Olutayo Adesina is a professor of Development History at the University of Ibadan. In this interview by Deputy Editor DAPO FALADE, he speaks on the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the face-off between the president and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the official recognition of the late Chief MKO Abiola as the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and the national economy.
It has been three years of the President MuhammaduBuhari-led administration. What is your sincere assessment of the government?
Well, before I begin my own assessment, let me talk about the assessment of others and the cacophony that has assailed our ears in the past three years: first is that he has no vision and secondly is that he has not been able to fulfill any of the promises and thirdly is that he is very clannish, nepotistic and that he is an ethnic bigot. These are narratives in the public domain. But we should also not forget the fact that there are times when things like these happen and from those things come certain unintended consequences. There are messengers and there are messages. When you look at certain issues, you will begin to understand why people talk about how not to do things or how to do things. So, in both cases, there are lessons to be learnt. How not to do things will show either the present generation or posterity how people take actions that are counter-productive. How to do things comes from extremely fecund minds which, in this case, may be visions, principles and values.
But in the case of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, I see him more as a tool: a tool to clear certain things so that we can hit the foundation. Already, the country has lost its foundation, either morally or structurally. Now people no longer understand what it means to have morals. In fact, we have what is called elastic morals — anything goes. But if we don’t go back to the basics in trying to understand the society in its pristine sense, then no matter what we build on what we have now, it will not germinate.
Can you really say it with all sense of responsibility that the man is taking Nigeria back to that pristine golden era and what are the things that you saw that are pointing in that direction?
Let me tell you what we went through in the 1970s: We saw human compassion. We had community existence. We had fellow feelings. We had good education. We had roads and some other things that we took for granted. And these are things we no longer have. Now, if somebody says, ‘let us go back to the good old days’, it means he had that vision. Forget the fact that some of these promises were made and they are now finding it very difficult to keep them. It is not because that they do not know that the promises are vital to the sustenance of, not only democracy, but even self-respect and respect for the individuals concerned.
But there are times when you get to office and you discover that the problems are much bigger than the tools you have. So what you can then do is to recalibrate and say, ‘okay, let us adopt a different approach to this’. And the approach I have seen now is what I will call the moral foundation of the society. It may be slow in hitting us, but we are going to get there, whether we like it or not. The moral foundation of the society is what you need to build every other things on, including sense of patriotism, human values, work ethics, moving away from conspicuous consumption, corruption, assassination and some others. All these are things that are far and few in-between in the past…
Corruption is not limited to financial sleaze alone, but it is all-encompassing. Can you absolve the president of corruption of nepotism?
I am sure the president is not even absolving himself from this.
Is that a sign of good leadership?
Well, it might not be good but in the circumstance, he can explain why he chose to do what he did. Of course, we have seen what has happened, I am not in a position to explain on his behalf what happened. But apparently from his experiences in 1984 and 1985, as a military Head of State, he has chosen to surround himself with people he could trust. But that does not even show a clear sense of history because when you look at the case of former President Marcias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and his cousin, Theodoro Mbasogo who is the current president there now. Mbasogo was promoted to become the security chief over everybody else because Nguema felt that, with him as the head of the security apparatus, he (Nguema) would be secured. But at the end of the day, it was Mbasogo who overthrew Nguema.
So, what President Buhari did was a lack of sense of history indeed and there is no doubt about it. But, like I said, only he who explain why he decided to do what he did. Yes, it is being counted as negative for him now, but we hope that, at the end of the day, it is going to turn out on a positive note as part of the nation-building process. When you are building a nation, you are likely to make mistakes; you are likely to make a false start; you are likely to have your own missteps and you are free to make your own missteps. And, of course, we also learnt from the Kennedys of the US where JF Kennedy also appointed his own brother as the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General…
There are two issues in the public domain today, namely, the Buhari/Obasanjo face-off and the Buhari/MKO Abiola June 12 issue. There have been allegations and counter-allegations between these two prominent Nigerian leaders. What do you think is going to be the likely effect of this on Nigeria and Nigerians?
Looking at the outbursts by former President Obasanjo as well as his letters and posturing, I think he has somehow overreached himself because when you become the father of a nation, we expect you to constantly use the back channels to reach the president. I would not want my own father to start castigating me in front of my own children; there are enough channels for him to reach me. If I then do not hearken to his words, of course, there is the late Chief Bola Ige’s philosophy of siddon look, after all, that is why we have proverbs: One says when the child is felling a tree in the bush, it is the elder who will know the direction in which it would fall. These are the kinds of things we have internalised over the years.
But this style is peculiar to Obasanjo and he has been using same approach all over the years. He did same to former President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerians hailed him then. So, why are you expecting him to change now?
Well, I have told you that no two circumstances are the same. Obasanjo is a poor student of history; that is what he has demonstrated. You cannot adopt the same approach or strategy in resolving issues that you think are the same. I mean, you look at the mood of the nation; you look at the person you are fighting; you look at the immediate future and you look at the circumstances. All these things are to be studied together before evolving a strategy. I am amazed that as a war General, he has failed to internalise all these…
What is your view on the recognition given the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the late Chief MKO Abiola, especially the timing?
What is wrong with the timing? I am not interested in the timing but in the message. And the message is that if evil has gone on for years, one day, the truth will catch up with it and that is what has happened. Don’t believe that this is the end of the matter; it is just the beginning because, like I said earlier, there are certain unintended consequences that are likely to arise from all this. So, the first stage is recognising that June 12 was valid; MKO was elected and the government has recognised that. Do you know what the next stage is likely to be? Very soon, there will be trials.
Yes, the president has recognised the election, but he still refers to MKO Abiola as the presumed winner. Is this not an irony?
Yes, that is the right word. It is all about the process. The president would be opening his flanks if he says Abiola is the winner because the process was not completed and there was nobody that had been declared officially as the winner. So, the president can still be pardoned if he uses the word ‘presumed’. But if he now reconstitutes the National Electoral Commission (NEC), because I don’t think that even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can do it…
But the records and results of the election are there?
Yes, we saw it but it is all about a pronouncement and until there is an official pronouncement, either by INEC or by a special mandate to the National Assembly or something, we will continue to use the word, ‘presumed’. (Nigerian Tribune)
