Why Olusegun Obasanjo is unarguably the Most effective leader Nigeria has ever had

By Reno Omokri

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is unarguably the greatest Nigerian, living or dead. He was also our best-ever leader. Not because of his economic and infrastructural achievements. In that, he is tied with former President Goodluck Jonathan and General Yakubu Gowon.

The reason he is the undisputed most effective leader Nigeria has ever had is because he politically stabilised our government, and without him, Nigeria may not exist today.

Then Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo killed Biafra on January 13, 1970, and he captured the remaining rebel leaders after Colonel Ojukwu fled on January 11, 1970, and took them to Lagos where they signed a surrender agreement on January 14, 1970.

The reason this is important is that the then British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, had informed General Gowon that the Nigerian Civil War had dragged on too long and that Britain could no longer countenance the mass starvation in Biafra, and if the Nigerian government failed to end the war by the spring of 1970, Britain would be forced to intervene to end the war by pressing for a two-state solution.

Many Nigerians do not realise that until Obasanjo became our military Head of State on February 13, 1976, Nigeria was the most politically unstable country in West Africa and one of the most unstable in Africa.

Before Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s military head of state in 1975, Nigeria had had four previous leaders. They were Prime Minister Abubakar Tarawa Balewa, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, General Yakubu Gowon and General Murtala Mohammed.

Of the four, three were murdered. The one who was not murdered (Yakubu Gowon) was overthrown.

Olusegun Obasanjo is the first Nigerian leader to have had a natural tenure uninterrupted by coups, death or tragedy. Think about that. When he handed over power to President Shehu Shagari on October 1, 1979, Nigeria Airways was one of the largest airlines in Africa, with twenty-five planes. And Nigeria National Shipping Line had twenty four ocean worthy ships making it the largest Black owned shipping line on Earth at the time.

And then between 1979, when he handed power to President Shehu Shagari, and 1999, when he returned as a democratically elected President, Nigeria had six leaders.

They are the late President Shehu Shagari, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan, General Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

Of these six leaders, five of them were removed either by a coup, civil unrest or with a gun pointed at their head. One of them died as a victim of a conspiracy whose plotters we still do not know. And the last one, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, hurriedly hashed over before the fate of his predecessors befell him.

Olusegun Obasanjo, who returned as a democratically elected President on May 29, 1999, is the second Nigerian leader to have a natural tenure uninterrupted by coups, death or tragedy. The first was Obasanjo. General
Abdulsalami did not have a natural term. He governed for nine months as a caretaker.

He is the author of six books. An intellectual. Is able to speak truth to power and go to prison for doing so.

And when he returned as an elected civilian President, he paid off Nigeria’s entire foreign debt to the Paris Club and other Bretton Woods institutions. The thing to consider is that these were loans he did not take. Others took those loans.

And significantly, during his three terms in government (one as a military dictator and two as a democratically elected President), the only ethnicity that complained of under representation in his governments was his Yoruba people.

This man was so courageous that when he was informed in Copenhagen by then US ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, that General Sani Abacha would arrest him if he returned home, he chose to return home. This is even where the West offered him asylum.

May God bless Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo in Yeshua’s Name.