There are moments in Nigerian politics when hypocrisy becomes so spectacular that satire begins to look like a documentary.
Enter Olusegun Obasanjo – the self-appointed Professor Emeritus of Morality, Grand Commander of Political Integrity and Permanent Chairman of the National Council of People Who Must Listen to Baba.
Baba speaks, therefore Nigeria must listen.
Baba writes a letter, therefore the nation must tremble.
Baba publishes a memoir, therefore history is apparently expected to rearrange itself around Baba’s recollection of yesterday.
But there is a small problem with this arrangement.
History has a memory of its own.
Obasanjo has spent years portraying Atiku Abubakar as corrupt, disloyal and unfit to be trusted. Nigerians are perfectly entitled to examine those allegations. But they are equally entitled to examine the record of the man making them.
And that brings us to the third-term controversy.
Atiku did not merely sit quietly in Aso Rock while others fought the proposed constitutional amendment. He became one of its prominent political opponents, mobilising against tenure elongation and working with lawmakers and other political actors who resisted the effort. The Senate eventually rejected the proposed constitutional amendment on 16 May 2006.
That much is history.
So when Obasanjo’s narrative describes Atiku as “disloyal,” Nigerians should ask the most elementary question:
Disloyal to whom?
The President – or the Constitution?
Because a Vice-President does not swear an oath of personal obedience to the President’s ambitions. He operates within a constitutional system.
If the President’s supporters were seeking to alter the constitutional rules governing the President’s tenure, was Atiku supposed to demonstrate “loyalty” by supporting the project – or fidelity to the constitutional order by opposing it?
That is the inconvenient question.
Of course, Atiku had presidential ambitions of his own. Nobody needs to pretend otherwise. His opposition to the third-term project could have been motivated partly by political self-interest. That is a legitimate subject for historical debate.
But political self-interest does not automatically transform opposition to tenure elongation into corruption or betrayal.
The project failed.
And Atiku was among those who opposed it.
Then comes the money.
The third-term campaign was accompanied by serious allegations that substantial sums were deployed in an attempt to secure legislative support. Former Senate President Ken Nnamani, Hon. Faruk Adamu and other participants have made specific allegations concerning inducements offered to lawmakers.
These allegations should not be casually converted into criminal convictions. But neither should they be dismissed merely because they make an uncomfortable chapter of political history.
The question remains:
Where did the enormous resources allegedly deployed in pursuit of the third-term project by Obasanjo come from?
Certainly not from a presidential salary.
And they did not magically sprout from Otta Farm.
If public resources were involved, as has been alleged, then Nigerians are entitled to ask:
Who provided the money? From which source? Under whose authority? For what purpose? And was it properly accounted for?
Those are legitimate accountability questions.
Indeed, they become even more legitimate when the person associated with the controversy later assumes the position of Nigeria’s moral prosecutor.
And here the satire almost writes itself.
Integrity: remembering everybody else’s sins while forgetting your own sins and controversies.
Democracy: whatever survives after Baba has finished advising everybody.
Loyalty: supporting Baba even when Baba’s political ambition becomes the subject of constitutional aberration.
History: Baba’s version of yesterday.
Perhaps this is why Obasanjo’s political interventions sometimes sound less like historical analysis and more like Lamentations from Otta:
“I was betrayed.”
“I was misunderstood.”
“Atiku was disloyal.”
“Atiku was corrupt.”
But where is the chapter asking:
What exactly happened during the third-term struggle, who financed the political campaign surrounding it, and why did the constitutional amendment fail?
That chapter deserves evidence, not melancholy.
Then came My Watch, Obasanjo’s memoir.
A memoir is, of course, the author’s right to tell his story. But a memoir is not a judicial proceeding. It is not sworn testimony before a court. It is not an automatic historical verdict.
The author is one of the principal actors.
The subject is his own subjective political life.
The people he accuses have the right to contest his recollections.
And posterity has the right to examine all sides.
This becomes particularly important when allegations against Atiku are presented with the certainty of established fact.
If Atiku was corrupt, Baba should prove it.
If he stole public money, he should establish it.
If he violated the Constitution, he should identify the provision.
If he was disloyal, he should explain why opposing his tenure elongation amounted to disloyalty.
But a memoir cannot simultaneously become prosecution, evidence, judgment and appeal.
That is where Baba’s moral grandstanding becomes difficult to take seriously.
Nobody is asking Nigerians to regard Atiku as a saint.
He isn’t.
Nobody should.
But neither should Obasanjo be permitted to appoint himself Nigeria’s incorruptible moral oracle.
If Atiku’s record deserves scrutiny, Obasanjo’s deserves scrutiny.
If Atiku’s motives are interrogated, Obasanjo’s motives should also be examined.
If Atiku’s political history is placed under the microscope, Obasanjo’s should not be examined through binoculars from another planet.
That is not hatred of Baba.
That is democracy.
And the question of loyalty deserves one final examination.
Between the President and Vice-President, who carried the greater constitutional responsibility to preserve the existing presidential term limits?
The Vice-President who opposed the alteration?
Or the President whose supporters were seeking to alter the constitutional rules governing his own tenure?
That question does not require us to canonise Atiku.
It merely requires us to apply the same standard to everybody.
The greatest irony is that Obasanjo does not need to destroy Atiku to preserve his own place in history. His historical significance is already secure.
But historical significance is not historical infallibility.
Baba may have written the memoirs.
Baba may have delivered the lectures.
Baba may continue to write letters to presidents and governments as Nigeria’s permanent elder statesman.
But he does not own the past.
Nigeria owns the history.
And history cannot be cultivated, harvested and returned only in the portions most convenient to the author.
The records belong to the public.
The Constitution belongs to the people.
And the truth cannot be determined by the loudness, age or prestige of the narrator.
So let Baba continue preaching morality.
Let him continue warning Nigerians about corruption.
Let him continue lecturing politicians about democracy and integrity.
But Nigerians should politely remove the halo.
Presidency is not priesthood.
A military uniform is not a halo.
A memoir is not a conviction.
An allegation is not evidence.
And age, however venerable, does not place any Nigerian above scrutiny.
Perhaps that is the enduring lesson of the third-term controversy:
Political loyalty is temporary. Constitutional fidelity is supposed to be permanent.
And if Atiku’s greatest “crime” was refusing to subordinate constitutional principle to personal political loyalty, Nigerians are entitled to debate his motives, but they should also ask why that resistance became the defining evidence of his alleged disloyalty.
Baba may have written My Watch.
But Nigerians are still watching.
And this time, they are reading the whole record.
Thank you Hon. Faruk Adamu.
-AA MOVEMENT-
