not think President Buhari or his coterie of handlers ought to respond to Obasanjo, except by doing more to arrest the ugly situation and rekindle the confidence of the Nigerian public in the government’s efforts to tackle insecurity all over the country. Patriotic Nigerians would love to see Buhari address the disturbing situation in the NorthEast and NorthWest in particular with improved results, this way he would prove naysayers and shadow chasers such as the likes of Obasanjo wrong as well as etch his name in the minds of numerous Nigerians as a man who kept to his promises of delivering Nigeria from the gloomy hold of insecurity.