By Biko Agozino
“The lice of poor performance in government -
poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of
duty, condonation of misdeed - if not outright encouragement of it, lack of
progress and hope for the future, lack of national cohesion and poor management
of internal political dynamics and widening inequality - are very much with us
today. With such lice of general and specific poor performance and crying
poverty with us, our fingers will not be dry of ‘blood’.” – Obasanjo
The press release by
General Olusegun Obasanjo concerning the state of Nigeria is full of evasions
and half-truths. It is not ‘lice’ that make the lousy ‘fingers’ of Obasanjo and his
fellow genocidists ‘not to be dry of “blood”. Their fingers are dripping with
fresh blood because the killings have continued unabated since the launch of
the genocide against the Igbo who wisely voted massively against the Buhari regime that Obasanjo helped to impose.
For full disclosure,
Obasanjo is expected to admit his complicity in the ongoing genocide and offer
unconditional apologies to the Igbo in particular. He should join all
well-meaning people to demand for atonement in the form of reparations. Obasanjo
should admit that the gruesome killings by security forces, terrorists and herdsmen
that he lamented follow the pattern of the genocide against innocent Igbomasses. Unless Nigerians admit and make atonement for this foundational
genocide, the culture of genocidal violence will continue to wet the fingers of
genocidist rulers with ‘blood’, according to the laws of karma.
However, despite all
his human limitations and with all his involvement in crimes against humanity,
Obasanjo remains exceptional for being the first head of state in Nigeria to
hand over power to an elected successor and he did so twice though he has been
accused of imposing flawed successors. He is also the first head of state to
appoint more women to offices in his administration although some suspect that
some of those women may wear the #MeToo pin against him.
He was able to
settle the dispute with Cameroon over Bakassi without plunging Nigeria into a
wasteful war with our African neighbors, though he could have better planned the resettlement of the Nigerians expelled from there or negotiated the admission of Cameroon to the opoen borders of ECOWAS. Similarly, Obasanjo had a magical way
of resolving some political crises in other African states by, for example,
persuading militarists to yield power back to civilians just as he persuaded
Charles Taylor to step down in Liberia, though some suspect that he bargained corruptly
with bags of public funds.
Despite the massive
corruption in his administration, Obasanjo was and remains the only head of
state to establish a special economic and financial crimes commission, EFCC,
with which a sitting Inspector General of Police from his own ethnic group was
convicted of corruption and jailed and some governors from his own party were
indicted, though the EFCC under him allegedly went after mainly his perceived
political opponents.
It is exceptional
that apart from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Obasanjo is the only Nigerian head of
state to publish books even if they were allegedly ghost-written for him by his
research assistants; nothing stops other politicians from appointing their own
research assistants. He is the only Nigerian head of state to initiate a
presidential library even if the funding involved massive corruption by
governors who donated public funds, according to Gani Fawehinmi. Obasanjo remains the only Nigerian head of
state, with the exception of General Yakubu Gowon whose arranged Ph.D. yielded no publication so far, to recognize his own intellectual limitations and return to school to pursue an advanced degree.
Obasanjo is also the
only former Nigerian head of state to call for Nigeria to beg 'agitators to stop' because there is enough cake to be shared. Obasanjo should go ahead
and lead by example by offering a personal apology of his own and by calling on
his fellow genocidist commanders to join him in offering reparations from their
fabulous ill-gotten wealth. Obasanjo should call on Britain and Russia which facilitatedthe genocide against the Igbo to offer apologies and reparations to the Igbo
too.
The call by Obasanjo
for a Coalition of Nigerians is too little too late since he also recognized how crucial it is for Nigeria to be involved in the leadership of Africa. The coalition-building
should involve all other states in Africa towards the United States of Africa
that the first president of the country, Azikiwe, called for in 1959 and which
Nkrumah and others echoed. With almost all Nigerians demanding the
restructuration of the country, focusing exclusively on the internal colonial
boundaries of Nigeria is unsatisfactory.
As Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
and Chinua Achebe remind us, the genocidal culture that was initiated against
the Igbo in Nigeria has since spread throughout post-colonial Africa. Moreover,
the African masses have transgressed the porous colonial boundaries in search
of their daily livelihood in spite of heightened insecurities and genocidal
threats. We need to recognize this reality and urgently build the Peoples
Republic of Africa to guarantee the freedom of our people and collectively protect
the masses against the imposed genocidist states ruled with blood-stained
fingers across Africa.
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