Obasanjo: Kingmaker Without Chiefs – Bayo Oluwasanmi

Agency ReporterFebruary 2, 2018

0 2 minutes read

Obasanjo Intervention Movement (OIM) launched in Abuja a few days ago, reminds us yet of another Satanic verse from an unworthy and illegitimate kingmaker.

The role of Obasanjo as a kingmaker is made possible by the presence of a well-functioning support of political lackeys. Obasanjo’s continuous visibility in our politics as a kingmaker in choosing a candidate for Aso Rock in 2019 is enhanced and influenced by co-opting individuals with political aspirations or those seeking to gain access to the spoils of office.

Once all the appendages, stooges, crumb eaters, looters, thieves, and suckers are fully incorporated and incentivized to participate, the Obasanjo Intervention Movement (OIM) serves as focal point for anointing a new leader who can continue to protect their interests.

Obasanjo’s record as a kingmaker reads like a funeral dirge. He gave us Yar’adua. He gave us Jonathan. To some extent, he gave us Buhari. The Bible says we should not talk ill of the dead. As far as Nigerians are concerned, these men are dead politically. We cannot drive a car forward by looking at the rearview mirrors. But in Nigeria, where inmates run the asylum, Obasanjo as a kingmaker is the driver of a runaway train looking at rear view mirrors.

As a kingmaker, Obasanjo represents a polished name for political absurdity – the wrong person for the right reasons. He’s synonymous with moral collapse eating away the foundations of our society like cancer. Obasanjo personifies everything that’s wrong with Nigeria. I don’t have to bore you with the catalog of evils of Obasanjo as a military dictator and a civilian president. You’re all too familiar with his historical role in the political wreckage and economic carnage Nigeria and Nigerians are going through today.

The end has come for Obasanjo as a kingmaker. The times are different. Nigerians have become wiser. The political climate is changing. The way Nigerians feel about and perceive the social and political environment has created a dynamic political climate. The organic nature of political climate means that at any time public sentiment can impose a change in what’s valued by society.

A groundswell of support for a new generation for the presidency has sparked the interest and participation of Nigerian youths in politics like never before especially in choosing our next president. Public opinion and public sentiment are against Obasanjo and his old brigade of irredeemably corrupt politicians. New public expectations for the next president are gathering momentum. These are the barometers to measure our new political climate as opposed to a kingmaker without chiefs.

So, where’s the mourning for the fact that we, as a nation, have come to this: a choice between murderers, a choice between plunderers and destroyers, a choice between thieves, a choice between fools, a choice between cowards as the kingmaker who will choose our next president?

In days like these when death is busy and loss is common to Nigerians, when hunger, poverty, joblessness, fear and insecurity, homelessness, and disease ravaged the land, when young ones are written off as lost generations, when the country is headed into the abyss, we don’t need any Obasanjo as the kingmaker to foist upon us another politically expired candidate in vision and vigor.

For 2019, the battle lines are drawn: no ageing despots, no former military buffoon, no member of the gang of thieves ruling Nigeria. Nigerians will choose the candidate for the presidency. Enough of the tomfoolery!