As I write this, two former Heads of State of Nigeria, I wouldn’t call them foolish heads of state, as that is what they are calling themselves, are at each others’ throats. I am referring to the so-called popularly known ‘evil genius’ called IBB (Ibrahim Babangida) and OBJ (Olusegun Obasanjo). Babangida, who ruled Nigeria from August 1985 to August, 1993, was the one who rescued Nigerians from the evil yoke and tyrannical and dictatorial grips of current APC candidate Gen. Buhari who is masquerading as a wannabe champion of democracy. Obasanjo ruled Nigeria twice and tried to maneuver for a third term but was shown the door by a few number of wise senators.
Both Obasanjo and Babangida are calling each other foolish. Of course, you understand the person who started the foolishness idiocy, because of his uncouth nature – Obasanjo. You know, this kind of fight between Babangida and Obasanjo reminds you of Muhammad Ali and Walt Frazier – need I say any more.
Well, during his 70th birthday celebration in his home town Minna, Niger State, where he has been maintaining decorum as a statesman rather than the egotistical unstatesmanlike utterances of Obasanjo, Babangida told the world that OBJ’s eight years as a civilian president was a total failure. At least, somebody of Obasanjo’s status was giving him his own medicine, as he has been strutting egotistically all over the world praising himself and his (non) accomplishments. He accused Obasanjo of wasting the economic affluence that Nigerians had experienced under his regime, citing the fact that oil was selling at $10 a barrel while during Obasanjo’s oil was selling at $100.
It is not like what Babangida said about the power sector was false. He said Obasanjo “spent” $16 billion on the power sector (electricity generation) and nothing to show for it. In fact, I remember Obasanjo jetting to New York immediately after he was elected in 1999, and addressing Nigerians and boasting how he was going to spend $16 billion and boosting Nigeria’s electricity supply from its current 2,500 megawatts to 5,000 in his first four years in office. The actual count when Obasanjo was forced to leave after eight years was 2000 megawatts. So tell us where the $16 billion went. Of course, you can rest assured that this would not sit well with a megalomaniac.
First, Obasanjo quoted the Bible about not replying to a fool lest you become a fool yourself. But his own ego couldn’t stop him. He couldn’t restrain himself. He said, “Normally when I read these things I don’t believe them. Yesterday (Wednesday), when somebody phoned me and said this was what he (Babangida) said, I said, ‘Don’t believe it.’ They got me the newspapers and I read them. It’s a bit unlike Babangida. But if Babangida has decided, on becoming a septuagenarian, that he will be a fool, I think one should probably do what the Bible says in Proverbs Chapter 26, verse 4. It says don’t answer a fool because you may also become like him.
“When you go to the same Proverbs Chapter 26 verse 5, it says answer a fool so that he will not think he’s a wise man. So, I am now torn between which of the two verses I should follow in this respect.” So, who is the more foolish – Babangida or Obasanjo? It reminds one of the story of the man who went swimming in a stream. He took off his clothes and went into the water. A mad man approached and took off with his clothes. The swimmer saw him and chased after him. When they reached the town, everybody began shouting “crazy men, crazy men” are running around naked.
Babangida fired back and called Obasanjo a “greater fool.” “We do not want to believe that he (Obasanjo) truly said that, but if it is true that he did say that, Nigerians know who the greatest (sic) fool is,” according to a statement attributed to him by his spokesman Prince Kassim Afegbua.
Without resorting to analyzing their so-called accomplishments, let’s look at the foolishness index of both men. Right from the outset, Obasanjo wins a big one: he returned the government to a civilian administration. Babangida loses a big one: he abrogated the June 12, 1993 elections that Moshood Abiola had won. But from there, it is downhill for Obasanjo. Since he stepped down in 1993, Babangida has maintained himself as elder statesman although he has once tried to dabble in politics. No scandal has been following him unlike Obasanjo. Here’s a Head of government whose son went to court and accused him of having an affair with his wife, and then his daughter, a former Nigerian senator penned a six-page letter castigating her father of serious misdeeds, including his egotistical manner.
Nigeria has many former Heads of State and their former deputies still alive, including Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Shehu Shagari, Gen. Abubakar Abdulsalami, Chief Alex Ekwueme, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. None of these individuals is strutting around like vainglorious peacocks who are oblivious that their stinking bottoms are wide open. If Transparency International were to judge the two former “foolish heads of state,” on their index of foolishness, Obasanjo would be declared the greater fool.
You know the good news: Nigerians have learned to discount Obasanjo’s unstatesmanlike conduct as thuggery.
Article first published in August 2011