By
SAM NDA-ISAIAH
This is the subject of a discussion that has
been taking
place for quite some time now but which has
reached a
frenzy since former president Obasanjo’s letter-
bomb
to President Jonathan. It is a discussion or an
argument
that I have been reluctant to encourage. As the
reader
will have noticed, the question is not who is
better
between Obasanjo and Jonathan but who is
worse. This
presupposes, quite correctly, that both of them
are bad
for Nigeria. Only God knows why He afflicted
Nigeria
with both of them, but God is always right.
Nigeria would
have been a much better place without them
as
presidents. The answer to the question is not
that easy.
Anyone who wants to answer the question –
who is worse
between Obasanjo and Jonathan? – must first
be ready
to answer the famous question: Which came
first, the
chicken or the egg?
The truth is that every bad thing Jonathan is
doing today
he learnt from Obasanjo. Jonathan has only
done them
all bigger than his teacher. And why should
Obasanjo,
the teacher, complain? Is it not the wish of all
teachers
that their students should outdo them?
General Abdulsalami Abubakar handed over
power to
General Olusegun Obasanjo on May 29, 1999,
in an
election that was generally regarded as
credible. But
that was the last credible election that Nigeria
has had
till date. All the elections since then have been
massively
rigged, sometimes by Obasanjo, the president
himself.
The elections Obasanjo conducted as president,
in 2003
and 2007, have been the worst in the history of
elections
in the country. Obasanjo as president
personally
supervised the crime of election rigging, many
times
very openly. So far, Jonathan has supervised
only the
2011 general elections. And even though he
would have
won the presidential election anyway, because
the
opposition parties were not as organised as
they are
today, Jonathan still went ahead to rig the
elections
badly, using the same methods and tricks as
Obasanjo
did. He proved to be a very good student of
Obasanjo
because Jonathan showed, by his conduct of
the 2011
election that even if he was the only candidate
standing
in that presidential election, he would still
have rigged
the election. Rigging obviously runs in the
family. If
Jonathan insists on contesting the 2015
elections in spite
of the promise he made to his party men in
2011, it is
because he saw what Obasanjo did with his
own
promises. There was also a tacit
understanding that
Obasanjo was going to do only one term from
1999.
He
nonetheless contested and rigged the 2003
election
massively. Before then, Bola Ige had to be
killed to make
the rigging easier in the south-west which
Obasanjo
thought he needed badly. In 2006, Obasanjo
started
sharing bribes to the National Assembly
members to get
a third term. Jonathan saw all that, so why
should he
keep his own promise? What is wrong in
Obasanjo’s
student wanting his own third term? Let
someone else
complain, but not Obasanjo.
The Jonathan government is the most corrupt
government Nigeria has ever seen. But before
the
Jonathan government came into being,
Obasanjo’s
government was the most corrupt government
Nigeria
had ever known at the time. If Obasanjo is
screaming
about the magnitude of corruption today,
which he
correctly said is about to ground the Nigerian
state, it
must be because he didn’t think anyone would
ever beat
his record of corruption and impunity.
Jonathan’s
government steals in trillions, Obasanjo’s
government in
billions and a few times in trillions. The $12
billion
Obasanjo squandered on fake electricity supply
was
N1.4 trillion at the exchange rate when the
money was
stolen. Both governments are governments of
thieves
and crooks and both have been very
detrimental to
Nigeria’s development.
And talking about corruption, how can anyone
forget so
soon how Obasanjo squandered N300 billion
on roads
with nothing to show for it? Many of us talked
on this
issue ad nauseam when he was in power but
got no
response. And how can anyone forget so soon
how
Obasanjo also squandered $12 billion on
power
generation and all we got was a change of
name from
NEPA to PHCN? What about COJA and the
several
companies like ALSCON Obasanjo privatised
into his
pocket? What about Transcorp, the Aso Rock
company
which he shamelessly used in cahoots with
other crooks
to corruptly capture NITEL and several oil
blocks?
Obasanjo shared more oil blocks than all his
predecessors and successors put together,
most of
them dubiously.
In all of President Obasanjo’s eight years as
president,
there was no single year he implemented the
national
budget according to the appropriation law, yet,
by law
and conventions of democracy, one single
budgetary
infraction was enough to impeach and remove
him from
office. So, if President Jonathan has become
notorious
for not implementing budgets, it is Obasanjo
that
emboldened him.
During Obasanjo’s days, the price of oil went
as high as
$147 per barrel. Under General Sani Abacha,
Obasanjo’s
nemesis that he loves to deride, it was barely $
20 per
barrel, yet Abacha had more to show for his
five years in
power than Obasanjo’s eight years in office.
Abacha
stabilised the naira at N80 to a dollar
throughout his
days. Under Obasanjo, it was N120 or more to
a dollar.
Gwarimpa Housing Estate, one of Abacha’s
footprints,
was considered the largest estate in Africa at
the time
it was built. No one remembers any such
edifice that
Obasanjo put in place. The PTF which Abacha
created
remains the most outstanding achievement of
any
government in the last 20 years. Abacha was
courageous
enough to talk his senior, General Muhammadu
Buhari,
into accepting to head the PTF. With just N2
from every
litre after a fuel price increase, the PTF used
less than
$2 billion to virtually change the face of the
country.
Obasanjo increased fuel prices as many times
as he
desired with nothing except the suffering of the
people
to show for it. The PTF showed how very little
money
could achieve so much. Obasanjo likes to talk
about how
he created the GSM revolution.
He should also
tell
Nigerians how much of Nigeria’s money he
used to
achieve that. The GSM revolution would still
have
happened at the time it did in Nigeria as it
happened in
every other country on the surface of the earth
even if
there was no president in place. It was a
global
phenomenon. It’s like a Nigerian president
claiming
credit for the coming of the internet into
Nigeria.
In terms of security, while Obasanjo’s people
killed
every Nigerian they saw as a stumbling block
– Bola Ige,
Marshal Harry, Aminasoari Dikibo, Chuba
Okadigbo and a
lot more – Jonathan simply allowed us to kill
ourselves.
Obasanjo’s era was marked by political
assassinations
and cold-blooded murders. Governor Orji Uzor
Kalu
escaped death but he knew exactly who sent
the
assassins. Audu Ogbeh escaped death and he
too knew
exactly who sent the killers. But Jonathan has
not been
personally associated (so far) with any
political murders
the way Obasanjo was. I hope it remains so,
but if
Obasanjo said snipers are being trained, that
leaves
many of us worried because Obasanjo has the
capacity
to know.
The main difference between Obasanjo and
Jonathan is
that Obasanjo was a competent president who
was a
crook, while Jonathan is totally and completely
incompetent but found himself president by
Obasanjo’s
designed accident. Obasanjo knows
government and how
government works but deliberately chose to
destroy the
system. On the other hand, Jonathan, not
equipped for
the job should not be president in the first
place and
would not have been president but for
Obasanjo’s
crookedness.
If President Obasanjo had allowed free and fair
primaries in his own PDP, there was no way a
terminally ill
Umaru Yar’Adua and a clueless Jonathan
would have
emerged the presidential candidate and
running mate
respectively. Obasanjo did what he did
because he
wanted to continue to be the de facto president
even
after leaving Aso Rock. At least that is what he
told
Nasiru el-Rufai, as revealed in el-Rufai’s book,
The
Accidental Public Servant.
Obasanjo was competent, Jonathan is not; but
Obasanjo
was also a crook and Jonathan is arguably
not. For
instance, Obasanjo would not have retained
Stella Oduah
up to this point. He knows the kind of terminal
damage
this does to a government.
He would have
dismissed her
with ignominy, if to boost his fake anti-
corruption
credentials. Obasanjo would have reshuffled
this
cabinet a long time ago. He would not keep
this kind of
cabinet. And, unlike Jonathan who dropped
several
ministers months ago and still has been
unable to replace
them, Obasanjo would not be that
incapacitated.
Obversely, Jonathan is unlikely to change his
party
chairman by putting a gun to his head as
Obasanjo did
when he wanted Audu Ogbeh to resign as PDP
chairman.
And Jonathan is yet to send his cronies to
kidnap a
sitting governor as Obasanjo did with Chris
Uba
kidnapping Governor Chris Ngige.
So, the answer to the question -- who’s worse
between
Obasanjo and Jonathan? -- I don’t know, but
what I
know is that Nigeria would have been a better
place if
both of them had not been presidents.
Having said all that, Jonathan must still
respond to
everything Obasanjo said in his letter. What he
has given
so far as a response is more embarrassing
than
Obasanjo’s letter itself.
For Jonathan to think
that
because the CBN governor has recanted on his
$50
billion missing money means he has no
question to answer
on corruption only confirms everything I have
said about
him. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, his finance minister,
said
$10.8 billion is still missing. Or, didn’t the
president hear
that one? We are still waiting.
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