Who will be Nigeria’s last president? by Festus Adedayo

I have this hunch that by the time President Muhammadu Buhari leaves office after his second term, there may either be no Nigeria as properly so called or the nagging questions of our existence would have led to the ultimate violent resolution of our identity and leadership crises. Two issues that cropped up during the week that just ended cemented this haunch of mine.

One was the establishment of the radio station by the Federal Government which is said to be principally devoted to Fulani herdsmen; the other being ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s antagonistic engagement of and with what he called the Fulanization of Nigeria and Africa by Boko Haram, as well as his activist pronouncements in recent time. The increase in Fulani herdsmen’s incursion into the South West and the ease with which hopelessness is seizing the land like a pestilence, that culminates in young men and women taking their own lives, are the morbid icing on this cake of sorrow. Already, the Katsina State government has literally cancelled the May 29 celebration because bandits have almost taken over the President’s state.


At the Anglican Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) Oleh, Delta State last weekend, Obasanjo shouted a decibel higher than his earlier trenchant opposition to the Buhari government. According to him, if the Federal Government appeased Miyetti Allah with N100 million as is being circulated, it should appease other ethnic groups in the country with same amount of money, after all, the presidency said there was no difference between these notorious herders and Afenifere, as well as Ohanaeze Ndigbo.


Buhari’s media machine, spearheaded by that inveterate propagandist, Minister of Information Lai Mohammed, launched into an uncouth diatribe against the former president, accusing him of “spreading divisive agenda at the twilight of his life.” Some other veterans of the Nigerian civil war, who know the import of this war-without-warriors that is being fought on the soil of Nigeria, have spoken in support of Obasanjo. Former governor of the defunct Western State, Maj.-Gen. David Jemibewon, (rtd) and Col. Theophilus Bamigboye (rtd), former Military Administrator of Bauchi and Osun states, literally told Muhammed and his boss to shut their traps.


Perhaps the most foreboding support of Obasanjo was the one that came from the unusual flank of Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka. “We should be careful not to be too dismissive over the matter. The Federal Government is leaving aside the substance, which is the high level of kidnapping, youth suicide and terrorism in the country. I support unity in Africa but we need to particularize the area of unity we seek. Even Boko Haram also tries to unify everybody.


“When you talk about Uthman Dan Fodio, what comes to people’s mind is threat to dip the Koran into the Atlantic Ocean. There are many people in this controversy. My feeling is that the response of Minister of Information shows that they are leaving behind the substance, and worried about the language. Obasanjo was calling for a meeting to tackle some of the serious issues in the country, including youth suicide. He said there are immediate needs to sit down and discuss these issues. And I am saying there are more immediate needs to do that,” he said.


If you read through the lines of the recent statements by Obasanjo, they will clearly pass as ones made at moment of purgatory or penance. Since his enlistment into the Nigerian Army in 1958, Obasanjo has been a serious advocate and devotee of the Nigerian god of nationalism, defending the interest of the North when it conflicted with the South. It was not surprising that when his friend, Murtala Muhammed, was assassinated, the Northern military oligarchs, represented by Generals Domkat Bali, Theophilus Danjuma and others, felt very comfortable with him as the Head of State. Perhaps as a payback, Obasanjo felt no qualms in demonizing his kinsman, Obafemi Awolowo and handing over power to the scions of the north who were magnanimous enough to hand over power to him “on a platter” in 1976. In 1999 when it was obvious that if the North did not cede power to the South, there would be a massive revolt, Obasanjo was still the most trusted ally the North felt most comfortable to invest power with. And for eight years, he did not rock their boat, pandering to the whims of the north at critical intersections. The truth is, seldom would the South or even the West claim, in the real sense of it, that it had a presidency of its own in the Obasanjo presidency.



One word Obasanjo never wanted to hear was Awolowo’s preachment that you had to have an ethnic identity before you have a national identity. In other words, you cannot just be a Nigerian from the blues; you have to first be a Yoruba, a Hausa or Igbo before the latter Nigerian identity.


Now, apology to Chief Kingsley Mbadiwe, push is coming to shove and the guest who overstayed his welcome, according to the Yoruba wise-saying, is being shown the last cut of the yam tuber as the only meal left at home. It is time for the guest to return to his father’s house. And Obasanjo is returning to the home he had always desecrated. When Awolowo sought to fortify his people and their development, Obasanjo spearheaded attacks on him as an ethnicist. Now, in his very before, as they say, Obasanjo can see children of those he relentlessly fought their battles, with the connivance of our own children sired definitely not by our father – I forgot now what they call such children! – raining abuses on him for standing by the truth of our ancestry.


When Obasanjo stood by and abetted Murtala Muhammed, a known hater of every other tribe aside his own Hausa ancestry, who unconscionably massacred Igbo in their hundreds in Asaba, including Maryam Babangida’s father, he was acting within the confines of war. Now, a Muhammed incarnate, Muhammadu Buhari, is prosecuting the agenda of his ethnic Fulani people and an Obasanjo, who had always been anefulefu (traitor) of the Southern agenda, is riled. This same Buhari had earlier before he became president attacked the Goodluck Jonathan government for being unfair to the North in its rout of the dreaded Boko Haram. Nobody said a word. Now, Fulani, a very tiny fraction of Nigeria’s over 350 ethnic groups, is going to have a radio of its own, financed by the collective Nigerian purse and Obasanjo is raising hell.


Miyetti Allah and its herder compatriots were killing Nigerians in their hundreds and Buhari was concocting all manner of theories to legitimize their onslaughts; nobody spoke. Now, same poeople are on our lands, kidnapping and killing us and demanding N100 billion of our money to stop attacking us and the whole country is crying blue murder. Where was Obasanjo and the likes when all these were happening?


In all these, I see a resolution of our national crises coming soon, faster than we imagined. We may just start counting who the last Nigerian President will be. Like the holy writ says, when you see the fig tree’s branch become tender, with its branches sprout and start putting out leaves, you should know that summer is near. In the same vein, I think the end has surely come. Since I was old enough to access public comments of eminent Nigerians, Soyinka and Obasanjo had never come to agreement over any issue, no matter how nationalistic or developmental the issue may be. Over this issue of the notorious blood-baying Fulani herders and the unceasing violence and killings under the Buhari government which have become so scary that we have to seek travel directory to move from any point to the other, even in the erstwhile tranquil West, the two kinsmen are in amity. Let us look towards the dark firmament – the resolution we seek is nigh.