Exactly 40 years ago, today’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo, then as a sitting military Head of State, advised Nigerians on the eve of the 1979 General Elections, that they need not vote in the best candidate as their President. The advice was Gen. Obasanjo’s surest guarantee for a return of the military and so it came to be four years later. Today, Gen. Obasanjo is doing exactly the same thing.
Clearly, the hint today is that Gen. Obasanjo is advising Nigerians not to vote back the Buhari regime because the Buhari administration is apparently the best choice to lead Nigeria away from where Gen. Obasanjo wants us to be by 2023. General Obasanjo, who professes loving Nigeria more than himself, is asking Nigerians to vote back the PDP administration he had roundly condemned and blamed for our failure as a nation. It would seem that Gen. Obasanjo is asking Nigerians to reject the Buhari-led APC because Gen. Obasanjo wants Nigeria back under the military by 2023, like he ensured we were by December 31, 1983.
Returning Mohammadu Buhari as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on February 16, 2018, is the surest path for Nigerians to begin to take back our country from all those who have been troubling the country and along with their heirs and collaborators, holding her down since 1963. Next month’s Presidential Election, is a make-or-break Presidential Election and it promises indeed to make or break Nigeria.
For one, the all troubling Power Sector Sales Agreements, expire this year. The Agreements were the grossly unfair Power sector privatisation Agreements which saw the sale of all Nigeria’s national power assets to front and proxies for peanuts, and in deals which offer Nigeria no Termination Clauses, even in event of failure to perform, as we have seen in the last 10 years.
For another and probably most importantly, all Off-Shore Oil Well Licences issued by the erstwhile PDP administrations in Nigeria expired with last year and President. Buhari has said he will not renew the licenses. President Buhari has said the APC federal administration will only be issuing those licences now to State governments, as part of plans to begin devolving powers and responsibilities to Nigeria’s federating states. Obviously, when he wins this year’s elections, President Buhari will not be renewing the old Crude Oil Licences for private individuals who then sell the Licences mostly to private companies only to end up being richer than their states of origin… merely for selling a Licence.
Of course, a war must be expected from the only group of Nigerians whose fortunes have changed for the better, while the fortunes of Nigeria and Nigerians have been declining in the last 50 years. Nigerians must reject the status quo by voting for Buhari next month and using the next four years to chart a new course for the country, devoid of the strangling hold of any person irrespective of their position in the APC administration.
The 1979 Presidential Election Gen. Obasanjo poorly advised on, was won by a little known, but urbane Alh. Shehu Shagari, who never dreamt of or prepared to become a Nigerian President. Gen. Obasanjo handed over to Alh. Shagari with glee. He even celebrated the loss of the 1979 Presidential Elections by the better prepared, tried, tested and proven Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
It is not on record, at least not publicly, that Gen. Obasanjo made any serious effort to draw the attention of then President Shagari to the danger we faced as the nation floundered dangerously then, under the NPN between October and December 1983. Gen. Obasanjo is not on record as having written any letters of advice to the Shagari administration at least, not before that government which he supported, ran the Nigerian economy so much aground, that they could no longer pay salaries of soldiers, and the soldiers had to do the needful on December 31, 1983.
Gen. Obasanjo had advised Nigerians against voting for Chief Awolowo, despite knowing as of a fact, that Chief Awolowo’s Premiership of the Western Nigerian, turned the region into an Eldorado. Gen. Obasanjo also knew as a wartime soldier, that Chief Awolowo successfully piloted the finances of the Nigerian nation through the three-year-long civil war, without borrowing a dime and without selling a barrel of Crude Oil.
Today, Gen. Obasanjo says Nigeria is not where it should be in the comity of nations. But for eight years, after the unfair advise he gave Nigerians in 1979, Gen Obasanjo has again had the opportunity to rule and direct the affairs of Nigeria. He never altered the poor course his 1979 advice has led the nation through. He has also never apologised for misleading Nigeria, therefore suggesting Nigeria is today exactly where Gen. Obasanjo wanted it.
We Nigerians should now take our destiny in our hands. We should vote in Buhari for another four years. In the course of the four years, every Nigerian should get involved in the impending serious efforts that will be needed to redirect the course of our nation back to the high places. That future must exclude any lifetime Presidency. It has not helped any country in the world and certainly will not help Nigeria. The post-2019 Nigeria must entail the empowerment of states or collection of states as regions, to chart their own development course and solve socio-economic and human development problems, peculiar to their part of the country. Luckily, the defeat of the powers and principalities that have held Nigeria down for more than 50 years, should provide an opportunity for a quick rebirth, before existing cabals become new powers and principalities.
O’seun Ogunseitan
