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Expectedly, the endorsement of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), by former President Olusegun Obasanjo ahead of the 2023 presidential election has elicited varied reactions. In his January 1, 2023, open letter to the Nigerian people, Obasanjo did not only identify the leading presidential candidates to be Ahmed Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC, Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition PDP, Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP but went ahead also to project Peter Obi as the ‘’better’’ option among them. According to him, ‘’None of the contestants is a saint but when one compares their character, antecedent, their understanding, knowledge, discipline and vitality that they can bring to bear and the great efforts required to stay focused on the job, particularly looking at where the country is today and with the experience on the job that I personally had, Peter Obi as a mentee has an edge.”
Depending on whom, where and when, reactions have ranged from commendation to condemnation from different quarters. To the Labour Party’s candidate, his supporters and sympathisers, Obasanjo’s endorsement of Obi is a commendable development, while to the supporters of the other frontline candidates of the APC, PDP and NNPP, this endorsement stands unanimously condemned as the mischievous machinations of a meddlesome interloper who has no electoral value. And to many others, Obasanjo, as part of Nigeria’s problems, is an inconsistent, relevance-seeking narcissist who has no business pontificating on the virtues of good governance.
However, to objective and clear-minded Nigerians, Obasanjo’s endorsement of Obi for Nigeria’s top job ahead of the 2023 presidential election is quite consistent with the leadership ideals and national values he has stood for all through his public service career. As war commander, military head of state and democratically elected President, Olusegun Obasanjo has consistently fought for a united Nigeria where justice and peace reign, which is administered by a competent and inclusive political leadership as fundamental requirements for national security and socio-economic development.
As a man upon whom fate has bestowed the rare privilege of being part of Nigeria’s most epoch-making developments of national consequence, Obasanjo, a pan-Nigerian nationalist and patriot who has always placed national interest above ethnic and religious interests, the philosophy of social justice, equity and fairness often plays a pivotal role in the unity and restoration of the Nigerian nation. In the wake of the instability and imminent breakup of Nigeria following the January and July military coups in 1966, the leader of the Yoruba ethnic nationality, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had convened a meeting of senior Yoruba military officers to discuss their preparedness to defend the interest of the Yoruba nation in the case of an eventual breakup. But for Obasanjo’s insistence that “I did not join the Army to defend the Yoruba nation but to defend the Nigerian nation,” it was believed the Western Region would have followed the Eastern Region to declare a breakaway republic and Nigeria would have been no more.
Drafted into the front to fight General Yakubu Gowon’s war to “keep Nigeria one” as commander of the Third Marine Commando, then Col. Olusegun Obasanjo did not assume his command with his mind set on “killing the Igbos” like Col. Benjamin ‘Black Scorpion’ Adekunle, his predecessor. Obasanjo went to the war front as a diplomat soldier not to fight a war but to fight for peace. Understanding that this was a war between brothers and compatriots, Obasanjo took a deep dive into consultations and dialogue with the leaders of the breakaway Biafra Republic to reunite Nigerians after nearly three years of a deadly conflict that left millions dead and many displaced and starving. Guided by the principles of negotiations, concessions and reconciliation, Obasanjo, as commander Third Marine Commando, was able to secure the surrender and reintegration of the breakaway Biafra Republic to a united Nigeria. By deploying his military diplomatic skills, Obasanjo was able to bring to a conclusive end one of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts by 1970; three years after it started in 1967 with fewer bullets and more words of conciliation and in the process prevented what could have been lifelong guerrilla warfare in Nigeria.
And when fate placed the leadership of Nigeria on his shoulders following the assassination of Gen. Murtala Muhammed in February 1976, Gen. Obasanjo, again, skilfully navigated the affairs of Nigeria to stability through an inclusive leadership style that gave every part of Nigeria a sense of belonging.
On assumption of office as military head of state, Obasanjo’s second in command, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, a fellow Christian from northern Nigeria, was going to be his second-in-command, to the possible alienation of the Muslim population of a country that was trying to heal from its civil war wounds. To create a balance in the leadership of Nigeria, a certain Lt. Col. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was given double promotion to the rank of Brigadier General and appointed chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters (second-in-command).
Obasanjo became an African statesman when he willingly conducted a democratic transition from military to civil rule by 1979, a rare feat on a continent that was bedevilled by the “sit tight syndrome” of its leaders. In addition to the successful transition from military to civil democratic rule, Obasanjo also ensured a deliberate shift of power to the North, in the person of Shehu Shagari, from the South after almost four years. And as though to kill one two birds with one stone, Alex Ekwueme, a Nigerian from the former breakaway Biafra Republic, was elected as Nigeria’s Vice-President nine years after Obasanjo received the instruments of surrender in fulfilment of the reintegration pledge of the Nigerian state.
And 53 years after the end of the civil war, Obasanjo is making an appeal to the rest of Nigeria to see to the emergence of Peter Obi, a Nigerian of Igbo extraction, as the next President of Nigeria after many years of exclusion from the highest office in the land. The import of his appeal is that, having identified Obi as possessing the qualities that meet Nigeria’s leadership needs at this time, his ‘Igboness’ should not be a limit to the office of the President of Nigeria. Since the end of the civil war, the Igbo people of Nigeria have increasingly become ostracised from the highest office in the land on account of the Biafra secessionist republic. It is this visitation of the sin of the father on the children, which should have no place in a just, fair and inclusive nation, that Obasanjo seeks to discourage.
In his open letter, the former Nigerian President had his to say: “Let’s stop criminalizing and demonizing one another on the basis of the civil war on which we are all wrong. And let’s praise and thank God for preserving the oneness of Nigeria. The Scripture says that if God would take account of all our wrongdoings, nobody would be able to stand before Him. While not suffering from amnesia, let us stop still fighting and reacting to the civil war in our hearts, minds, heads and our attitude acrimoniously. Let’s stop living on our different wrongs or mistakes of the past: treasonable felony, Tiv riot and its handling, first military coup and its aftermath, second military coup, araba, pogrom and the civil war, all in the 1960s. And more recently OPC, Egbesu, MASSOB, IPOB, Boko Haram and banditry. No region can claim to be innocent or to be saintly. And no justification will suffice. In our respective individual or regional positions, we have done right and we have done wrong. It is therefore not right for any of us to be sanctimonious to see ourselves as saints and the rest as devils incarnate.”
Once again, Obasanjo has risen to the occasion to speak truth to Nigeria with a rare kind of courage that sets him apart as Nigeria’s last statesman standing. His admonition to Nigerians on the need to “just let us agree to move forward together in mutual forgiveness, one accord, inclusive society, equality and equity. Together and without bias and discrimination, fear or favour, we can have Nigeria of one nation in diversity, in truth and in practice. Let us honour, cherish, respect and even celebrate our diversity, which is the basis of our potential greatness and strength” is a clear indication that Obasanjo has once again placed national interest ahead of sectional interests in his endorsement of Obi.
And while those politicians who dismiss his endorsement of Obi as electorally inconsequential are thinking of the next election, Obasanjo the statesman is thinking of the next generation.
