Our children have been denied of the opportunity of learning history until recently. That’s because someone who acted like a choirmaster woke on the wrong side of his bed one morning and wrote off the study of the subject.
As a result, most children born in this generation have very little knowledge of a rich past; the struggle for independence from the British and those who laid down their lives that we may be free. Free to man our own affairs, free to develop at our own pace, and free to live the life of a sovereign people.
So, our children are encouraged to march into the future, their knowledge of a glorious past and a sense of history, stunted by a reckless decision taken by men like General Olusegun Obasanjo who didn’t bother to think a little outside the box.
Denied of a proper knowledge of the past, it has become difficult to put the present in perspective, and even more difficult to predict the future. They are victims of the acculturation process.
It is not a secret that most kids do not speak their mother tongue or understand their culture and tradition. They are unaware of who they are, why they react the way they do to issues. They cannot tell if they are truly black or white.
There was once a country, a country of ethnic groups that had so much faith in a spirit of brotherhood. So, we said in a first anthem that “though tongue and tribe may differ, in brotherhood we stand.”
Chinua Achebe talks about that country, about the illusion that dreams of oneness have become. He separates fiction from reality through his narration and evokes feelings of great expectations that seemingly appear impossible.
But the anatomy of military power which created room for “jagudas” bearing weapons to up-turn Nigeria’s democracy should not be waved aside. That we have a military mentality is not our fault. It is the fault of the military.
Those weapons used by the Nigerian military to intimidate their fellow countrymen and women have become the very weapons of terror that are freely being used by so-called “bloody civilians” against one another.
So, all manner of cultists and militants as well as insurgents, farmers and herders, Christians and Muslims brazenly carry guns. To convince themselves that they enjoy absolute protection and authority; that they wear the power of coercion like a belt round their waist; they kill and maim.
While we cry of the calamity that has befallen us, Obasanjo and men like him who encouraged the terror represented by the military, would very much want to dissociate himself from the instability that the abuse of weapons had caused this country.
Did we grant permission to seize power to Obasanjo and his fellow coup plotters who set aside the Nigerian Constitution in order to install rogue governments?
Elements like Obasanjo taught us that power belongs to those who dominate their environment. They told us that they had more than a hundred ways of killing a man. In so doing, they forced us to do things differently.
In the end, it is the military establishment, not the Nigerian people, which is behind ‘authority stealing” that Fela Anikulapko Kuti sang so much about.
It baffles me that General Obasanjo who is apparently part of a generation of looters does not want to be part of the solution. All that he wants is, to be part of the promotion of a cycle of criticism that provides no answers.
Our man has taken to letter writing since he left the corridors of power and returned to Otta where he owns a big farm and a library, and receives a motley crowd of relevance seekers and power brokers who rally round him from time to time.
I wonder how many people currently use post offices. Society has largely turned its back to the analog system. Today, the world boasts of a digitalized system secured by science and powered by technology. So we talk in terms of digital leaders, digital steps and digital behaviour.
Great leaders who have done their bit in office keep absolutely quiet. No matter what, they stay away from controversies and other matters that affect the government of the day or have the capacity of affecting national security.
At best, leaders offer constructive advice to successors when it is passionately sought. When they do, it is mostly done behind the scene, and not through screaming banner headlines like Obasanjo cherishes.
I would hate to turn my attention to OBJ. He doesn’t deserve to be kicked around like a ball. He also doesn’t need to push others around the way he is doing.
Paul wrote a lot of epistles to the Corinthians and all whose ears he sought to control. Epistles weren’t commonplace then. To read, you had to know how to write.
With time Tony Momoh wrote letters to his fellow countrymen. They were letters written under the watch of Nigeria’s military. Tony who waltzed through the Daily Times to national prominence has since stopped writing letters.
It is possible Obasanjo who now bombards us with bombastic letters has discovered the efficacy of letter writing through Tony. OBJ’s sojourn in religious studies thereafter, may have exposed him to Paul the scribe, increased his appetite for epistles and how they are crafted, and enhanced the regularity or frequency for such deeds.
You can imagine what it would take the Otta farmer and former Nigerian President to post letters to his fellow countrymen if the world of mass communications did not exist.
OBJ must then consider himself lucky that he still has a way of getting us to read his lengthy and windy letters. Because he aspires to be Mr. Nigeria, dreams to be he who must be obeyed, and assumes to be the one who knows it all, the media does the rest.
If Obasanjo has become a nuisance increasingly, it is not his problem. It is the problem of the media which jumps at those letters that he would never have tolerated under his reign.
As media gurus, we engage in agenda setting, making sure we sift information that go through the funnel, despite knowing that we must encourage a marketplace of ideas.
Besides, there are channels that are open to the former Head of State if his desire is to contribute positively. He has direct assess to the President. There is the Council of States meeting too.
Comments made through these channels which affect the national interest could be used to influence policy direction, but the one who openly abused the father of a musician who sang “Nigeria Jaga jaga” , a song that exposed some of the short comings of his administration, would not travel that route.
As a person, I have no reason to show disrespect to the old man. Old men have been known however, to peep into the bag and say what they want to with much caution.
The fact is that they understand the nature of communication and the impact what they say could have on those who decode their messages and subsequently attempt to encode them.
Nigeria is going through trying periods. There is instability in the North East and the North West. Economic problems that have taken years to create stare Nigerians in the face.
Nobody expects the government to wave a magic wand. Our expectation is that Obasanjo would don the garment of a statesman and speak in a manner that encourages Nigerians and re-establishes their confidence in the future of their nation.
What is this nonsense about Nigeria becoming a failed nation and a basket case? I was dismayed when he said that. I didn’t think it was a comment befitting of a former President. I was even more pained by his offer of unrealistic solutions.
He couldn’t quite hit the nail on the hand, and didn’t quite see the point that economic experts are making as efforts are made to get the nation’s economy under control.
I heard the other day that he has been dubbed the divider-in-chief of the nation.
Obasanjo has no reason to bring himself to increasing public ridicule. If he doesn’t know it, not many Nigerians are enthusiastic about his numerous letters. He has written one too many.