By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The two generals are seen as the best of friends across the political spectrum of the Nigerian nation. In many informed circles, General Matthew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida are seen as belonging to the rarefied class known as “Owners of Nigeria”.
Only the uninformed
does not know that when there was the transition to civil rule back in 1999 it
was Babangida who arranged that Obasanjo should be brought out of General Sani
Abacha’s prison to be made the president of Nigeria.
This act made Obasanjo to create the record of a two-time leader of Nigeria after having been a military Head of State in his first missionary journey.
In this day and age
that there is so much talk of having a political structure, let us be reminded
that Obasanjo had no structure to crow about back in 1999.
He actually lost the
election in his own ward, where according to the information supplied by one of
my strategic sources, he won only the one vote of his doting wife Stella.
Obasanjo, the
inimitable Ebora of Owu, waxed even stronger after the electoral humiliation
given the backing of Babangida, the irrepressible Evil Genius.
General Abdulsalami
Abubakar did his bit as the then Head of State but it was Babangida who was the
grand orchestrator of Obasanjo’s ascension to the Nigerian presidency.
Any between-the-lines
reader of this piece would then ask why I am talking of a fight between
Obasanjo and Babangida.
You wait, for I have
all the facts inside my fat head! A beer for me!
Yes, Obasanjo and
Babangida once had an insulting go at one another, and it is incumbent on me to
lay it bare here.
It’s not as if the
insulting match between Obasanjo and Babangida is anything new in Nigerian
politics, for back in the days of yore, eminent Nigerian politicians such as
Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, SL Akintola, KO Mbadiwe etc. knew
how to adeptly knock out their political opponents with astutely delivered
insults.
For instance, in the
Second Republic, Awo said that he could only hold a debate on the issue of
education with Zik but not with Shehu Shagari because the man from Sokoto knew
next-to-nothing on the subject!
Of course the world
knows that Awo was a master of education, but he knew nothing of the
Twelve-Two-Third mathematical abracadabra Shagari used to win the 1979 election
over him.
I can see that
everybody out there is anxious that I return to the subject of the fight
between Obasanjo and Babangida.
Meantime, I am still
investigating the matter that in bringing Obasanjo back to power, from khaki to
agbada, Babangia was only plotting to succeed the Otta man, a move that was
thwarted by the wily Obasanjo.
It suffices to recall
that in Obasanjo’s alleged Third-Term plot, Maradona led the fight against the
Ebora.
To waste no further
time on my promised remembrance of the fight between the two dogged Nigerian
generals, it so happened that at the celebration of the 70th birthday
of Babangida he said that he managed to achieve success with little funds while
a certain regime achieved failure with so much petro-dollars.
Obasanjo was in no
mood to dodge the bullet which he felt was directed at pointblank range at him.
He took the bullet
straight in the chest, and promptly mouthed his reply thusly: “A fool at
seventy can only go into his grave with his foolishness.”
Many of us had heard
of “a fool at forty” but this matter of “a fool at seventy” takes the cake.
It is not in my
interest to regurgitate the incestuous charges Babangida deployed in his reply
to Obasanjo, as he obviously latched on to the deposition of Obasanjo’s son who
had claimed that his father wangled his wife back in time.
The Evil Genius thus
made bold to stress that the feat of the Ebora of Owu being the greatest fool
of the century.
Finally, Babangida
tagged Obasanjo a “witless comedian” which happens to be a “Maradonic” way of
calling the old man a clown!
In the end, the acclaimed Maradona of
power gave voice from the 50 rooms of his 50-room hilltop mansion that he had
been misquoted by the press!
*Uzoatu is a poet,
playwright and essayist
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