*Photo: Obasanjo*
By Bamidele Johnson
Some years ago when Owu princes duelled to replace the just departed Olowu, the king of Obasanjo’s quarters, Adeniran Eleso (Richard) and I met one of the kingmakers.
The contest, of course, was fierce. One of the contestants had Obasanjo in his corner. An election was held and Obasanjo’s candidate lost in grand style, an outcome that made him chew up and spit out the paper on which the results were written.
We met the kingmaker at home in the Isabo area of Abeokuta a few hours after he was released from police detention along with other kingmakers. Their detention was on Obasanjo’s orders. The man was sober. Safe to say he didn’t find the cell as hospitable as a sunbed.
His voice was a whisper. He shook like a drilling machine and refused to say much. When it appeared that we were not going to get much from him, we went to see a commissioner (name withheld) in the OGD cabinet.
He was also fretting, but was willing to speak off the record. Even when he did, it was in a hushed tone, as though Obasanjo was within the earshot. He said he was astounded that a person of Obasanjo’s profile could chew up the results like a playground bully. Then, he warned, very sternly, that we must never mention his name in our report. In fact, we should act like we never met him.
The ogre is the same talking about the fidelity of an electoral process. I’m not sure if it was before or after that I went to Apa Village, near Badagry, in the company of Sunday Osunrayi (now of the Nigerian Tribune). Obasanjo, a former Chairman of Badagry LGA had ratted to us, seized farmlands on which he planned to build a university from indigenes. No compensation was paid.
The landowners’ protest was met with a heavy-handed response by mobile policemen. We went to see the traditional ruler of the village, who was ill at the time, but spoke from behind a curtain. He said he’d spent 39 years on the throne, was above 80 years and did not aspire to be treated the way the landowners had been treated.
His voice quaked, possibly on account of age and fear of what could happen if he spoke too freely. He sure must have been briefed by his subjects on their return from the suburb of hell that was police detention.
The monarch said the village had decided to leave the matter to God. Babajide Kolade-otitoju , I also remember, wrote a really detailed story in The News on the grasping chancer posing as a lover of rights and due process. It was a grim catalogue of landgrabbing all around the country.
As I once said, I’d rather take Fela as a symbol of sexual chastity than Obasanjo as a promoter of democracy. Do I hate or dislike him? Too close to call. Absolute charlatan he is.