TRIBUTE: Obasanjo, the man who wanted to be a mechanic but ended up a political engineer

“Very few human beings have a chance of making history and fewer still have a good fortune of making history and writing it as you go along and living longer to even establish a library and write history in your own words. Baba Olusegun Obasanjo is certainly one of those rare human beings.”

Those were the words of Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the launch of Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, on Saturday.

Not just Osinbajo, many Nigerians know that Mathew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo has secured a place for himself in the history of the most populous black nation on earth.

Abeokuta, Ogun state capital, is agog as this statesman of immense repute celebrates his 80th birthday. Known for his candour, Obj, as he is fondly called, has confessed that he does not know his real age.

“I do not know the date of my birth, when I started school, we were asked to give our date of birth. I used to ask my mother, and she would say ‘You were born on Ifo Market Day’. All my mother, an illiterate woman, could remember was that it was an Ifo Market Day and before the people who went to the market returned, she had fallen into labour and I was delivered,” he had told journalists last week.

Love or loathe him, you can but be amazed about how he has managed to stay relevant. The last time the indefatigable Nigerian leader held a political office was ten years ago, but politicians seeking the highest office in the land know that he can only be ignored at their own peril.

WANTED TO BE A MECHANIC LIKE HIS COUSIN

Obasanjo went back memory lane during an interactive session with reporters in one of the programmes lined up for his 80th birthday.

He had told the story of how he wanted to end up in the same line of profession with one of his cousins.

“I was going to the farm one day and my father asked if it was farming that I will continue to do for the rest of my life, and I said yes. I had a cousin who had left the village and went to Abeokuta to become a vehicle mechanic,” he had said.

“My father asked if I had alternative to farming, and I said if I had an alternative, it would be mechanic. School didn’t cross my mind then.

“So I told him if he would send me to school, I will go.”

EDUCATION AND MILITARY BACKGROUND

He attended Baptist Boys’ High School, Abeokuta, and proceeded to Mons Officers’ Cadet School, Aldershot, England; Royal College of Military Engineering, Chatham, England, and School of Survey, Newbury, England.

He also attended the British Royal Engineers’ Young Officers School, Shrivenham, England; Indian Defence Staff College; Indian Army School of Engineering and Royal College of Defence Studies, London.

He enlisted into the Nigerian Army in 1958. He was commissioned into the army as a second lieutenant and attached to British Battalions in England, and in Germany. A year later, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant.

In 1961, he was transferred from the infantry to the corps of engineering, and two years later, he was promoted to the rank of captain and appointed commander Engineering Corps. That year, he was elevated to the post of general officer, commanding the Third Marine Commando division, where he conceived and immediately launched ‘Operation Tail Wind’, which helped to bring the civil war to an end. He accepted the surrender of the Biafran forces in January 1970.

On February 13, 1976, Murtala Muhammed, then the head of state, was murdered, and the supreme military council chose Obasanjo.

Last year when he hosted the crew of ’76, which was rated the best movie at the fifth edition of Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA), which held on Saturday, Obasanjo said he was persuaded to take over after the death of Muhammed.

“The killing of a Muslim on a Friday by a gang thought to be Christians, particularly, when we remembered the first coup, which upturned the political situation, gave a bad signal,” Obasanjo had said.

“Where will it amount to; where will it lead us to and where will it lead us out? These were what Nigerians had in mind. We worked like jackass for the peace of the country and I was persuaded to take over the headship of the country.”

Obasanjo’s military career lasted 21 years.

HIS CONTROVERSIES

One of the dignitaries absent at his elaborate birthday ceremony was Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland. The revered monarch was in the news recently over a portion of his autobiography where he levelled allegations against Obasanjo.

The traditional ruler had claimed that Mike Adenuga, chairman of Globacom, was caught in the crossfire of the fracas between Obasanjo and former VicePresident Atiku Abubakar.

Adetona said the former president deliberately used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to harass Adenuga to force him to implicate Abubakar, whom Obasanjo wanted out of the way.

He also alleged that Obasanjo asked Adenuga to fund the building of his university’s administrative block in Ogun.

Obasanjo had described the autobiography as a tissue of lies and untruths. He referred to the monarch as a slanderer, and threw jibes at him, saying: “Common sense would suggest that wild rumours should not be perpetrated by an Oba of your caliber.”

WITH FAYOSE

In 2010, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, former governor of Osun state, held a thanksgiving service in his hometown of Okuku after losing at the appeal court.

Ayo Fayose, governor of Ekiti, was at the service, and so was Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida, former military president.

Fayose greeted other guests, but ignored Obasanjo, who he believed was behind his impeachment in 2006.

Perplexed, Obasanjo asked Fayose if he did not see him. “I won’t greet you. You are bad person! I don’t greet bad people!” Fayose said.

“You are a bastard,” Obasanjo fired back, and Fayose shouted back: “You are a father of bastards!”

He did not stop there. He moved menacingly towards Obasanjo and warned the former president never to talk to him again.

WITH ATIKU

Last week when reporters asked Obasanjo about his relationship with Atiku, he said: “That’s not an issue, I am not saying anything. It’s not an issue.”

The relationship between both men went cold during Obasanjo’s second term. After begging Atiku not to run against him in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election in 2003, he turned his back against his former deputy who nursed the ambition to succeed him.

Taunting Atiku about one year to the end of his second tenure, Obasanjo told reporters: “I don’t know who will succeed me, but I know someone who will never succeed me.”

Determined to fight on, Atiku headed to the court, and most of the rulings were in his favour. In 2007 when the supreme court was to deliver a judgment on whether or not Atiku could contest the presidential election, Obasanjo declared two days public holiday. That was unprecedented, given that it was not during a festive period or any remarkable event.

WITH AUDU OGBEH

In 2005, Ogbeh, who was chairman of the PDP, had written a letter to Obasanjo on the state of the nation. The letter was said to have irked the former president, and he sought the removal of the chairman. Sensing the unintended harm he had caused, Ogbeh reached out to the war hero. Pretending as if he had accepted the apology, Obasanjo reportedly visited the incumbent minister of agriculture in his house, and dined with him.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Ogbeh didn’t see danger lurking when Obasanjo invited him to the presidential villa after the supposed reconciliation.

Rumours had it that Obasanjo placed a gun on his head and ordered him to write his resignation letter.

Ten years later when he appeared before the senate for ministerial screening, Emmanuel Bwacha, a PDP senator from Taraba state, sought clarification from Ogbeh: “Were you asked to resign at gunpoint?” the lawmaker asked, but the minister smiled without uttering a word.

WITH WOLE SOYINKA

One could go on and on listing Obasanjo’s controversies, but let’s stop at the one with Wole Soyinka. In his autobiography, My Watch, Obasanjo claimed Soyinka is a novice in politics.

He said despite not having a grasp of politics, Soyinka enjoyed taking the lead on issues in that terrain.

“I take him seriously on almost all issues except on the political, particularly Nigerian politics,” Obasanjo wrote in the book.

“For Wole, no one can be good, nor can anything be spot-on politically except that which emanates from him or is ordained by him. His friends and loved ones will always be right and correct no matter what they do or fail to do.

“He is surely a better wine connoisseur and a more successful aparo [guinea fowl] hunter than a political critic, not to talk of what he would do as a politician.”

But in a piece titled ‘Watch And Pray, Watch And Prey’, the scholar lampooned Obasanjo for directing such caustic words at him.

Tracing their relationship to the civil war era, Soyinka described Obasanjo as a liar.

It’s on record that Obasanjo attacked all presidents who succeeded him from Shagari until now, it was only Sani Abacha, the late dictator, who incarcerated him to prevent any disturbance.

A CARING FATHER

Why will a father hate his children? Or what is a big deal about a father’s love for those he sired? These are obviously logical questions, but there have been instances when influential people allow other commitment come between them and their offspring, Obasanjo is remarkably exceptional in this regard.

In 2014, Boko Haram insurgents shot Adeboye, a son of Obasanjo, who is a senior army officer. The attack happened in Adamawa state, and the officer was taken to a hospital in Jos, Plateau state.

Obasanjo flew down to the state to see how his child was recovering.

Gbenga, his eldest son dragged the former president’s reputation in the mud after he accused the elder statesman of sleeping with his own wife. This could have made baba turn his back on him, but Obasanjo didn’t do such. A test of this came in 2013 when at a public function, Obasanjo received the news that Gbenga had died in a plane crash.

The corpse of Olusegun Agagu, former Ondo state governor, was being flown to his hometown for burial. Unfortunately, there was air mishap, which led to the loss of 13 lives, and there were reports that Gbenga was among the 13.

Obasanjo started fidgeting and did not recover until he was able to reach his son, who was in Abuja.

Obasanjo once travelled with his son to a remote village in Ebonyi to pick a wife. He could have made things more difficult for the child, but he gave him support.

HE DOESN’T JOKE WITH MONEY

Who knows a man better than his wife? At a programme in Abeokuta, Bola, the woman Obasanjo got married to, four years after the death of Stella, former first lady, said her husband does not joke with money.

Stella died after undergoing surgery in a Spanish hospital.

“I thank God that I am with baba. Don’t think that it is because of his money, not at all, he doesn’t joke or mess around with his money,” Bola had said.

“If he says he loves you, you must be hardworking. We nicknamed baba, wole joko jeun (enter, sit and eat) because of his busy nature. He is always attending to people. He has got answer to everybody’s problem.”

Obasanjo has a message for those he considers saying things which are untrue: “I have been used to rumours, slandering and insinuations since my days as a unit commander in the army and I have developed thick skin. If ten percent of the rumours ascribing businesses and property I know nothing about were true, I would be the richest man on earth.”