Open letter to Buharists – by Frank Ofili

Fellow Buharists,

I am not impressed with the way some of us are reacting to President Obasanjo’s “special press statement”. You are taking the whole thing personal.

Since the Ebora of Owu released the statement, all sorts of insults have been heaped on him by some of President Buhari’s foot soldiers. Some have called him names while others are reminding us of his politics of “do or die” and “Ghana-must-go”, not to mention the political assassinations, notably that of his Attorney General, Chief Bola Ige, that took place under his watch. Those assassinations have remained unresolved till date.

There have been so many other allegations made against him which time and space will not permit me to go into here. Whether those allegations are true or not is not the concern of this piece, but it is perhaps pertinent to remind us all know that the joke is on us if we think the two retired Army generals are at daggers drawn. I make bold to say that the two have no personal issues whatsoever. For them, and for politicians the world over, politics is sports and we the people are the playing field. Obasanjo’s statement should be seen as a continuation of politics by other means.

Attacking his person and not his message is the wrong move to make. Thank God Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, seems to be aware of this, hence his succinct, prudent and conciliatory response to the former president.

Rather than attack Obasanjo, we should see his message as a patriarchal intervention in our body polity. No other person is better qualified than Obasanjo to so do. I don’t know any Nigerian living today who knows Nigeria more than Obasanjo. I don’t know anyone who knows Buhari more than Obasanjo, except perhaps his wife, Mrs. Aisha Buhari.

Who is that Nigerian who helped Buhari to become President more than Obasanjo, Tinubu and Aisha.

All three have at one point or the other voiced their displeasure with Buhari’s government. Yours truly also did his bit in his own little way for which I was equally condemned. If Mrs. Aisha Buhari was sufficiently concerned enough to publicly voice her worries about a government in which she has a huge stake, what makes us think Obasanjo should not?

Follow Buharists, let us not deceive ourselves. Our principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, is human, a mere mortal, just like any of us. As a human being, he is bound to make mistakes. I believe he has made some. He is entitled to them, he is not all-knowing.

Those few mistakes are what Obasanjo has merely highlighted. Rather than get emotional about it, we should use the opportunity to do some self-evaluation to determine where we, and our principal, got it wrong. This is the time to make corrections, to re-examine our approach. It is time to cease fire to enable a re-examination of strategy and tactics to be made.

Obasanjo’s warning is timely. Luckily Mr. President has a little over a year to make corrections and turn a potential liability into a huge asset. Let’s help him make the necessary corrections and win more people.

But this is not to say I do not have some reservations about Obasanjo’s statement. One is that it should have been a tete-a-tete with Buhari, after all, he has unfettered access to the President.

The second is that his ill-disguised reference to Buhari’s ill-health was as unnecessary as it was inappropriate. No one is in doubt that Mr. President has fully recovered. Obasanjo himself would never take it kindly if he were in Buhari’s shoes and someone makes such unkind allusion to his health.

In 1998 an Obasanjo, just out of Abacha’s gulag, and being packaged for Aso Rock by the Abdulsalam Abubakar’s administration, was livid when pastor Tunde Bakare called for a psychological and mental evaluation of him to determine if he was in good state of mind for the job of leading the country.

My third grouse is, why would a man who attempted a third term in contravention of the spirit and letter of our constitution, advise another who has spent just two and a half years of his first term of four years, not to attempt a second term? I think only Nigerians have the authority to decide whether or not to give Buhari a second term.

Lastly, if Nigerians were patient with Obasanjo for 8 years, why does he think they will not be patient with a man whose government is only 2 and half years old?

All these concerns however, will not warrant me reducing national discourse to personal insults on the person of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who is arguably the foremost and internationally most respected Nigerian alive. His message is more important than the man and no mudslinging will depreciate the validity of the issues raised in his statement. Please sheath your swords.