OBASANJO’S BLOODY FINGERS

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.