₦airaland Forum

brain54:
Obasanjo is a retired politician…
He is an elder statesman and as such has a right to endorse who ever he pleases.
He wasn’t speaking on behalf of the party which he was a former member.
Lamido’s speech sounds like blackmail!

He made a mistake to endorse another candidate outside the party that made him what he is, a party, which gave him the importance, the relevance and the image to be able to do that.

brain54:
Obasanjo is a retired politician…


He is an elder statesman and as such has a right to endorse who ever he pleases.

He wasn’t speaking on behalf of the party which he was a former member.



Lamido’s speech sounds like blackmail!

Igboslayer:
Game nonsense...una don cast.

thesicilian:
Obasanjo's actions are not unexpected. He comes from a region that has a long history of betraying their own people. Awolowo, Abiola, Ige, the list goes on. Even Osibanjo was betrayed by Tinubu himself so it's a lifestyle for them.

EMPEROROFDONBAS:
wht silly interview.. that one he was tutored by 99 profs before Granting that very interview.. how about the Almighty disgraces he has been ushering in and out. he can't go to any campaign ans say wht he will do for us.. always talking like sick donkey.. gaffer upon gaffees..Shettima go show una pepper... make una dey mumu.... una side line an intellect like Osibanjo, fashola... dey gv old demented fuul ticket.. someone that wants to save us from Buhari... APC wnat to save us from APC

moneyissweet:
Bro rest, February no far again

EMPEROROFDONBAS:
his dementia is now terminal
or what??... shame suppose dey catch una.. from Kano to Edo, to Ondo.. disgrace uoon disgrace. I dey pity una..

Igboslayer:
Empty statement with empty seat.

EMPEROROFDONBAS:
if you can post this pix as an evidence, you are demented.. I can't argue with you... tkkia

Igboslayer:
If you have been to Awka, you won't defend rubbish...its by far the worst shot hole in Nigeria. Cross Rivers are slaves to the Igbos na, do they like you and your tribe?

Bennycollins:
You are not intelligent enough to understand the statistics you posted here yourself. There are states with 87% and you say Cross River is in abject poverty? Go back to school.

Igboslayer:
Oloriburuku omo ale, I know you will be foolish as expected.

EMPEROROFDONBAS:
so u want to tell me Obi was speaking when they were seated that way??... sorry for una wey dey Tinubu camp

Massiveglory:
Criminals and thieves that have held the country under the spell of corruption and embezzlement are springing up from every corner.

Their greatest fear is that looting, embezzlement and corruption will be locked when PODATTI takes over.

Nigerians, rise up with your PVC'S and take back your country.

Sonnobax15:

Any other Lamido apart from the Sanusi wey I know reach house na counterfeit

Well, let's be factual here,I think this dude has a point here..... Perhaps Obj is looking for a puppet whom he'd easily toss around like a coin . And obi wey I know reach house for Anambra no go gree for am just like Uncle Jona did to him back then

thesicilian:
Obasanjo's actions are not unexpected. He comes from a region that has a long history of betraying their own people. Awolowo, Abiola, Ige, the list goes on. Even Osibanjo was betrayed by Tinubu himself so it's a lifestyle for them.

chisomkachy:
https://guardian.ng/news/lamido-tackles-obasanjo-over-obis-endorsement/?utm_term=Autofeed&echobox=twitter_post&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1673161655

lhordspy:
Obasanjo dont care about better Nigeria or not.

He only wants a political puppet . A presidential toy. Someone like Yaradua (God rest his soul)

He endorsed Buhari in 2015 after Jonathan wiseup and stop been his puppet. After Buhari won, The Northern cabal chanced him. He switch back to his enemy, Atiku in 2019 out of desperation. Atiku lost.

Now he knows Obi is a weakling, a very dull not sharp person. So he is lining up at his back too. He is craving for that godfather position again so bad. Since Goodluck put him to his place in 2015

thesicilian:
Obasanjo's actions are not unexpected. He comes from a region that has a long history of betraying their own people. Awolowo, Abiola, Ige, the list goes on. Even Osibanjo was betrayed by Tinubu himself so it's a lifestyle for them.

thesicilian:
Obasanjo's actions are not unexpected. He comes from a region that has a long history of betraying their own people. Awolowo, Abiola, Ige, the list goes on. Even Osibanjo was betrayed by Tinubu himself so it's a lifestyle for them.

Didi2d:
Is Peter Obi not among those that stole from government purse? Is he not a former PDP
member?

PO ferried 250m to Lagos with his convoy when he was governor. Who knows how many times he has done that.
We also heard about the pandora papers

My brother, none of these guy holy

lhordspy:
Obasanjo dont care about better Nigeria or not.

He only wants a political puppet . A presidential toy. Someone like Yaradua (God rest his soul)

He endorsed Buhari in 2015 after Jonathan wiseup and stop been his puppet. After Buhari won, The Northern cabal chanced him. He switch back to his enemy, Atiku in 2019 out of desperation. Atiku lost.

Now he knows Obi is a weakling, a very dull not sharp person. So he is lining up at his back too. He is craving for that godfather position again so bad. Since Goodluck put him to his place in 2015

Okealaaye:
Obasanjo Instigates Youths

Idowu Akinlotan

January 8, 2023

Contrary to what many supporters of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo think, those who chide him for his unusual and intemperate letter endorsing the presidential candidacy of Labour Party’s Peter Obi are not doing so because they regret his refusal to support their own candidates. He has the right and pleasure to support anyone he wishes, regardless of the bad choices he has made over decades. What the complainants quarrel with is the tone of the endorsement letter, its instigation rather than logical persuasion of the youths, and the former president’s unbelievable deployment of mediocre philosophy of leadership. He is free to support anyone he likes, whether his critics like it or not, but it was expected that he would do it with the dignified poise of a leader, the decorum associated with great leadership, and with balanced, even-tempered and unassailable logic. He had all of 85 years to develop and hone that poise and maturity, and over 11 years as head of state and president to acquire the experience needed to set the right example for the nation. Now, all those years seem a horrible waste.

Somehow, as is customary of him, his letter of endorsement was full of hysteria: hysteria against his imaginary foes, hysteria against his successors in office, and hysteria against his compatriots and God whom he sometimes gives the impression is permanently at his beck and call. Mr Obi, a sophist like no other, probably deserves Chief Obasanjo’s support. The two sophists are thus obsessed with specious reasoning, and roundly complement each other. For whatever the endorsement is worth, no one should begrudge the controversial former president from backing Mr Obi’s candidacy. It was perhaps too far-fetched for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to expect Chief Obasanjo’s endorsement. Too much had soured in their relationship to realistically expect even a grin from the ex-president. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) would have been unable to fathom any endorsement from Abeokuta. That left the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and LP’s Mr Obi to vie for the bilious old man’s attention. It would have been incongruous for the APC, as the party knows very well, to receive the nod from their old and unforgiving antagonist and sparring partner.

All the leading candidates for the 2023 presidential election had visited Chief Obasanjo in Abeokuta, more as a courtesy than necessity; but it would be hard to gauge what value they would have attached to his endorsement had he deemed them worthy of the gesture. Even Mr Obi who finally got the nod has remained nonplussed. He is uncertain what to do with the endorsement, especially seeing that the repeated hurrahs he had got from the politicised churches of Nigeria had not given his candidacy the needed boost. The streetwise LP candidate knows by instinct that Chief Obasanjo is long past his expiry date. In fact, much more, he knows that all that is left of the phlegmatic old warhorse from Abeokuta is his nuisance value. But better not to draw the ire of the sleeping bear: if he cannot be for you, at least make him indifferent to you. That was why Alhaji Atiku and Asiwaju Tinubu visited him. Both men were too smart not to know where Chief Obasanjo leaned; but they thought they could lessen the pungency of his vitriol. Alas, the former president remains as incandescent and malignant as ever.

When Chief Obasanjo first gave the solid hint mid-December that he might endorse Mr Obi, this column challenged him to defend his suppositions about the LP candidate. It is unlikely the former president read the challenge, for he is too cocksure of everything to care what anyone writes, and too narcissistic to bother about any interest but his. However, he has finally explained his choice, though the explanations do not do credit to his long years in office, nor to his vaunted statesmanlike ability to see the woods for the trees, to see from the mountaintop, and to light a lamp to the national feet. He rests his support for Mr Obi on two main but leprous legs, one of which is discernible from his attempt to prequalify the candidates. Hear him: “From interaction and experience, and as mentees as most of them claim, I will, without prejudice, fear or ill-will, make bold to say that there are four major factors to watch out for in a leader you will consider to hoist on yourself and on the rest of Nigerians in the coming election and they are what I call TVCP: Track record of ability and performance; Vision that is authentic, honest and realistic; Character and attributes of a lady and a gentleman who are children of God and obedient to God; and Physical and mental capability with soundness of mind as it is a very taxing and tasking assignment at the best of times and more so it is at the most difficult time that we are.”

This prequalification of presidential candidates is clearly pedestrian, and it is hard to imagine that it comes from a former president. How he equated those who visited him – for after all, they also visited other past rulers – as his mentees remains baffling. How could a man whose politics is in constant flux have mentored anyone when he had no identifiable ideology, no private or public principles, and is capable of the most corrosive mendacity any liar anywhere could subscribe to? The simple answer is that it is customary of Chief Obasanjo to exaggerate his recollections and be infatuated with his own tall stories. Having read very little of any serious stuff since he left office, and thus failed to improve himself, it is unsurprising that he embraces flighty ideas and panaceas. Just reading books on Julius and Augustus Caesar, Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Deng Xiaoping, and Charles de Gaulle, among many other great leaders in Asia, Africa and Europe would have helped sharpened his perspective on leadership. But even using the crude four-way test contained in his letter of endorsement, it is hard to explain why he cannot see that his choice failed all but one of the tests. He then went on whimsically to denounce the emi lokan (my turn) slogan popularised by Asiwaju Tinubu, insisting that leadership does not admit to such principle, but turned round to embrace awon lokan (their turn) to underscore Mr Obi’s bid as an Igbo man. As customary, the contradictions are lost on him.

 But there is an even more pernicious and infinitely more pedestrian, instigative and divisive second leg for Chief Obasanjo to stand his endorsement of Mr Obi: the LP candidate’s youth, a factor embedded in the former president’s four-way test. Why he smothered the third of the four-way test – that of obedience to God – whatever that means, is equally hard to fathom. In any case, he has zeroed in on the youth factor. So, hear him at his sentimental worst: “My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame. Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so. If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good and you will have no one to blame but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you. Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be. And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’ (Your turn). The power to change is in your hands. Your future, my future, the future of grandchildren and great grandchildren is in your hands. Politics and elections are numbers game. You have the numbers, get up, stand up and make your numbers count.”

To hear a former president instigate this sentimental and comical revolution is truly troubling. He and many others in his generation were heads of state in their youth. What did they do when they were given the opportunity to lead the country? What did they bring into leadership? What constitu tional structure for leadership recruitment did he, in eight years, institute to help produce the right leaders? Both as a youth and elder, he led Nigeria without character, morality and principles. Now, in his infatuations, he is advocating a beguiling and suffocating return to emptiness. Mr Obi whom he touts as competent, but whose errant ears must be continually pulled, supposedly by Chief Obasanjo and his ilk, had the opportunity to lead Anambra for eight years; has the state become a destination for youths and elders, or has it showcased visionary leadership? And how is it possible, even in the closing years of Chief Obasanjo’s life, when he should be wiser and less given to histrionics, that he cannot appreciate that leadership is not about age but about character, discipline, intuition, intellect, and vision etc.? Neither he nor Mr Obi possesses any of the attributes he speaks dreamily about; it was, therefore, a trifle too easy for him to pontificate grandly as the grand mentor of political heavyweights, including, untruthfully, Mr Obi himself.

INEC statistics suggest that Nigerian youths dominate the voting population; it is understandable why Chief Obasanjo has tried to instigate them against the rest of the country without caring what qualities or character the aspirant or candidate possesses, or what the consequences of division might be. Using the age segmentation tool is, however, a mask for the former president’s other insidious objectives, as indicated in this place on December 18. Some analysts have snidely speculated he is not quite the Yoruba man he has all along pretended to be, but given his unbridled narcissism and messianic fervour, the ethnicity or religion a candidate belongs to hardly matters to him. He is neither a federalist nor a democrat, and if he tolerated the rule of law, which as president he treated as an inconvenience, it is because he had encountered a greater force he could not resist. He works hard, but he is incapable of any kind of altruism, and his leadership style has been as self-indulgent and ad hoc as his perspectives have been desultory. How such a man can now pretend to nobility in the selection of the next president, when he more than thrice bastardised that process in the past, is beyond comprehension. After ruling Nigeria for more than a decade, and having done nothing to reform or restructure the system to create a more durable constitution and viable democracy, it is shocking that he still sees nothing wrong in instigating and promoting division.

It is fortuitous that Chief Obasanjo has openly endorsed Mr Obi with the same questionable judgement he openly schemed for third term in 2006. His nose will be put out of joint in the coming weeks, as it was in 2006. Had he offered plausible reasons for endorsing the LP candidate, the country would have had to grudgingly respect his choice, despite his customary self-centredness. The APC is fortunate he did not endorse their candidate, for they would have had to lie in bed with a demanding stranger and cocquet. They gave him the courtesy of a visit, as they gave other past Nigerian rulers. Surely it could not be because he had done stupendously well as president, as he erroneously seemed to believe; yet he tries to constitute himself into a sort of national lodestar from which future leaders must take their reference. Courtesy is nothing more than courtesy, no matter what anyone reads into it. In the years ahead, such courtesies would not be given anyone but the electorate who, hopefully, can acquire the education and judgement needed to discern and vote for leaders with character.

Okealaaye:
Obasanjo Instigates Youths

Idowu Akinlotan

January 8, 2023

Contrary to what many supporters of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo think, those who chide him for his unusual and intemperate letter endorsing the presidential candidacy of Labour Party’s Peter Obi are not doing so because they regret his refusal to support their own candidates. He has the right and pleasure to support anyone he wishes, regardless of the bad choices he has made over decades. What the complainants quarrel with is the tone of the endorsement letter, its instigation rather than logical persuasion of the youths, and the former president’s unbelievable deployment of mediocre philosophy of leadership. He is free to support anyone he likes, whether his critics like it or not, but it was expected that he would do it with the dignified poise of a leader, the decorum associated with great leadership, and with balanced, even-tempered and unassailable logic. He had all of 85 years to develop and hone that poise and maturity, and over 11 years as head of state and president to acquire the experience needed to set the right example for the nation. Now, all those years seem a horrible waste.

Somehow, as is customary of him, his letter of endorsement was full of hysteria: hysteria against his imaginary foes, hysteria against his successors in office, and hysteria against his compatriots and God whom he sometimes gives the impression is permanently at his beck and call. Mr Obi, a sophist like no other, probably deserves Chief Obasanjo’s support. The two sophists are thus obsessed with specious reasoning, and roundly complement each other. For whatever the endorsement is worth, no one should begrudge the controversial former president from backing Mr Obi’s candidacy. It was perhaps too far-fetched for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to expect Chief Obasanjo’s endorsement. Too much had soured in their relationship to realistically expect even a grin from the ex-president. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) would have been unable to fathom any endorsement from Abeokuta. That left the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and LP’s Mr Obi to vie for the bilious old man’s attention. It would have been incongruous for the APC, as the party knows very well, to receive the nod from their old and unforgiving antagonist and sparring partner.

All the leading candidates for the 2023 presidential election had visited Chief Obasanjo in Abeokuta, more as a courtesy than necessity; but it would be hard to gauge what value they would have attached to his endorsement had he deemed them worthy of the gesture. Even Mr Obi who finally got the nod has remained nonplussed. He is uncertain what to do with the endorsement, especially seeing that the repeated hurrahs he had got from the politicised churches of Nigeria had not given his candidacy the needed boost. The streetwise LP candidate knows by instinct that Chief Obasanjo is long past his expiry date. In fact, much more, he knows that all that is left of the phlegmatic old warhorse from Abeokuta is his nuisance value. But better not to draw the ire of the sleeping bear: if he cannot be for you, at least make him indifferent to you. That was why Alhaji Atiku and Asiwaju Tinubu visited him. Both men were too smart not to know where Chief Obasanjo leaned; but they thought they could lessen the pungency of his vitriol. Alas, the former president remains as incandescent and malignant as ever.

When Chief Obasanjo first gave the solid hint mid-December that he might endorse Mr Obi, this column challenged him to defend his suppositions about the LP candidate. It is unlikely the former president read the challenge, for he is too cocksure of everything to care what anyone writes, and too narcissistic to bother about any interest but his. However, he has finally explained his choice, though the explanations do not do credit to his long years in office, nor to his vaunted statesmanlike ability to see the woods for the trees, to see from the mountaintop, and to light a lamp to the national feet. He rests his support for Mr Obi on two main but leprous legs, one of which is discernible from his attempt to prequalify the candidates. Hear him: “From interaction and experience, and as mentees as most of them claim, I will, without prejudice, fear or ill-will, make bold to say that there are four major factors to watch out for in a leader you will consider to hoist on yourself and on the rest of Nigerians in the coming election and they are what I call TVCP: Track record of ability and performance; Vision that is authentic, honest and realistic; Character and attributes of a lady and a gentleman who are children of God and obedient to God; and Physical and mental capability with soundness of mind as it is a very taxing and tasking assignment at the best of times and more so it is at the most difficult time that we are.”

This prequalification of presidential candidates is clearly pedestrian, and it is hard to imagine that it comes from a former president. How he equated those who visited him – for after all, they also visited other past rulers – as his mentees remains baffling. How could a man whose politics is in constant flux have mentored anyone when he had no identifiable ideology, no private or public principles, and is capable of the most corrosive mendacity any liar anywhere could subscribe to? The simple answer is that it is customary of Chief Obasanjo to exaggerate his recollections and be infatuated with his own tall stories. Having read very little of any serious stuff since he left office, and thus failed to improve himself, it is unsurprising that he embraces flighty ideas and panaceas. Just reading books on Julius and Augustus Caesar, Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Deng Xiaoping, and Charles de Gaulle, among many other great leaders in Asia, Africa and Europe would have helped sharpened his perspective on leadership. But even using the crude four-way test contained in his letter of endorsement, it is hard to explain why he cannot see that his choice failed all but one of the tests. He then went on whimsically to denounce the emi lokan (my turn) slogan popularised by Asiwaju Tinubu, insisting that leadership does not admit to such principle, but turned round to embrace awon lokan (their turn) to underscore Mr Obi’s bid as an Igbo man. As customary, the contradictions are lost on him.

 But there is an even more pernicious and infinitely more pedestrian, instigative and divisive second leg for Chief Obasanjo to stand his endorsement of Mr Obi: the LP candidate’s youth, a factor embedded in the former president’s four-way test. Why he smothered the third of the four-way test – that of obedience to God – whatever that means, is equally hard to fathom. In any case, he has zeroed in on the youth factor. So, hear him at his sentimental worst: “My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame. Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so. If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good and you will have no one to blame but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you. Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be. And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’ (Your turn). The power to change is in your hands. Your future, my future, the future of grandchildren and great grandchildren is in your hands. Politics and elections are numbers game. You have the numbers, get up, stand up and make your numbers count.”

To hear a former president instigate this sentimental and comical revolution is truly troubling. He and many others in his generation were heads of state in their youth. What did they do when they were given the opportunity to lead the country? What did they bring into leadership? What constitu tional structure for leadership recruitment did he, in eight years, institute to help produce the right leaders? Both as a youth and elder, he led Nigeria without character, morality and principles. Now, in his infatuations, he is advocating a beguiling and suffocating return to emptiness. Mr Obi whom he touts as competent, but whose errant ears must be continually pulled, supposedly by Chief Obasanjo and his ilk, had the opportunity to lead Anambra for eight years; has the state become a destination for youths and elders, or has it showcased visionary leadership? And how is it possible, even in the closing years of Chief Obasanjo’s life, when he should be wiser and less given to histrionics, that he cannot appreciate that leadership is not about age but about character, discipline, intuition, intellect, and vision etc.? Neither he nor Mr Obi possesses any of the attributes he speaks dreamily about; it was, therefore, a trifle too easy for him to pontificate grandly as the grand mentor of political heavyweights, including, untruthfully, Mr Obi himself.

INEC statistics suggest that Nigerian youths dominate the voting population; it is understandable why Chief Obasanjo has tried to instigate them against the rest of the country without caring what qualities or character the aspirant or candidate possesses, or what the consequences of division might be. Using the age segmentation tool is, however, a mask for the former president’s other insidious objectives, as indicated in this place on December 18. Some analysts have snidely speculated he is not quite the Yoruba man he has all along pretended to be, but given his unbridled narcissism and messianic fervour, the ethnicity or religion a candidate belongs to hardly matters to him. He is neither a federalist nor a democrat, and if he tolerated the rule of law, which as president he treated as an inconvenience, it is because he had encountered a greater force he could not resist. He works hard, but he is incapable of any kind of altruism, and his leadership style has been as self-indulgent and ad hoc as his perspectives have been desultory. How such a man can now pretend to nobility in the selection of the next president, when he more than thrice bastardised that process in the past, is beyond comprehension. After ruling Nigeria for more than a decade, and having done nothing to reform or restructure the system to create a more durable constitution and viable democracy, it is shocking that he still sees nothing wrong in instigating and promoting division.

It is fortuitous that Chief Obasanjo has openly endorsed Mr Obi with the same questionable judgement he openly schemed for third term in 2006. His nose will be put out of joint in the coming weeks, as it was in 2006. Had he offered plausible reasons for endorsing the LP candidate, the country would have had to grudgingly respect his choice, despite his customary self-centredness. The APC is fortunate he did not endorse their candidate, for they would have had to lie in bed with a demanding stranger and cocquet. They gave him the courtesy of a visit, as they gave other past Nigerian rulers. Surely it could not be because he had done stupendously well as president, as he erroneously seemed to believe; yet he tries to constitute himself into a sort of national lodestar from which future leaders must take their reference. Courtesy is nothing more than courtesy, no matter what anyone reads into it. In the years ahead, such courtesies would not be given anyone but the electorate who, hopefully, can acquire the education and judgement needed to discern and vote for leaders with character.