Obj/Gbenga impasse: My own story

By Orji Kalu (Kalu Leadership Series)

Saturday, March 1, 2008

I am certain that many Nigerians have been waiting to hear my own side of the story since the imbroglio between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his son Gbenga broke out. I deliberately decided to keep quiet because I am flabbergasted by the unwholesome dimension the whole saga has assumed.

For those who know me very well, it takes me time to join issues with anybody. By my training and upbringing, I have learned to be patient, calculative and pointed. Even the designs by my adversaries to provoke me into impromptu and rash reactions have been rebuffed. It is this attitude that has made it difficult for me to promptly respond to the wild and misguided allusions made to me over the issue in discussion by Obasanjo.

Gbenga and his father are well known to me. This is already public knowledge. I came very close to Obasanjo immediately after he was released from prison by then Nigerian head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, in 1998. I was approached at that time by some notable politicians and retired military brass to work for the emergence of Obasanjo as President. Even though I was sceptical about his presidency, because of his antecedents, I was eventually convinced to support him as a way of resolving the political logjam precipitated by the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, which the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola presumably won. As a believer in equity and justice, I threw my weight and resources behind Obasanjo.

I personally gave him US$1m in support of his aspiration. My closeness to Obasanjo made him visit Abia State from February 25-26, 2000, where he christened me the action governor of Nigeria after commissioning several projects started and completed by my administration less than 7 months in office. That visit was his first and last until he left office on May 29, 2007.

I would not want to go into all that transpired between me and Baba thereafter. But it is pertinent to state, for the benefit of hindsight, that Baba did everything humanly possible to destroy me. He unleashed the machinery of the federal government on me and made several failed attempts to remove me as governor. He started by closing down all my business concerns in Nigeria and revoked all the oil licences allotted to my companies. He did not stop at that he went a step further to frame me for money laundering using the EFCC as a willing tool.

What is the cause of our disagreement? One may ask. The truth is that Baba is not amenable to the truth. He hates to be told one. My grouse about Baba was that I alerted Nigerians on his surreptitious plan to perpetuate himself in power. Even though many people called me an alarmist then, subsequent events have since proved me right. By 2006, it was no longer a secret that he wanted to remain in office by trying in vain to amend the constitution. The money wasted on that ego-tripping by Obasanjo would have been sufficient to give the nation steady electricity. He saw me as the only obstacle between him and his life-president project and fought with all arsenals at his disposal to undo me.

But the God I serve, who has created me for a purpose, did not allow his devious plot to pull through.

I was, therefore, not too surprised when he pointed fingers at me as the perpetrator of the bad blood between him and Gbenga. I think it was preposterous and mischievous on his part to have drawn me into the impasse.

Gbenga is an adult and well-educated and as a result knows why he made such a damaging comment about his father. The veracity or otherwise of his claim against his father is left for the Obasanjo Family to sort out. It has nothing to do with me.

It may be pertinent at this juncture to state that I saw Gbenga last about 12 months ago. We are mutual friends and share business ideas quite all right, but we don’t discuss our families. Our relationship is strictly business-oriented, and this is why I am baffled at Baba’s plot to drag me into the whole fuss as scapegoat.
I have more important things doing than intruding into Baba’s private affair. His family is his own and how he runs it is entirely his own business. If his family is passing through the storm it is his business as well.

I have my own family and will not blame him if anything goes wrong tomorrow with my family.

One thing Obasanjo has failed to appreciate is that whatever one sows here on earth is what he reaps. He cannot sow cocoyam and expect to reap cocoa. His tenure as President, I am sorry to state, remains a sad chapter in Nigeria’s political history. He bequeathed to us a failed state: a nation steeped in persistent ethnic wars, insecurity and poverty, as a legacy.

We exist today as a surviving nation due largely to the urgent and remedial measures taken by President Musa Yar’Adua to right the wrongs of the past. My heart bleeds when I recall how Obasanjo, as president, fluffed all the opportunities he had to write himself into the annals of this country. He rather spent his time and the nation’s stupendous resources building personal castles and massaging his ego. All that he promised the nation when he assumed office as president never came to light. Did he not promise steady power supply, in which his government had sunk over $25billion, by the end of 2006? What did we get as his parting gift? A largely retrogressive and disenchanted nation was all we got.

He claimed to have spent billions on poverty eradication, rail, roads, and security, yet there is nothing on ground to show for it. Instead of showing remorse for his misdeeds and seeking God’s face in penance he has found it fanciful to make other innocent people scapegoats. He left the economy worse than he met it and made many criminals out of our youths instead of creating jobs for them.

What Yar’Adua has done is to capitalize on Obasanjo’s indiscretions and make a name. He saw the obvious need to subject himself to the rule of law and the constitution. The two are the basic ingredients for any democratic polity to succeed. Unfortunately Obasanjo did not see the need to divorce his military stance from his position as a civilian president.

He ruled instead of to serve and embarked on intimidation and arm-twisting to cow his perceived political opponents.

No nation as large as Nigeria with a huge population of over 150 million people can make progress without basic infrastructure to enhance the living standards of the people. How can Nigeria emerge a global power without regular electricity, functional rail and road system, sufficient employment for its teeming youths, and adequate security? These amenities were what Nigerians had expected Obasanjo to put in place before leaving office in 2007. Today, there are more poor people than was the case before his advent to power on May 29, 1999.

Obasanjo owes Nigerians an apology for misleading and misruling them for 8 solid years. He should seek the face of God by exiling himself into a foreign land where he will have an ample opportunity for soul-searching and restitution. He should do this fast, instead of parading himself, as he is doing at present, as a leader. There is nothing the nation can profit from him any more. After all, what will he do now that he could not do for the 8 years he called the shots form Aso Rock?

The truth is that Obasanjo might have forgotten that power is ephemeral. He carried himself with so much air that he forgot that one day he would vacate Aso Rock and become an ordinary citizen of Nigeria, just as many of us are today. The fall of Obasanjo is a great lesson for our present and future generation of leaders.

I doff my hat for the Nigerian journalists for joining forces with us to defeat third term. They stood stoically behind us as we battled Obasanjo for the soul of the nation. Nevertheless, I cannot fail to berate those journalists that stood on the fence throughout the epic battle. Some of them played the Judas while we toiled and laboured to free Nigeria from the clandestine machinations of the enemies of democracy. These black legs opted to pander to whims of the third term apologists instead of standing up in defence of democracy.

I state without any equivocation, that Nigeria would have been doomed if third term had succeeded.

To salvage Nigeria from its present decrepit state, there is the need to rebuild our societal values and ethos in order to entrench discipline, order and good conduct among our people, especially the youth who are the leaders of tomorrow.

This is what should dominate national discourses rather than the present distractive posturing of Obasanjo, who is looking for who to sink with him. As for me, I have done nothing to warrant the slur he is casting on my person. He should seek the solution to his family problem elsewhere and leave me alone.

My hands are clean and God is my witness.