In the world these days, it is
impossible to have a nuanced
discussion about too many things.
The lure of 140 characters
disincentives the complexity that
ideas sometimes demand, and until we evolve to that point where
we can condense complicated
thoughts into this inevitable
format, we have to struggle a bit. One of those struggles is via
something that business theorist,
Jim Collins calls the ‘tyranny of the
OR’. The tyranny of the OR represents
much of the world’s popular
thinking that one cannot hold two
thoughts that are essentially
different at the same time without
them being opposing. It is “a restrictive approach to decision-
making that dictates a solitary
choice between one of two
seemingly contradictory strategies
or outcomes — facilitating the
necessary exclusion of the other.” Once you are for A, you must of
certainty be against B. But F. Scott Fitzgelad tells us “the
test of a first-rate intelligence is
the ability to hold two opposed
ideas in the mind at the same
time, and still retain the ability to
function.” Collins calls this “the genius of the ‘and’” So let’s try this ‘and’ for size with
regard to Nigeria: 1. Olusegun
Obasanjo was an impressive
president with a bold vision and
sterling successes and 2. Olusegun
Obasanjo was a flawed man whose weaknesses significantly slanted
the judgement of history on his
time in office. I am one of the harshest critics on
a personal level of Obasanjo, and
that is because anyone who pays
attention to the man who has led
the country thrice knows that he
has greatness in his veins, after all said and done. He has always
demonstrated the capacity to do
more, and to be more. Unfortunately, at the end of his
second term in democratic office, a
collusion of an ill encouraged third
term bid and the fault lines of a
succession planning that could only
be charitably considered the results of an uncharacteristic naivety
managed to botch the legacy of
what could have been a glorious
remembrance. Now when you speak about
Obasanjo to everyday Nigerians, or
at least as far as can be tracked on
social media, what you hear is the
Odi Massacre, the Third Term
‘debacle’, the foisting of a sick Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on a hapless
nation, and allegations of
corruption so deep and so vast that
surely he must be worried as to
how many people casually
conclude that Ota Farms, Bells University and anything else
associated with him come from the
proceeds of unrepentant
corruption. But is this really the full picture of
the man’s presidency, or is that the
single story that he has somehow
allowed to calcify? It is important here to note that
when Obasanjo was in office, much
of what I felt towards him was
anger. He was too vindictive, too
self-righteous, and too given to
small-mindedness in the ways that he attacked friends, foes, and
allies. But in all of that visceral
personal reaction to him, I didn’t
lose sight of the one thing he was
above all else: he was effective. As he turns 80 this month, and the
nation pays attention to its most
significant leader alive, it is
important that his legacy be
interrogated with calm and
deliberation. It is easy to forget now, but upon
resumption in office, Obasanjo
became the architect of the
economy and polity that we have
now, and he did an impressive job
of laying the foundations of the modern Nigeria that found its
place in the comity of nations. Obasanjo built institutions. The Debt Management Office, the
Nigeria Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative, the
National Food and Drug
Administration and Control, the
Nigerian Universities Commission, the National Drug Law
Enforcement Agency, the National
Orientation Agency, the News
Agency of Nigeria, the National
Bureau of Statistics, the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission … all of this and a roll call of many
more got life under his
administration as he took the
careful steps of rejuvenating their
purpose, securing effective
leadership and giving them the political will to remake society. In addition to this was the careful
curation of effective leaders all
across his administration – he
literally went across the world
identifying and appointing Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, Obiageli Ezekwesili, Mansur Muktar amongst others,
and discovering local stars
including Nuhu Ribadu, Dora
Akunyili, Nasir el-Rufai who
significantly re-ordered the affairs
of the nation and earned the adoration of a grateful public. Obasanjo built, or re-built,
institutions, and this is easily his
most important legacy. Today, we
see many of those institutions
from NAFDAC to the NDLEA
retaining the vestiges of systemic rejuvenation that his government
engendered when Nigeria began
its journey into normalcy – despite
the onslaught of redundancy
occasioned by his two consecutive
successors. Ironically, it was also Obasanjo that
created the systemic weapons to
fight corruption that significantly
made it difficult for public officials
to boldly launder money, and put
paid to the institutional acceptance of drug lords, and the attendant
destruction of the Nigeria brand. We forget that, because of him, it
became attractive for diaspora
Nigerians to return home with
their investments, and he
methodically rebuilt Nigeria’s
relationships with the rest of the world, and with it our international
reputation. Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product
recorded its highest growth at 14.6
percent under him in 2006, he –
with a stroke of genius –
supervised the team that dislodged
our national debt, and Foreign Direct Investment finally began a
crucial uptick, not just because we
had returned to democracy, but
also because he deliberately and
passionately, reopened our
markets to the world. We can say all of this; we can admit
all of this, while still saying he
messed up the results of those
gains by his succession
manipulations, and while still
reasonably accusing him of questionable enrichment and the
expansion of the People’s
Democratic Party behemoth. We can say all of this while making
the clear point that, as the man
who stood while Shehu Shagari
twelve-two-thirded his way into
the Nigerian presidency and as a
card carrying member of Nigeria’s mediocre leadership
establishment, he bears as much
responsibility as any for the
collective sorry state of our nation.
But we can say that while also
admitted that he was an impressive political engineer. We can say all of that while
admitting that, of all the people
who have been president of
Nigeria since I was born in 1985,
Obasanjo is head and shoulders
above the rest of them. None even comes close, including today’s
menu. Why is it important to state this?
Because if we do not acknowledge
our successes, we stand the risk of
losing both the gains and, more
crucially, the lessons. Properly situating the context of
Obasanjo’s leadership decisions
and the outcome of his long-term
strategic thinking aids us in
locating the governing
philosophies that drove his victories, the fault lines that
generated his failures, and in
navigating the pathways to a
sustainable future. I believe strongly that Nigeria and
Nigerians have nothing positive to
learn from the forgettable
presidency of Yar’Adua and very
little from the embarrassing
presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. But we have abundantly plenty to
learn from the meticulous nation
building of Olusegun Obasanjo. An evidence-based discussion of
that crucial juncture in history will
lead to a complete, textured
picture not only of an iconic leader,
but also of the true possibilities of
leadership in a complex nation. It is understandable that a large
swatch of the Nigerian populace is
enraged at the man. It is
reasonable that a huge part of elite
consensus converges on the
paucity of his truth-telling capacity, the extent of his vindictiveness,
and the unanswered questions on
his apparent vast wealth. But nation building, as far as
modern societies go, is hardly an
exercise in finding saints and
killing sinners. It is a pragmatic
process of isolating models,
amplifying victories, and accelerating pathways. We still have Obasanjo with us, at
least for another half-decade. He
needs to evince the humility to
provoke this conversation, and we
need to find the restraint to
engage for our own good. We have so few models of
democratic success for us to be
choosy about the ones we have no
choice but to interrogate. *Jideonwo is co-founder and
managing partner of RED
(www.redafrica.xyz), which brands
including Y!/YNaija.com and
governance communication firm,
StateCraft Inc. Office of the Citizen (OOTC) is his latest essay series.