OLUSANJO’S FAUX PAS AND MATTERS ARISING – Gora Dauda
The Oasis Reporters
January 25, 2018
Olusanjo again? Even the man himself asked this same question in his latest epistle . He is said to have been awarded a PhD in Theology by National Open University Of Nigeria (NOUN) somewhere around. Since after being forced out of Aso Rock by the dogged former Turakin Adamawa now Wazirin Adamawa he went back to school university to read Theology.
He hardly remembers the mess he put this nation into after he was dredged up from the bottom and made president by certain forces who had to do what they had to do to save their smelly arseholes. I have written about this before but let me restate here yet again that if there was even a semblance of democratic philosophy in the scripts acted out by the bunch we voted to power at that time, our man would have been impeached within the first 6 months of his assuming the presidency.
No such action was contemplated because money was deployed to silence all of them in the National Assembly. That was when Ghana Must Go became part of our everyday vocabulary and as you already know, ‘Ghana Must Go’ is a euphemism for corruption.
It must be on record that Olusanjo violated the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria much more than any president will ever do and he got away with it. Since losing the third term bid he retired to the comfort of his Otta farm from where he has been churning out letters some of them insulting to our sensibilities. The man is so much in love with comedy and almost each time he is on stage, he elicits so much laughter to a ribs threatening points.
We are aware that since Baba as he used to be called lapsed into retirement, much unlike other former this, former that, he has not completely purged himself of the addiction called politics. The international system has recognized him to the extent of anointing him a goodwill ambassador of sort but even so, he has not taken his mind completely off Nigeria’s political stage. Occasionally, he will come over from the comfort the trenches provided, take aimed shots at some target, real or imagined then quickly retire back behind the parapets.
Olusanjo’s latest barrage was fired seemingly from a multi barrel rocket louncher and as the munitions were landing there were/are mixed reactions in the polity. The barrage in the form of a long treatise was so long that the reader must make out special time to peruse it. Some commentators call the treatise ‘ A letter to President Buhari ” I will rather call it ” A sermon according to Saint Olusanjo “.
This is not a letter but a sermon because the reader imagines himself/herself listening to the Pope delivering a sermon from the pulpit of St Paul’s Cathedral in Rome or our own Bassilica in Yamassoukro. The subject matter of the lengthy sermon was not anything away from the ordinary, it is about day to day political development in Nigeria since 29 May 2015.
Many of our country men/women are largely disappointed with the performance of this government. It was far much easier assuming the presidency than effectively performing as a president. The hopes our compatriots invested in this government have all but evaporated. Many a voice including that of the President’s spouse have come out to the open to voice their frustration with the way the government is being run. The impression one gets after observing what has been passing as governance is similar to what is obtainable at a funeral. All one sees are people wearing long and mournful faces. Baba’s epistle captured the mood of the nation most succinctly.
I see a lot of hypocrisy in what the pontiff has had to say for a variety of reasons. The pontiff since the drama of burning his membership card of the now for all intents and purposes defunct PDP played a leading role in installing this government and it has been 3 years since then and the pontiff kept mute or chose to look the other way. As a former president himself, it would have been better if he had raised at the very least some of the issues in his epistle much earlier. It is possible that some of the issues he is now sermonizing on could have been addressed. When someone looks the other way while things go wrong and fails to timeously speak out against it, such will be acting out a script earlier written only to come out in condemnation after the harm has been done.
Since 2015 the pontiff, our pontiff has had cause to be out of this country on international engagements but this is not to say that he has not been following events back home. Our country has been hemorrhaging as a sequel to the slow but gradual take over of this country by carefully recruited Fulani terrorist gangs. Community after community have been sacked by these terrorists in the most brutish manner. Men, women, children and unborn babies have been put to the sword without the government blinking and the pontiff and his ilk kept mute. If these massacres were isolated cases one could have understood but they have been widespread. That Baba Olusanjo will fell for the trap of calling the Fulani jihad as farmers/herders clashes brings to the fore the level of blindness in this man. The genocide in Southern Kaduna was quickly followed by those of Agatu in Benue State. These were repeated in Plateau. Nasarswa, Adamawa, Taraba and Zamfara States.
In virtually all of these no arrest were made. The Fulani propaganda machine in Miyeti Allah have made open threats to communities mainly in the Middle Belt and elsewhere boasting how Nigeria is their God given country. The Fulani openly carry military styled arms without anybody questioning or arresting them to the extent that they are a law unto themselves. Baba Olusanjo is aware of all of these yet he has kept mute until now. It has gotten to the stage the Fulani have openly called in their tribesmen all over West Africa to mobilize resources for what they call a jihad in Nigeria yet the government says nothing whilst the pontiff plays to the gallery.
The way Nigeria is presently structured benefits only a few who are determined that the status quo be maintained even if other parts of the country are evidently marginalized. The only solution to a few lording it over others is restructuring and as it were the epistle was mute on this.
What therefore does the former president want ?
We must admit that nature has been too fair to the letter writer. During the years he spent in the political valley, he was largely spent economically and turned himself to an avid critic of the government of that era and the Abacha junta could not stomach that and so found new accommodation for him in some prison somewhere. The crises raised by the death of Abiola and Abacha provided another lifeline which informed his release from detention and his eventual presidency. Since he was smoked out of Aso Rock, he has technically arrogated to himself and a few others the position of king maker. After his presidency, he played a central role in installing Umaru Yaradua, Goodluck Jonathan and possibly President Muhammadu Buhari.
Now that the present leadership is faltering, the self ordained kingmaker is back to his political laboratory trying to direct the course of events in the lead up to 2019. The Coalition of Nigeria (CN) which the self ordained kingmaker is putting forward as replacement for the APC and PDP even if it is given birth to will not be any different from its forebears for the simple reason that it’s embryo would already have been infected with the politically acquired immune deficiency syndrome which Baba Olusanjo and his other co travellers presently constitute.
We as Nigerians are already neck deep in this mess of the government that neither sees nor hears. I suggest that Baba Olusanjo should fully retire and wait as the elder statesman he is to be consulted on key national issues. There are many of them in town, they include Gen Gowon, Shehu Shagari, IBB, triple A and Goodluck Jonathan. This time around, I think that our man is over acting his script and his prescription amounts to nothing short of medicine after death.
Written by Gora Dauda.
