Because of a juvenile interpretation of Scriptures,
especially the 13th Chapter of Paul�s Epistle to the Romans, there are those
who constantly assert that Obasanjo was raised by God to provide the only
need of Nigeria-a good government. Such people should be reminded that God
was alive when Mussolini, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Mobutu
Sesesoko, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and other despots ascended to
power. The point here is not that Obasanjo belongs to this phylum of
despots. Rather, one is debunking the fallacy of ascribing all events in
history to God. My Evangelical Christian faith is comfortable with the
notion of God�s permissive will enabling Obasanjo to become our president.
However, Christians know that sometimes, the permissive will of God is
completely different from His directive will. The election of retired
General Obasanjo (in pix) as the president of Nigeria was directed not by
God but by a survivalist, self-serving cabal of current and retired
Generals.
God loves Nigeria and Only God will save it.
Whenever Nigeria�s problems are discussed, it does not
take long before someone asserts, with an air of sanctimoniousness, that
�only God can save Nigeria.� Sometimes, those who make such assertions cloak
themselves in the toga of intellectual sophistry as they mockingly ask an
activist: �What changes have been achieved on account of your activism?�
Of course, it is easy to countermand such scoffers by
asking them in return: �Why has God not changed Nigeria despite your prayers
and the religious fervor of Nigerians? Despite endless prayers, fasting,
retreats, revivals and million-man jamborees, why do Nigerian telephones and
power supply constantly fail? Most Japanese care nothing about the Bible or
the Koran but their telephones work, as do their railway system and other
public utilities.
By contrast, why are Nigerian post offices, passport and
immigration offices, educational institutions and public utilities in such
state of chaos and dysfunction? Does God not love Nigeria? Can the
omnipotent God not cure the problems of NEPA in an instant? Why do
preventable diseases like meningitis, cholera, typhoid, malaria and
malnutrition continue to denigrate the lives of our people to a fragment of
hell? Does God not care? Is He not able to save?
The answers are simple: God cares; He is able to save.
But we, Nigerians, deceive ourselves when we parade religious dogma as
authentic spirituality.
In today�s Nigeria, the name of Jesus has been reduced to
a magical mantra invoked like a metaphysical abracadabra by those who are
doctrinally too erroneous, intellectually too lazy, politically too obtuse,
socially too reactionary and ideologically too confused. Because they are
also spiritually too undiscerning, attitudinally too miserly, physically too
undisciplined and psychologically too detached, they are of little use to
God or man! For Moses, Joshua, Nehemiah, Esther, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Nahum,
Obadiah, Micah, Habakkuk, John the Baptist and yes, Jesus Christ, faith was
not a fatalistic resignation in the face of challenges.
Indeed, even in the most supernal of tasks, that of
saving of a soul, the Apostle Paul says, �we are laborers together with God�
(1 Corinthians 3: 9). God loves Nigeria and will use Nigerians to rescue
Nigeria from its rut. Those who use God�s holy name as canopy for their
inaction and dereliction of civic duty forget that the essence of true
religion lies not in sanctimonious creed but in sanctified deed.
It is true that the Bible says that the just shall live
by faith (Habakkuk 4: 2). However, faith without works is metaphysical
hogwash. Indeed, the Apostle James bluntly calls it �dead religion.�
All that Nigeria needs is a good government, and God has
raised Obasanjo to provide it.
On at least two occasions, I published articles about
Obasanjo�s antecedents showing why he would be a very bad President at this
momentous pass of Nigeria�s history. Of course, the view of one person, no
matter how considered, need not prevail. Flawed as the electoral process
was, Chief Obasanjo emerged as President and deserved the support of all
Nigerians.
In accordance with the finest tradition of democratic
liberalism, I immediately not only offered President Obasanjo my
congratulations, I pledged to him my daily prayers and whatever support I
can render to ensure his success. Hence, despite the personal discomfort of
the exercise, I published a scathing article in six Nigerian newspapers
taking the leadership of the AD and Afenifere to task over their objection
to Chief Ige serving in the Obasanjo cabinet. Unfortunately, it is now
obvious that all Nigeria will get from President Obasanjo is administrative
tinkering. A federalism gone asunder is the albatross strangling Nigeria�s
neck. Obasanjo has no intention to free us from this Draconian octopus with
its suffocating tentacles.
In any case, in the name of national unity, it was
Obasanjo�s earlier regime that buried voracious termites beneath the wood of
Nigerian federalism. Nigeria will never know peace or prosperity for as long
as we adhere to the current overbearing, centralist system in which the
Federal Government has the audacity to fix the salaries of state
functionaries.
Is it imaginable that the US Federal Government would
establish a salary structure that binds the States of California, New York,
Mississippi, Texas and Minnesota? In what other federal system in the world
are taxes collected from one state and dispersed to others? The fundamental
defects in the structure of Nigerian Federation will still be with us after
Obasanjo leaves office. Unchanging changes: forbacky dance indeed!
Why are Delta region states not given the control of the
resources within their territory? Does the United States Federal Government
control the oil of Texas, Oklahoma or Louisiana? Why should only the Federal
Government have a police force? Some have argued that because regional
police forces had sometimes been used as instruments of victimization in the
past, they should remain disbanded. By that very logic, the Nigerian Police
Force and the entire Nigerian Military should be disbanded. Certainly, they
too have been used on too many occasions as instruments of oppression.
Were we not eyewitnesses to the use of the Nigerian
Police Force to subvert the electoral wishes of the people in many parts of
Nigeria during the 1983 election? Was the apparatus of the federal police
and the military not used to terrorize the Nigerian people during the dark
days of Babangida and Abacha? Should they too be disbanded?
As military dictator, Obasanjo�s regime was the first in
Nigerian history to assign military officers as governors of states from
where they did not originate. The fixation on unity, as if it is an end unto
itself, was the pernicious foundation for the internal colonialism of the
Babangida-Abacha years.
As military dictator, Obasanjo�s regime was the first to
forcibly either ban or acquire the ownership of private newspapers. Today,
we still do not have any constitutional guarantees against such acquisition.
As military dictator, Obasanjo�s regime was the first in
Nigerian history to sack Nigerian workers en masse without established due
process. The Nigerian civil service, once among the best in the world,
collapsed under the weight of misguided passion for so-called national
discipline because sober judgment and due process were recklessly trampled.
Twenty-five years later, among Obasanjo�s first acts as
President was the sacking of workers who, again, were denied due process. As
military dictator. Obasanjo�s regime was the first in Nigerian history to
forcibly acquire state properties and institutions without any compensation.
Twenty-five years later, Obasanjo has given us no indication that he now
understands the deleterious consequences of this malignant centralism.
As military dictator, Obasanjo�s government eroded the
autonomy of state-owned television and radio stations by imposing so-called
national programs. As a consequence, those stations asphyxiated under the
burden of intemperate centralism. For example, Western Nigerian Television,
once the best in Africa, became a caricature of itself. Indeed, Obasanjo
prepared the ground for the use of those stations in furthering the satanic
ambitions of more heinous despots that later ascended to power.
As military dictator, Obasanjo�s regime was allergic to
open discourse and criticism. Obarogie Ohanbamu, Edwin Ikechukwu Madunagu,
Areoye Oyebola, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo and many other illustrious Nigerians were
forced to lose their jobs when they dared criticize Obasanjo. Twenty-five
years later, in Atlanta Georgia, when a Nigerian expressed the concerns of
his people, our supposedly �democratic� President lashed out in an
autocratic outburst: �Go to hell!� Without doubt, Nigeria needs good
governance. However, there is no indication that Obasanjo now has what it
takes to provide the visionary leadership that this moment demands. In any
case, even if by some miracle Obasanjo were able to provide good governance,
what happens when he leaves office?
Wisdom dictates to us all that this simple question be
given our urgent and grave attention. We desperately need a better
structure, a new political arrangement in which the Presidency does not
suffocate our lives by its omnipotence and omnipresence.
Nigerian unity is our highest national priority
At independence, our nation adopted a simple motto- Unity
and Faith. But the metastases of military oligarchy and its centralist
tendencies have ruined Nigeria�s unity.
Today, the Federation of Nigeria is a fatally flawed
structural abnormality. The inordinate concentration of power in the central
government is a mockery of federalism. For too long, by dishonestly touting
unity as an end unto itself, survivalist dictators have created Federal
monsters that gobbled at our innate diversity as if our God-created
diversity is, of itself, an evil!
It is now certain that President Obasanjo can never lead us out of this
political silliness and intellectual dishonesty. An African does not cease
to be human simply because he is African; a Nigerian does not cease to be
African simply because of being a Nigerian. For heaven�s sake, the diversity
of our nationalities as Tiv, Jukum, Ijaw, Ibiobio, Hausa, Igbo, Ogoni,
Fulani, Yoruba or what have you, in no way detracts from Nigerian
patriotism.
