DURING his talk at the first Akintola Williams Annual Lecture, former President Olusegun Obasanjo x-rayed certain aspects of governance in Nigeria. He beamed his searchlight on the state of the economy, the judiciary, the legislature and the fight against corruption. He came down hard on the legislature, specifically the National Assembly which he described as a den of unarmed robbers. On the economy, he urged Muhammadu Buhari to take concrete steps to fix it. As others have observed before now, Obasanjo does not see how the fight against corruption should hobble effort to fix the economy. In other words, he does not believe the two activities are mutually exclusive, zero sum game. Indeed, he rightly observes that failure to get the economy on an even keel could ultimately hurt whatever gains are made in the fight against corruption.
Not unexpectedly Obasanjo’s remarks have elicited very passionate reactions from Nigerians. People have responded in the typical way they have always done to such periodic interventions on the state of the nation by the former president.

Buhari and Obasanjo They focused almost exclusively on the messenger, turning their nose at the message. Giving his own role in many aspects of the governance of this country, it would be hard for Obasanjo not to be put under the spotlight whenever he makes remarks critical of the country’s leaders as he has just done. People often feel obliged to criticise Obasanjo’s own record in government. While this is justified in certain instances, it cannot and should not be seen as appropriate answer to the fundamental questions of governance his lecture raised. There was too much passion in the reaction to the critical issues of the lecture than could be useful for any reasoned analysis. It was in the end a wasteful investment in emotion on the part of many of his critics especially members of the House of Representatives. The House, nettled by the lecture and no doubt smarting from the sting, was quick to respond even when its spokespersons claimed it would rather not want to join issues with Obasanjo. It nevertheless called the former president the grandfather of corruption. The response from the House is not only lame but is neither here nor there. It fails to address the question of probity raised by Obasanjo. What does the House have to say about Obasanjo’s claim that each member goes home with a princely sum of N10 Million every month while their counterparts in the Senate each goes home with N15 Million? Nothing! For read more