“The self – righteous scream judgments against others to hide the noise of skeletons dancing in their own closets.”
–John Mark Green

By CHIDI OBINECHE

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it began soon after relinquishing power in 1979 to Alhaji Shehu Shagari.  He only gave him a year’s grace before launching a bruising criticism on his government. It was only a red herring; a dress rehearsal. Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, astute henchman of the Nigerian nation who has led the country cumulatively for 11 years, more than any living or dead national has made a sweet pastime of playing  Genius, the mythological protection spirit of the Greeks and Romans; guiding angel and mother protector.
In this self assigned mission, often laced with pedantry and inglorious  spillage of Jupiter, he has seen the sour and tasty ends. His well paved terrain was to write coyly letters to the incumbent presidents. Letters that breathed with vermin and intensity of froth foaming undisguidedly. With ex- president Ibrahim Babangida, he got away with a lulling slap on the wrist. Under late Gen Sani Abacha, he hugged the sleight bang of reproach bagging a lengthy jail term. He bounced out of prison to ascend the rocky presidential chair on an encore.
An unprecedented allowance for redemption and to set the straight course of emulation, it seemed. Chroniclers of history will tell the tale of how he used or misused the opportunity in due course. The late Musa Yar’Adua’s regime was too short and convoluted for his coyly letters, but his caustic tongue and stringent demand for him to toe the constitutional path of honour to save the country doled up with the late president on his sick bed. His honeymoon with Goodluck Jonathan was short-lived. He assailed him with intemperate cuddling, culminating in the  histrionic tearing of his membership card of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, historically adding weight  to the emergence of  Muhammadu Buhari as president. Just a few months shy of Buhari’s two years in office, the sensual sunshine in their relationship is setting. Last week, at a lecture in Lagos, he took swipes at Buhari on his anti- corruption battles and the bid to borrow $29.9billion from some western financial institutions. The loud bang to signal hostilities came in the wake of an increasingly worsening economy and growing disenchantment by some sections of the populace on the president’s policies and style. But “a Nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker,” according to Suzy Kassem in Rise up and Salute the Sun. With the perky ex-president around, no president sleeps easy. Some say his interventions are messianic, others insist it is Histrionic Personality Disorder, HPD.
Born on March 5, 1937 in Abeokuta, Ogun State, he enlisted in the army in 1958, and trained at Aldershot, United Kingdom. He served at 1 Area Command in Kaduna and then became Chief Army Engineer. He later became the Commander of 2 Area Command which was redesignated 2 Division Rear, and then the Ibadan Garrison Organization. During the war, he commanded the 3rd Marine Command Division and is reputed to be the brain behind the victory of the federal forces in Owerri, which effectively brought the war to an end. His most popular books are My Command, This Animal Called Man, and Nzeogwu. Some of his notable awards are Indira Ghandi Prize, and CAF Platinum Award. He holds the titles of Balogun of Owu and the Ekerin Balogun of the Egba clan. He has served as special envoys of the United Nations, UN, and African Union, AU on many occasions.