Oga is livid! – A psychoanalysis of GEJ’s blitzkreig‏

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May I start by wishing my dear readers a Happy
New 2014. I pray that we do things differently
this year, write about new, positive things, and
stop deluding ourselves that we are making
progress, so that we could focus on the things
that are really important.
That said, let us for the sake of balance, look at
the sitting president’s counter-attack on the ex-
president, from a psycho-analytical point of view
i.e. looking at things that were not said, cloaked
intentions and meanings, and of course
underlying emotions that will give us insight into
the future.
The first line of the President’s response dated
20th December, 2013, ‘formally acknowledged’
all the letters that the ex-president had written.
Like I stated last week, there is no real excuse
that the sitting president could give for not
having acknowledged all the letters in the first
place, and though heavy-handed, the open letter
from Obasanjo was chiefly because he rightly felt
insulted due to the non-acknowledgement of all
his letters. Like him or not, Obasanjo is
synonymous with Nigeria, with great international
clout. It could be said that he has created a
Nigeria which is as dysfunctional as his own
family, but the proper response is not to
discountenance him. In spite of such hard-hitting
and openly aggressive letter, nothing has
happened to the man till date except for the
President approaching the Human Rights
Commission and EFCC. Let anyone else try a
tenth of what Obasanjo did and see what
happens to him.
I had advised that the president should offer a
tacit open reply to Obasanjo directly, apologizing
for non-acknowledgement or reply of his many
letters, and promising to address issues raised ‘to
the Nigerian people’. If I had any influence on
President Jonathan that is what I would have
advised him to do; a two paragraph response to
Baba, and a comprehensive reply to the Nigerian
people, addressing all the issues raised one by
one, in an unemotional tone.  This would have put
Baba in his place and told Nigerians that they are
the ones the president owes any allegiance. But
alas, the Okupes of this world, believed that a
combative approach is what was needed. They
sought to meet verbosity with verbosity. Word for
word. Length for length. The upshot is that both
Obasanjo and the president were devalued by the
altercation, with Obasanjo, an ex-president losing
less than the sitting president. The matter
became a case of ‘two-fighting’, with Nigerians
gingerly stepping in to separate the fight
between these two big elephants. Two elephants
have fought, while we, the grass, seem to have
emerged the better for it. Paradoxically. For a lot
has been revealed that used to be in the realm of
beer-parlour conjectures.
For one we now know that these presidents are
just human beings like the rest of us; that they
are equally unsure of what they are doing; that
the biggest political party in Africa- the PDP - is a
mafia organization, a great conspiracy against the
Nigerian people, full of charlatans whose main
driving force is ego and foolish pride; and of
course, we now know that it is possible for
President Jonathan to be raving mad, angry, like
the rest of us. Good for us. In many ways, I
believe the Obasanjo letter is the needed tonic for
performance by the Jonathan government. If the
people around the president had lured him to
start feeling ‘ghetto-fabulous’ in the recent past;
under the guise that all was well, Obasanjo did
Jonathan a huge favour by pointing out sundry
issues – right or wrong – which should make the
president sit up and do even more for Nigerians. I
think GEJ should thank OBJ privately for his
efforts. Most presidents are turned deaf, dumb
and blind by the people around him. On Abuja
Airport Road the other day, I was among those
stopped for 30 minutes for the President to pass.
I observed how neat and quiet the road became
before he passed, and the bedlam and chaos that
resumed the moment he sped past, as 300+
street hawkers spilled onto the roads. So
Jonathan no longer knows the real Nigeria, only
the one on Powerpoint presentations, just like
Obasanjo and Yaradua before him. Security is
used as a bogeyman to ensure a president does
not observe anything. One could even say, that a
president’s worst enemies are right there with
him – in his office and bedroom.
Contrary to the impression created, this response
is not from GEJ solely, but mostly from the
battery of assistants and advisers around him –
and rightly so. The choice of language could be
said to be solely theirs. Yes, the president
provided inputs especially relating to his
experiences in Bayelsa.
Let us look at some specifics in the letter. The
letter by the CBN governor, and the ‘body
language’ palaver with Tambuwal, were described
as ‘vicious’. How is a letter written about the
petroleum sector, even if materially wrong,
“vicious” and “spurious”? Vicious and spurious to
Diezani perhaps. But to the president?? How is
that concern about body language vicious as
well? No, that is Abati, not Jonathan writing that
part. Forensically, we can tell the temper of an
individual by their writing, and we can tell
someone’s style of writing over time. Abati is used
to applying strong words. Remember when he
called young Nigerians “misguided, unintelligent,
collective children of anger”? One would however
think that especially on this kind of occasion, they
should be very careful of what kind of language
comes out of the Villa, on an issue that will not go
away in a hurry. They could have altered the
game from the beginning as I suggested above,
but did not. This case is like the case of a
secondary school dropout, who is distracting and
disturbing a man sitting for his WAEC. The man
sitting for his WAEC had better ignore and learn
from the mistakes of the dropout. He must never
waste too much time, regaling the world about
how and why this other chap is a dropout and
failure, at the expense of preparing for his own
exam and excelling.
The president threw the sink at Obasanjo. Several
threats were made in the reply. Obasanjo is now
‘to be counted’ among the enemies, his
recommendation of carrot and stick was termed
‘hardly original’, he is deemed to have done
‘grave injustice’ against Jonathan, the ghost of
Fela was called to haunt him some more, he was
reminded that he knew about the Dimka coup
(and Murtala’s death), even Siemens and
Halliburton bribery. So, it’s a proper gutter fight.
The only problem is, you cannot have a gutter
fight except you remain in the gutter.
A few errors in thinking must be addressed
though. Contrary to the impression that Nigeria’s
economy is now growing in leaps and bounds and
is attracting the most foreign investments in
Africa, more recent reports say that the
economies of Ethiopia, Angola, Rwanda, Kenya,
Ghana, Gabon, are growing faster. It is obvious
that Nigeria is developing with its own money
alone – aside from in the oil sector. Also, there
were too many repetitions of a great failure in
leadership – the habit of always saying ‘I didn’t
start the problem’. A leader should solve
problems, not pass them on to dead
predecessors.
Over and above, I would urge we slow down on
presidential lampooning. Oga is livid. And any
otimkpu of a critic who strays too far from his
mother hen these days, may end up being the
proverbial person on whose head the coconut is
broken, just like Obasanjo said. I dey laff oooo.