Integrity and Credibility: The Gospel of OBASANJO

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Tuesday, July 21 presented to a gathering of African Youths during the African Leadership Forum (ALF) – Legislatures Internship Programme (LIP) workshop, what may be described as the gospel St. Paul. Interestingly, the former number one citizen was preaching the good news of the need for a change among African youths at a time when Nigeria among many other African countries is being branded as the Black Horse our Mr. NC (Notoriously Corrupt) and a failed state. Again, this is coming rather too early or too late, because the campaign for the re-branding of Nigeria is grappling with home acceptance.

As amazing and controversial as the ex-president's actions may seem; one could still draw some candid lessons and contradictions from his actions while in office. He admitted for the first time that there’s something wrong with his successor’s outright neglect for the need for continuity. In his words…” two reasons for which I chose Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua as my successor are: 1. He has sufficient intellectual capacity. 2. Personal integrity. But if that has changed I don’t know.” Again, he said part of what lure him into President Yar'Adua's campagin train was his gospel and pledge for continuity.

Meanwhile some people have re-coined the slogan for the Nigeria brand from “Nigerians Good People, Great Nation to ‘Nigerians, Good People, Bad Leadership’.” Before you pass your judgments, please remember what St. Paul said in Act 5:4 and the very fact that OBJ (Obasanjo’s) talk at the workshop was on integrity and credibility – a building block for good governance. And also remember that Nigerians are credible people with unequal integrity.

Does that sound paradoxical, especially when some people keep saying that Nigerians are notoriously corrupt? Well, the fact still remains that we generalized excessively without prejudice or a thought of being objective. That Nigeria is labeled as a notoriously corrupt nation is a generalization that should at least spare the credibility of many innocent Nigerians, because a minute proportion of Nigerians are in the business of breeding this culture of greed, poverty, corruption, selfishness and god-fatherism, as well as some constituency members. These are the people to label…. They’re the ones who often make outrageous demands from their beneficiaries ("elect"/political office holders) whose nominations/selections or election victories, they sponsor or stage-managed so as to do the dirty Machiavellian job of self-aggrandizements well.

These sets have succeeded in fertilizing corruption, they've refined it and made it a norm or a “keen value.” But Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is saying to this innocent youth with an amusingly bleak future; don’t succumb to the manipulation of the so called god-fathers.

To this same youth former member of the Federal House Representative – Honorable Ade O. Adegbenjo is saying, don’t sit back and expect a change, while thugs’ high-jacks the political field. While Honorable Farouk Aliyu, also a former member - Federal House of Representative can’t wait to see these youths rise up to the challenge of rescuing their collective destinies from the hands of charlatans and brigands. Dr. Abubakar Momoh of the department of Political Science, Lagos State University on the other hand, is saying to everyone: we can’t leave the ‘collective guilt, individual innocence’ …or ideology out of this whole madness of a failed state.