Obasanjo: When a man’s head absorbs a lot of air
Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa
The Bible, perhaps the widest read book in the world, never mind one’s faith says of grey heads according to The Passion Translation; ‘Old age with wisdom will crown you with dignity and honour, for it takes a lifetime of righteousness to acquire it.’
Now wisdom, other than it being the body of knowledge and experience that develops within a specified society or period, when pertaining to belonging to a person is defined as the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement or simply the quality of being wise. Wisdom is therefore associated with the village and with the village autochtones.
Well, of course given the definitions, one would expect an older person to have developed native intelligence and display sense.
One would expect certain mistakes, gaffes and pigheadedness from young persons not from a supposedly found of wisdom. But an old fool is the worst kind of fool!
But the saying, there is no fool like an old fool held strong a couple of days ago when the world had to be cursed with listening to the guttural sounds of an aged Yoruba man.
One who would have best saved the Owu people of Ibogun-olaogun better sitting under an iroko tree narrating the past-gone glory days, chose instead to display his foolishness on the world stage.
The man who decided to embarrass not just Abeokuta, the Yoruba and Nigeria but Africa as a whole was none other than the former military ruler of Nigeria, General Olusegun Obasanjo, now styled Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
Whatever his styling the two-time ruler of Africa’s most populous nation, who was jailed for an attempted coup by a former military ruler of chose one of the grandest of the occasions on the African continent. The man who was described by Nigerian President, and another former military ruler, Mohamadou Buhari as lacking imagination clearly showed the rest of Africa that the words were not far from the truth.
Speaking after addressing the Chief Fortune Charumbira led Pan-African Parliament, the former military leader of Nigeria, chose to blame Zimbabwe’s Operation Restore Legacy, the military backed transition from Robert Mugabe rule to the Second Republic as the reason for the latest wave of coups in West Africa.
A man who comes from a region that has seen more military coups than the whole of Africa and probably the world, a country that has had eight military coups two of which three of which he participated in, which were bloody chooses to label a bloodless, curfewless operation a coup.
How he labelled an operation in which the opposition and more civilians participated a trendsetter to the coups of West Africa which has seen a gamut of coups most of them from British and American military leaders is a shocker.
But of course, a man who declared he wants to become a President after coming out of prison for an attempted coup and was supported by former military rulers after claiming he found God in prison would say that.
What else can one expect from a man who had not known God for sixty years? Wisdom, like native intelligence is something that one is born with and certainly the garrulous and querulous self-appointed eminent person who during his time as Nigerian President for the second time chose to bar the late President Mugabe from attending a Commonwealth meeting in his country lacks both.
The fact that he has heckled with every Nigerian leader who has come after him, given that he was not praised by anyone at home except abroad, by the Western world says a lot about who the piper is.
During his time as military ruler, he cultivated links with America and President Jim Carter and became close friends with Andrew Young who opposed the protests to the murder of George Floyd by a white policeman and who was also against the establishment of the Palestinian State.
The history of Obasanjo is littered with treacherous decisions against fellow Africans and is at one time said to have begged the late Lybian leader Col Muammar Gaddafi to assist him in his bid for a third term.
He also objected to the Lybian leader visiting Zamfara, an Islamic law observing state in Northen Nigeria and also to him visiting for four or more days in Nigeria. Obasanjo’s vacillating nature saw him support former President Godluck Johnson of Nigeria, then saw him support Muhamadou Buhari and then turn on him just like he did against our former President Mugabe.
Key to his blasting Zimbabwe’s transition from the First Republic to the Second Republic lies in who his close friend in Zimbabwe is. It is none other than the sanctions begging Tendai Biti, a member of Nelson Chamisa’s cultic CCC organisation.
Tendai Biti who is infamous for his outburst in 208 following his then MDC-A’s empathetic thumping by the ruling party in which he declared they will call for more sanctions and how ZANU PF will not get a penny.
He was also described as a friend of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, one which sits to extend sanctions on Zimbabwe and which Biti famously speaks at every other year.
So it is of course without a surprise at all for some of us that Obasanjo would want to paint Zimbabwe black. Southern Africa has not seen a coup since Independence, West Africa has seen more than 60 of them with his Nigerian having eight military rulers and if we include former military men, then of all the 13 rulers, only three are non-military on his country.
How then is Zimbabwe, in Southern Africa responsible for coups in West Africa?
Clearly, someone is paying Obasanjo to harp.
Even CCC leader Nelson Chamisa has denied there was a coup in Zimbabwe. After all, he, Chamisa addressed the gathered people at Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfields and also attended the inauguration of President Mnangagwa.
He was in Parliament when former President Mugabe’s resignation letter was read.
So only Obasanjo says there was a coup in Zimbabwe and we of course know the Iroko tree has been infested with termites, is rotten and can no longer provide a good shade!
Indeed there is no fool like an old and foolish fool!
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