Fools have short memories, while dunces have none, goes a popular saying. Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, thinks all Nigerians are fools, who suffer from short memories, or that worse still, we are dunces who have no memories at all. That is the only way you can explain last week’s dissimulation by Obasanjo that he never wanted a third term in office.

The former president attempted to foul the Easter festivities for us when he said on Channels Television: “If I wanted a third term, I know how to go about it. And there is nothing I wanted that God has not given me… There is no one that is close to me that can say I even mentioned to him that I was ever interested in a third term.”
My colleague, Eric Osagie, has described Obasanjo’s postulations as “tales by moonlight.” True. If William Shakespeare were still around, he would call it “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Thomas Hardy would have called it a “loquacity that tells nothing,” while Charles Dickens would simply have shrugged his shoulders, and declare that the man “has a good deal to say…but not much to tell.” My own description of it is simple. A crude attempt at revisionism. A futile effort to re-write history.

A sordid bid to twist the tale, all amounting to a chase after the wind. Futile. Fruitless. Forlorn. While disclaiming a third term attempt, Obasanjo based his argument on the fact that what went before the National Assembly was not an executive bill, but something initiated by the legislature itself. However, that is rather jejune and simplistic. Who does not know that Nigerian rulers are adept at instigating and engineering processes, while they pretend to be aloof and impervious to the matter at stake? Did you ever hear Sani Abacha talk of transmuting to a civilian president? Not one word from him. But who was behind the many marches in different parts of the country? Who was behind all the television and radio commercials, talking of the man whom the cap fits? If you believe Abacha was not behind it, then you’ll believe anything. Obasanjo was fully in the third term gambit, using his flunkeys and lackeys, while pretending to be indifferent to it all.

Let’s give it to the man. Obasanjo looks dumb and witless (not his fault, as you can’t change the way you’ve been created to look), but he has turned that deceptive look into great strength. People underestimate him, but to their own eventual consternation. While appearing dim-witted, and walking barefoot, he toasted and eventually married Oluremi, a young lady whose social class was far above his own. Again, many years later, he showed up at the crucial time to receive the instrument of surrender of Biafran forces, when other military commanders had fought the greater part of the Civil War. He simply strolled in to reap the harvest. Still looking dumb, Obasanjo managed to survive the bullets of Buka Sukar Dimka in February 1976, while Murtala Muhammed, the head of state, was shot to ribbons.

Obasanjo ascended to power.
He looks dumb, he looks dumb, Obasanjo returned as civilian president in 1999, had a second term in 2003, and almost became life president thereafter. What a smart dumb man. Don’t forget what Gen James Oluleye, his military colleague, wrote about him. He said Obasanjo looks un-soldierly, but he’s a man “who designs both good and bad schemes with equal celebrity.” Yes, third term was one of the bad schemes, which Obasanjo designed with celebrity, while pretending to be detached and unconcerned. The whole saga reminds one of Moshood Abiola’s wise-cracks: “when you see a cat performing ablution, it’s another trick to steal meat from the soup pot.” Obasanjo was like that cat, while the tenure extension gambit lasted.

He appeared pre-occupied with other things, while closely monitoring every bit of the scheme from Aso Villa.
Obasanjo does not suffer fools gladly, and we know it. He would not want a third term, yet the campaigners would run so wild, buying wrap-around space in national newspapers? Buying prime time on national television? Filling the landscape with the campaign? We know Obasanjo. If it meant boxing somebody’s ears publicly to show his displeasure, he would have done so. If ever he didn’t initiate the campaign, the truth is that he loved and enjoyed it as it progressed, hoping against hope that it would succeed.
If Obasanjo did not want a third term, why did he go on rampage against all those he saw as possible threats to the venture? The T.Y. Danjumas, Ibrahim Babangidas, Atiku Abubakars, Mike Adenugas, Orji Kalus, M.B. Marwas, and many others. He hounded and harassed them, using economic strangulation, blackmail, intimidation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and many other stratagems. At the end of it all, when the misadventure eventually collapsed, and election was just about a year away, there was no viable successor. He picked a terminally sick man, and manipulated him into power, to whip the country silly for rejecting the tenure extension plan. We are still battling with the fallout in many ways today.

There are incontrovertible evidences about third term, which show Obasanjo as the main actor in the drama. These are indelibly documented for all times and there’s nothing the former president or anybody can do to re-write the history. Condoleeza Rice, remember her? She was the American Secretary of State and National Security Adviser at the time of the inglorious third term attempt. Later, she documented her experiences, entitled No Greater Honour: A Memoir of My Years in Washington, and on Page 638 of the book, she stated: “In 2006, when President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria sidled up to President (Bush) and suggested that he might change the constitution so that he could serve a third term, the President told him not to do it. ‘You have served your country well. Now turn over power and become a statesman,’” he said.

The Otta chicken farmer has never directly responded to this damning confirmation since it came into the public space, yet he claims he didn’t talk to anybody directly about third term. Then it means my grandfather is only 30 years old! Again, many federal lawmakers can confirm or deny third term, but very central to it all is Senator Ken Nnamani, who was Senate President at the time. Hear his reaction to Obasanjo’s attempt at obfuscating issues: “Immediately I became Senate President, he told me of his intentions and told me how he wanted to achieve it. I initially did not take him seriously until the events began to unfold.

“There was a time that there was a rumour that heavy sums of money were doled out to National Assembly members (Senate), that each of us received N50 million – that translates into more than N8 billion, including other sums that were shared. If he is claiming that third term was not his agenda, where could such money have come from, and for what purpose? Didn’t he give instructions to the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor then to dole out the money?... How can someone talk like this, that he didn’t know about it, yet money, both in local and foreign currencies, exchanged hands?”
Who do you believe, Obasanjo or Nnamani? I believe the latter, because his points sound more plausible, while Obasanjo’s arguments simply do not add up.
Obasanjo says he never discussed third term with anybody. Condoleeza Rice has proved that a lie. Don’t also forget that former Ekiti State governor, Peter Ayodele Fayose, equally said Obasanjo enlisted his support to ensure that third term would succeed. Same with Daisy Danjuma, who was then a senator. I think the two spoke the truth.
And this one. Obasanjo said if he wanted third term, he would have asked God, who would have just given it to him. Funny and ridiculous at the same time. So, Obasanjo now has God in his pocket, just like his arch-rival, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who claimed to have death in his pouch. “There is nothing I wanted that God has not given me,” he boasts. Well, God does things for us, despite our failings, so that it can lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). But in spite of all that God has done for Obasanjo, we know the man is still far from repentance. Very far. One hopes he will not leave it till too late.

A new book was presented in Abuja a couple of weeks ago. It is titled ‘Power, Greed and Despotism: The Politics and Drama of 1999 Constitutional Amendment in Nigeria,’ written by Tony Amadi. It is a good chronicle of the third term saga. It is truly a story of power, of greed, and of despotism. And the man at the centre of it all? Olusegun Mathew Aremu Okikiolu Obasanjo. Let’s list all his names that we know, so that he won’t think we’re talking of somebody else. He’s the man behind third term, the protagonist, the exponent and prime mover.

Chief Ken Nnamani, in his reaction to the Obasanjo dissembling, submitted: “No one should claim ignorance. If anyone is saying that the bill was not an executive bill, then such a person is only being a liar. At certain age in life, there are certain things one shouldn’t expect from an old man.” And that reminds me of a story I recounted in this column some years back. I had boarded a taxi from Surulere to Kirikiri, where The Sun office is located in Lagos. The driver, an old man, obviously from Edo State, judging from his accent, had told me he rarely plied that part of the city, because of the traffic congestion. And he added:

“One day, there was so much traffic hold-up when I came to Kirikiri, and I had no option than to take one way. When policemen accosted me, I said somebody was seriously ill, and I needed to rush him to the hospital. They then let me go. Old man too dey lie.” The man then burst into uproarious laughter.
Well, in Nigeria, old man too dey lie.