After a few days his condition did not improve. So he picked up the bottle of medicine and read the instructions carefully. Somewhere on the bottle it stated “SHAKE BEFORE USE”.
When the man discovered the instruction, he started to jump up and down, whirled his waist and shook his belly at the same time. He wanted to ensure that all the medicine he had taken mix thoroughly inside of his body.
You’re guaranteed of getting wiser for every lesson you attended with Mr. Olatunji in front of the classroom. He told us at that time that with his knowledge and education-he should be sitting on the 35th floor of a civil engineering firm.
But he was stuck with us for a while, teaching and giving us hope for a brighter future. To make ends meet Mr. Olatunji also ran a private coaching outfit popularly called lesson. A very clever man with excellent skills in mathematics, I learnt later on that he found a job outside of teaching. I hope life treated you well, sir!
Now I look forward to reading General Obasanjo’s book. But I have seen a few of the previews that early birds have posted online.
Sometimes in late 2007, several Nigerians started the process of canonizing Obasanjo. It was either he controlled the media or the impatient people were doing an early comparison of his tenure as the ruler of Nigeria with that of the puppets that he almost singlehandedly installed after his failed third-term bid.
Some believed that Obasanjo brought in Yar Adua and Jonathan because he wanted to show Nigerians that they would have been better off with him as a life president. There are still many theories on why Obasanjo brought 2 peculiar political invalids to rule Nigeria.
I am trying to place Obasanjo in the positions of both the doctor and the patient in Mr. Olatunji’s narration.
As the former ruler of Nigeria for a total period of about 10 years, are there pieces of information in Obasanjo’s book that he could have applied in making Nigeria a better place for all? Were there prescriptions he didn’t read out loud when he addressed Nigerians for 10 years?
What efforts did Obasanjo make to minimize corruption under his regime as a military dictator and a civilian ruler? Does he have the justification to accuse other people of the same crimes that he committed? What efforts did he make to stop the introduction and implementation of extreme Islamism in Northern Nigeria?
Why did he employ the services of a criminal in the person of James Ibori to spearhead the change that would have ensured that he ran for the office of the Nigerian president for a record third time?
Then when the third term bid failed Obasanjo oversaw that Ibori continued to drain the resources of the people of the Niger Delta in promoting Yar Adua. Ibori, an ex-convict was almost going to become Nigeria’s vice president under Obasanjo’s watch, a road map that could also have placed him in line to the presidency.
Obasanjo is like the people he criticized in his new book. How did he get Otta back from scrap to a multi-billion naira project just after emerging as the military’s choice in 1999?
What happened to all the billions of naira spent on power generation under his watch? I hope I will read about his shady deals in his new book of revelations because from space Nigeria is still one of the darkest places in Africa today. What about the funds meant to equip the police force that ended up with his family members?
Obasanjo and some of the people mentioned in his book like Atiku where co-criminals at the helm of affairs in Nigeria. They even went a step ahead in their criminal pursuits in the international Halliburton bribery scandal. It was only in Nigeria that the criminals involved in this scandal were not punished. The criminal law system in Nigeria is a huge joke.
Obasanjo can win accolades for his book, for the gladiate contents. He likes to play to the gallery and that sort of excitement is what most Nigerians want.
They want to accept one form of evil above another. They want to agree that Obasanjo was better than Jonathan because the law system in Nigeria does not query, try and send people for prison for serious crimes like state murder and looting of the treasury with good governance as the opportunity cost.
How has the larger Nigerian populace benefitted from Obasanjo’s wit and tricks since he emerged as a PDP politician?
I am not thankful to Obasanjo for his contributions to the misery of the Nigerian life. I cannot appreciate him for his roles directly and indirectly in the demeaning of the Nigerian life.
In terms of establishing institutions and empowering people that will contribute to the progress of Nigeria Obasanjo is probably more clueless than Jonathan.
If the law and justice system in Nigeria are fair, would Obasanjo be a free man or a prisoner today? Who takes the responsibility for the political assassinations under his watch? Who killed Bola Ige? Did he provide the hints in his book?
Obasanjo enjoys having his hands and voice in everything. The preview of Obasanjo’s books that I’ve read placed him in the category of the people I described in my column last week-the people with foolish expectations.
He led a corrupt government and imposed another clueless corrupt government yet he’s out there crying over a foreseeable tragedy. What hypocrite!
In the same vein, when I would have read his book, I might still find it difficult to remove Obasanjo from the category of Nigerians on Lagbaja’s scale of mumuism.
Millions of Nigerians also fit in to the patient role in Mr. Olatunji’s story. They are now jumping up and down and wriggling their bellies because they have taken their medicines without reading the label where it state shake before use. We’ll see where this takes them in February 2015.
Obasanjo knew that Jonathan was incompetent as the governor of Bayelsa. Everybody in Bayelsa knew his deputy was in charge when he was a governor. If Obasanjo was not aware of that then he must have suffered from a premature dementia. If it took Obasanjo 8 years to realize that he handed over to a corrupt government like the one he managed, then he needs a quick help.
Millions of Nigerians were basking in 2011: we are voting for Jonathan, not the PDP. It was laughable, yet very sad to read the collective reasoning of a people drained of both mental and physical strengths. What options were available anyway? An endless dilemma it must be.
It sounded as foolish as when Babangida said he did not cancel the results of the 1993 elections, that he only annulled it. It’s the same rigmarole when he said he was stepping aside when he ought to have been arrested and imprisoned for treason.
It was that fateful cancelled elections that Obasanjo benefitted from. He even campaigned on behalf of the treason perpetrators like Ibrahim Babangida. Obasanjo said MKO Abiola was not the messiah.
Obasanjo’s messiah for Nigeria since 2009 was Mr. Jonathan. When did he detect the truth that now set his wicked mind free?
I am making efforts to get Obasanjo’s books to my domain. I look forward to reading Obasanjo’s explanation as to why he collected the Halliburton bribe. Also I want to know how much he got. Was it a third of $74m or a straight N27b?
I will like to read Obasanjo’s book so I can mock his gullibility-that at his right and ripe ages in 1979 (Shagari), 1993 (Abiola), 2007 (Yar Adua) and 2011 (Jonathan) he was fooled or he fooled Nigerians.
Obasanjo’s is now shaking after taking his own medicine. Too late I am sorry.
When Mr. Obasanjo is done with whirling his waist or shaking his belly, I hope someone can tell him that some people actually read the labels and instructions on their medicines before they swallowed them.
If he ever gets another chance in his life time, one hopes that he reads the label before prescribing or taking the medicine himself.
For now he should stop crying over the milk he spilled as the search for true and exemplary leaders continue in the rising struggle to liberate Nigeria and Nigerians.
By Adeola Aderounmu
Twitter: @folabright
BB PIN: 334FDB36
Or search search for http://pin.bbm.com/C0036FFAD
NOTE: You can also send your write-up, article / story for publishing on this blog via folabrighht2000@yahoo.com
Be prepared!!! Help share this information.Click Share button to help us share this information on Twitter, facebook, google e.t.c. for SHARING IS CARING. Thanks
0 comments:
Post a Comment