By Adebayo Adeolu
Nigeria is truly a great country, though many of its citizens and leaders who emerged to rule and govern the great country had failed to discover what the British colonial leaders saw that convinced them to merge the country as one. The combination of mixed ethnicities would have made Nigeria one of the greatest countries in the whole world if it had remained in the hands of the British colonial government.
The handover to Nigerians at Independence were to leaders who were and are still not advanced in intellect and brilliance to govern the complex country to bring out its true hidden treasures. Nigeria is truly what you can call “The Land of Treasure” .
The man who achieved so much under the regional government system in his own region, the Western Region, was Obafemi Awolowo. He achieved great strides and everyone in the south west six decades after still hide under his name and policy and try to identify with his name.
The other man of distinction is Olusegun Obasanjo, who came to power initially through the military government and till date has been Nigeria’s most successful Head of state and President. He demonstrated that he understands how to govern Nigeria best.
The British who created the complex country have the master keys and knew the right buttons to press to jumpstart the complex machinery of state they created.
It is believed in many quarters that Obasanjo did not support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his campaign to be president of Nigeria. But this is not true. Obasanjo is a great and wise man. He has many natural skills and crafts and can be sometimes deft in his strategy learned from his military training and natural instincts. He is an enigma, somebody you need study his ways and strategies.
I guess Mr Bayo Onanuga and others crucifying Obasanjo and even President Tinubu, a man I once described as master strategist, missed it.
When Obasanjo was President from 1999 to 2007, an event had taken place in Nigeria just as we are experiencing now in the push for a bill for tax reform. President Tinubu who was then governor of Lagos State had created additional local governments, saying Lagos was more populated than Kano state and some other states up north of Nigeria. He had argued that he would increase that of Lagos, moving it from 20 local government councils by adding an additional 37 councils.
This triggered a friction between Obasanjo and Tinubu at the time and Tinubu was asked to reverse back to the status quo of 20 local government councils. Tinubu stood up to President Obasanjo and refused. The next thing Obasanjo did was to block the allocation of Lagos state monthly revenue to crush and crash Tinubu as governor.
The survival strategy of Tinubu surprised Obasanjo at the time and he marveled at his wisdom. This would later lead Obasanjo to write in his three volume book, “MY WATCH “ that Tinubu must be allowed to rule Nigeria because of his success at survival without monthly state allowances and allocation.
Obasanjo said Tinubu should be allowed to use his magic wand in Nigeria and must be given the opportunity to be President. What better endorsement is that? It is in black and white for the world to see.
During the campaign for the presidency, Tinubu had visited Obasanjo at his Presidential Library and dazzled everyone including Obasanjo because of the huge crowd that came along with him – almost like bringing a mini city to visit him. Obviously Obasanjo was impressed by the visit, meaning Tinubu respected him and recognized his powerful impact for an endorsement.
However the clever Obasanjo pretended he was not interested in his candidacy. It was a strategy even Tinubu did not catch wind of, as Obasanjo kept acting off hand. Obasanjo had learned not to show where his interest was after the unfortunate June 12 annulment. He knew Buhari very well and had realized since they were not on cozy terms, it would be a danger to come out openly to support Bola Tinubu.
This was even worse as he was the one who exposed the Fulanization agenda of President Buhari. So, he used his military skills and used a decoy of supporting Peter Obi, though Peter Obi had the best campaign strategy of saying what everyone and Nigerians wanted to hear. This became what everyone identified with, bringing the slogan of the Obidient’s.
But again Obasanjo knew the position of the core northern Fulani general who had fought along with him during the civil war of 1966. Obasanjo knew Buhari was not handing over to anyone from the Eastern region of Nigeria, so Peter Obi’s candidacy was going nowhere, as Buhari had said in many televised interviews that he could never forget the first coup in Nigeria and the civil war and he could never forget or forgive what happened.
Baba Obasanjo, the wise political guru and strategist, went all out campaigning with Peter Obi and this clever move paved the way for President Tinubu to emerge with ease as the President of Nigeria Buhari felt Obasanjo was against Tinubu and saw no danger of handing over to Tinubu, which brought victory.
Atiku had no chance because they could not return power to the north of Nigeria again.
The first mistake Tinubu made was he did not go and visit Obasanjo and thank him, because he did not understand the political strategy that had played out which gave him unhindered victory.
The misguided attacks on Obasanjo by the different spokesmen of President Tinubu has to stop and they should direct their energies to helping the incumbent president succeed and take a second look at some of the difficult policies and reforms that might need to be fine tuned and reviewed for the success of the president and comfort of the people of Nigeria.
Adebayo Adeolu is a political scientist, lawyer and author.
