If you wish to look at the mud thrown at Obasanjo, you simply need to listen to all the silent conversations going on. Even those who are publicly his friends, in their closets release all sorts of virulent impurities about the man and then the very next hour they come shining their teeth in public at how “great” the man is. That is the irony there. The man is indeed great in the annals of Nigerian story. He is not a George Washington, or a Harry Truman, but he is to Nigeria what Marcus Aurelius was to Rome, a man full of wisdom and strength with a gaze towards legacies, protection of the realm at all cost in war, words and rhetoric. The conversation Obasanjo has wrought outside power and his everyday activities are carefully hidden from public view. No one knows how his today’s silent leadership goes above the fray to make sure you are where you are now, relatively at peace and oblivious of what others are doing for your own sustenance. It is important that you look at the man to see where you see yourself in his members and cherish it. The current activities of Obasanjo are a continuous and restless realignment, a realignment of his being onto Nigeria.
His dreams about Nigeria are alive and well and he holds deep conversations with friends to establish a Nigerian dream for all and sundry. While he is blamed for all the malaise of his time in power plus blames, he receives if a man fails to impregnate his wife, he seems to ignore it all and like Aurelius focus on what must be done for the betterment of the realm as if he is the current president. But why is he losing sleep to make Nigeria work? It is because his life has been about Nigeria and all his being is about creating a Nigeria that will shock the detractors of Nigeria.
When Obasanjo returned to power in 1999, he created an atmosphere of hope, a practical hope that prepared the air for euprasophy. He quickly became a figure of work, never really sleeping, always talking to those who think like him, gathering like and great minds to come serve with him, taking walks by 2am while we dozed in our beds. I have asked myself why he worked so hard? I initially thought it was because Abacha had boasted that Obasanjo will not come out of prison alive. But then I think his stoic determination to serve can be located in what his friend Desmond Tutu told him when he wanted to join politics. He asked him “What will make you not be in the service of your country if the people want you? Is it fear or will you say you have served God enough because you serve God by serving the people?” I think that is it. You serve God by serving the people. Obasanjo himself has a particular decorum when God is mentioned. He tends to pause in deep thought, head bowed and with a menacing look. He understands the deep dimensions of God. So, when it is about God he tends to listen.
His presidency from 1999 to 2007 really was filled with astounding happenings which we cannot delve into in such a short piece. But just take a look at the happenings of those years. You will see it was a period of turbulence and glories. The turbulence arose from the intractable and complex rigmarole that arises in governing Nigeria. Indeed, Nigerians are particularly difficult to govern. Their complex forms of life and their insatiable wish for more and more comfort and more and more assurances places leaders in serious destructive dilemmas. But Obasanjo was always governing at the precipice. Just when you think there is no way out from a particular problem, he will provide the solution from his hat the next morning. He will always get a solution even from unlikely sources. He sat down with feared leaders of the Niger Delta militants like Asari Dokubo and Tom Ateke just to make sure a solution is reached. Other people will dismiss these two as miscreants and go back to the use of force and destructions. But Obasanjo’s leadership is an uncommon one, a leadership so inclusive that we have to admit that it looked non-Nigerian.
Throughout that 8-year presidency, we saw the depth and breadth of Obasanjo, we saw him in the murky waters of politics swimming comfortably with sharks and whales all to make Nigeria work. Like we said, this is one finite being! Could he have transformed selves and society completely within 8 years? The answer is no! He would not have had the divinity to do that. But we are looking at what his intensions were, his human intensions with all his weaknesses and failures. Place these side by side with what Nigeria is, you will then make copious apologies for all the careless and ugly descriptions you have ever made about this man. Apologies to Obasanjo is not about his person. It is about a lack of understanding of his actions and words. His person is jolly and irreproachable. But his actions and words are never fully understood since we are always offering a perspective about what we see as right and wrong, perspectives that are not always correct. So, since your perspective is not always correct, you have to apologise to this man. The process of apologies arises from the already stated fact that it is the people that usually determine how a leader is to be seen in the annals of history. The people served by Obasanjo and those who believe he did not serve them, must start forming the correct analysis of the man despite the monumental degradation Nigeria has become.
Despite these degradations and the coming doom, Obasanjo has remained in doors advising leaders of various stripes within and outside Nigeria, always speaking to them about the urgency of centering Nigeria and marginalizing the ethnic nationalities and making life better for all Nigerians. Obasanjo have continued to work very hard at 80 years plus (although we don’t know if he is more than 90), belonging to such organizations like InterAction Council, Africa Progress Panel, Club de Madrid, Kenya Institute of Management, Tana High Level forum on Security in Africa, African 2.0, Africa-Caribbean-Pacific Group of States-Eminent Persons’ Group, West Africa Commission on Drugs, Brenthrust Foundation, Diabetes Research Group, and a host of others. Why is he doing this? He is doing all these to further the Nigerian story and to place it on the right course. Will he indeed be doing it for another reason? There is no other reason within Obasanjo that is not about Nigeria and Nigerians. His legacy which he is building, like his Presidential library and his university, are legacies for Nigeria and nothing more. He is a man that keeps giving and giving. These monuments to the Obasanjo’s monumental philosophy of Nigeria are so multidimensional to the extent that if you wish to correct yourself and wish to form the right perspectives about this towering figure, visit to see all the dimensions of these physical legacies. These will help you understand better all the years Obasanjo spent serving Nigeria despite his personal weaknesses.
As years role by and the Obasanjo detractors keep working at their revisionist history, we must contemplate again, Obasanjo of Nigeria and cultivate a perspective befitting to him. All the mistakes, the missed opportunities in relation to Obasanjo must be reexamined in the global context of the reasons behind every word and action of this man. Obasanjo himself provided a testament of his actions by providing a template or prism from which each can measure him. He says that he has three basic tests for his actions in private and in public. He said “is my conscience clear, will it serve the interest of or be beneficial to the majority, and can I defend my words and actions before God and man? Once these three conditions are satisfied, I go ahead no matter whose ox is gored.” With this, we can see that all the folktales about Obasanjo will continue for good or bad but when we form perspectives for posterity, we must form it in such a way that we realise that Obasanjo have spoken to us about himself and we are part of his story. Is our story good? Are we perfect? Can you govern Nigeria and it becomes perfect? Is we answer these questions properly; we will then begin to form folktales that is befitting to this man.
The Roman Emperor Aurelius was directly worried about what his legacy will be when he passed away. He thought about handing over power to his son who lacked the requisite wisdom and candor. He advised himself against that. He looked at one of his generals whom he saw as austere and having deep wisdom and made moves to hand over power to him even though he was a commoner. But then fate made Emperor Aurelius to lose out on his wish to impose a wise stoic personality who will further his legacy. He failed. We know the end of this story. Obasanjo is not really like Aurelius as far as legacies are concerned. Obasanjo believes that history will look at all his words and acts and decide where to place him. But then, the people are the ones to tell the stories. The people must not forget the person Obasanjo is, what he has done and is still doing so that each Nigerian will go around with hope and life. We should not forget. Following the poet Kripling’s “Lest we forget”, we also say:‘God of our fathers, known of old,Lord of our far-flung battle line, Beneath whose awful hand we hold, Dominion over palm and pine—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, LEST WE FORGET.
Dr. Igwilo writes from Ota, Ogun State
