For a President who came to power on the crest of abundant goodwill, it is perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of Nigeria that within a spate of four years, Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, President and Commander-in-Chief, is today disliked and pooh-poohed by the same people who granted him the benefit of doubt during his first term when he kept fumbling and blundering . In what has become crystal clear, Nigerians are today saying no to Obasanjo’s reform policies which has subjected the masses to untold hardship. At what cost would Obasanjo retrace his steps and is there any hope that he would?
A spiral of despair
For a country in a spiral of despair, how much more can Nigerians take from their president?
While he insists he is focused and self-willed, others see a president who is self-conceited.
Where his advisers say he is committed to the fight against corruption, others insist the fight against corruption is cosmetic and illusory because the holistic approach the fight requires is lacking.
Where Nigerians see a president whose actions suggest that inflicting maximum pain on the citizenry has become a directive principle of his economic policy, his advisers say he is a misunderstood president.
And so, Nigerians are praying that their president, Obasanjo, finds the wisdom in knowing the difference between what he can change and what he can not change because that is the bane of his style of governance, a style which is at best shambolic in form and destructive in content
Mantu’s Committee: Does Obasanjo mean well?
Senator Musiliu Obanikoro had last Thursday, raised the issue of the impending strike and called on fellow senators to do something urgent, stressing that Nigerians were dying from hunger, one induced by the overdose of reforms which seem not to come with palliatives needed to cushion its harsh effects on the generality of Nigerians. Obanikoro had tried to draw the attention of the deputy senate president, Ibrahim Nasir Mantu, who was presiding that day, to the sufferings of Nigerians, a suffering which could have been avoided had the Federal Government been clear headed about its reform agenda. But Mantu would not hear any of that. At a time when labour was set to embark on a nationwide strike action in collaboration with civil society groups, this was what the presiding senator Mantu, who is actually seen as being more Aremu than Obasanjo, had to say:
“I don’t know anywhere in Nigeria where people are dying from hunger. We have the percentage of people who are dying from HIV/AIDS but we don’t know of Nigerians dying from hunger.”
It did not matter to Mantu that Nigerians were groaning under the burden imposed by Obasanjo’s hydra-headed reform programme. It did not matter to Mantu that between 1999 and 2004 while Obasanjo ran (and is still running) the country, that the price of petrol had jumped from N22 per litre to N53. It could not have mattered to Mantu that Nigerians have now become impoverished much more than they were even under the rule of Sani Abacha. Rather than acknowledge the contributions of Obanikoro, Mantu chose to lampoon him and pooh-pooh the reality that Nigerians are today hungrier and are, therefore, in need of government support, more than ever before because of the self-same government’s draconian reformist policies which rather than bring succour has left (and is leaving) the people more impoverished.
And to demonstrate how insensitive President Obasanjo could be, he has appointed the same Mantu, a man who just eight days ago lampooned his colleague in the senate for daring to suggest that Nigerians were suffering from the effects of government reforms, to head a committee on palliatives to cushion the effects of the same reforms. If Mantu did not believe that Nigerians were wreathing under the pains of government policies, what has changed in the last eight days to suggest that Mantu has changed his perception to earn him the chairmanship of the committee? What has changed in Nigeria to suggest that a Mantu chairmanship would bring palliatives to the people of Nigeria.
Labour/civil Society Coalition, LASCO, has given the committee the scorn it deserves. It has directed its members to pull out.
Why call LASCO’s bluff?
When some two weeks ago, LASCO signaled its intention to embark on strike, the presidency did not do anything to call for dialogue. The federal government only chose to engage LASCO in talks when it was barely five days to the commencement of the strike action. And even when it did, the talks were not designed to achieve any positive effect as it continued to brake down session after session.
Deceiving Oshiomole to Aso Rock
A clear example of the manner in which Obasanjo appreciates the enormity of the problems on ground can be located in the manner in which the labour leader, Oshiomole, was invited to Aso Rock. On Monday, the first day of the strike action, officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, a force that has completely lost credibility under the leadership of Tafa Balogun, a man who cuts the image of a Sumo wrestler, ensured that labour leaders at their national headquarters in Abuja did not leave the premises - they were more or less held hostage in their office.
It was only when signal came from Aso Rock Presidential Villa that a meeting had been called that the policemen allowed and in fact piloted the labour leaders to the Villa.
Unfortunately and to demonstrate how unreasonable government officials could be, the impression conveyed that Obasanjo was to negotiate with Oshiomole and his team only turned out to be the inauguration of a committee to provide, as it were, medicine after death -and that is the type of committee which you would find a Mantu heading.
The maturity with which LASCO leaders took it, first participating, before finally junking the committee should be commended.
What manner of a president would convey a wrong impression to achieve cheap and effervescent objective.
Even the talks, Vanguard reliably gathered, was one held under very absurd circumstances.
Because President Obasanjo is the only man who knows everything, it did not matter to him that the same opposition and protest which he is trying to shoot down today was the saving grace he needed to escape from General Sani Abacha’s hangman in 1995.
For a president who had served some years in jail, and who was only released by the sheer grace of God Almighty, Nigerians are still asking whether indeed the God who spared Obasanjo only chose to spare his life for an end, going by all indicators, which may not be particularly inspiring - this is the talk in the streets.
Delivering budget to National Assembly on day two of strike
And because this is President Obasanjo’s Nigeria in the year 2004, he chose Day 2 of the strike to deliver his budget to the national assembly. Even at that joint session, most of the legislators wore long faces because there were among them those who could just not reconcile the reality on the street, in terms of the effectiveness of the strike, with the sermon about a budget which Mr. President was delivering. Was it meant to create the impression that everything was okay? Or was it meant to put a brave face to a problem which is clear and present?
Ignoring the need to empower the middle class
In the not so complex world of basic economics, it has become a known fact that the best possible way for any government to revamp an ailing economy is the invigoration of the middle class to an extent that the purchasing power of those who constitute the middle class is buoyed.
In fact, all things being equal, every society has a preponderance of the middle class, no matter how buoyant the economy is.
Therefore, when Sir Henry A(lfred) Kissinger makes the point that “history shows that normally prudent, ordinary calculations can be overturned by extraordinary personalities. In the case of Lee Kuan Yew, the father of Singapore’s emergence as a national state, the ancient argument whether circumstance or personality shapes events is settled in favor of the latter.” See box.
The problem with Obasanjo is that he has refused to see the wisdom in changing his strategy which continues to rubbish whatever good he thinks he is achieving.
Has anything good come out of Obasanjo?
This question, in all honesty, deserves thorough examination without bias.
If truth be told, the reform initiatives of Obasanjo is as good as it gets.
However, there is always a need for equilibrium.
It is that difference between introducing policy equilibrium and insisting that his own way is the only way that seems to have poured cold water on all the efforts of President Obasanjo.
Is it the investment in gas, which places Nigeria in the bracket of the prospective largest exporter of gas in the next three years, an exportation which would dwarf whatever is being realised from crude oil. Or would it be the area of power generation (although distribution remains a big problem). Should we mention anti-corruption, an element of which is the due-process which has saved tens of billions of tax payers money which would have gone down the drain. That is not all.
Is it in the area of foreign relations where nations are falling heads over heels just to be seen as friendly with Nigeria, a move which has mostly to do with the personality of Obasanjo as an internationsl statesman.
Indeed, something good can come (and has been coming) out of Obasanjo but his insistence that because he is not a thief then every other soul is an armed rubber smacks of arrogance spiced with tomfoolery.
If Obasanjo continues along this path, all he would have succeeded in doing would be to create a very fertile ground for whoever would take over from him to become a super star because all an in-coming president would need to do to earn respect of the masses would be to share their pains, humble himself and relax this swashbuckling approach to governance.
Once that is done, such a president would claim all the credits which ordinarily should have gone to President Obasanjo. If his advisers are smart, they should work on him with a view to softening the negative aura which his every action radiates.
And the question should be asked: What positive attribute can any Nigerian point at as proof positive that Obasanjo means well for Nigerians since the commencement of his second term?
