Sir: The former President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), is by no means a saint. I criticised him for many things: 1. Corruption; 2. Failure on the issue of infrastructure, notwithstanding the huge sums of money Nigeria derived from the inability of Iraq to sell petroleum in the world markets that time; 3. The voting or no voting the Peoples Democratic Party must win mantra; and not the least 4. His support for Goodluck Jonathan to truncate rotational presidency, which denied northwest second term presidency, when southwest had its own chance fully, etc.

Nevertheless, comparatively speaking, OBJ remains the best President Nigeria has had, 1999 till date. What OBJ did to Odi village was inevitable because that village inadvertently or by connivance of some of its leaders harboured miscreants that were killing south westerners passing through that axis of the Niger Delta, as well as security agents that were supposed to maintain decorum.

The hooligans were retaliating for their failure in their own chosen confrontation with the Oodua People’s Congress in Lagos. How could a responsible President, particularly a former military General, take that nonsense?

OBJ also impressed me the way he handled the Shariah agitations in northern Nigeria. He silently subdued the agitations, and the agitations died down silently. How did he do it? He should please tell us. Similarly, he ignored those who told him to attack the Boko Haram Muslim sect. The Boko Haram imbroglio became compounded when Jonathan took undue advantage of the death of Yar’Adua to deny the northwest second term presidency.

In the process, he abused also his Biafra and Christian connections, as well as using bribery and corruption to divide and rule Nigeria by all means. Blame the three of them for all the wastefulness that characterises the avoidable war against Boko Haram.

Oyeniran Abioje,
University of Ilorin.