Predictions

In the course of our conversation the other day a friend of mine expressed his concern that Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo will still teleguide the activities if the man he selected to succeed him when he returns to his abode in Ota come May 29. There’s no doubt that it’s Mr. Obasanjo's desire to do just that. But my prediction is that he is in for the shock of his life. That he made such a presumption at all is indicative of his limited sense of realism. The other time when he was out of power every one witnessed how helpless he was after one of his wives was slain like a dog on a Lagos street. His inability to bring whoever that killed her in broad day light to account is indicative of his powerlessness. Just tell me why it’d be different this time around.

The only thing that he can be sure of the day he vacates the seat of power in Abuja is whatever amount of cash that he was able to stash away from the money that accrued from the sale of petroleum. Even that too would run out if he doesn’t invest it in productive economies elsewhere in Western Europe or North America. The political economy of the entity called Nigeria revolves around just the sale of crude petroleum. Only those who have direct access and control over the sale of that crude petroleum the way he did in the last eight years are likely to successfully pull off the tricks that are required to steer things the way he did during the period. His imminent by-stander status will become real beginning from May 29. Although he personally installed Mr. Charles Soludo as the Governor of the Central Bank, he will notice that his command for cash from Mr. Soludo will seize to be automatic.

The neglect that Obasanjo imposed on all ramifications of the basket economy in Nigeria will begin to afflict him too the day he returns to Ota. All those equipments that he imported with money that he simply took from the CBN from all parts of the industrialized world for use on his Ota farm will begin to break down one after the other. At first, it will be possible to use the likes of Andy Uba to replace them. But with time the decrepit economy will be unable to service and even repair them and he’ll find himself once again at that point that he was when the farm was making a mere twenty thousand naira a year as was reported in the media the other time. The economy is not production oriented at all. Where will the electricity to run the farm come from? Where would the work ethic come from? Where are the roads? Is he going to return to Ota with a helicopter that he will be allowed to keep for good?

Similarly, no one should loose too much sleep about what role the PDP will be used for again by those that Obasanjo will leave behind. My prediction is that the PDP will wither in the course of the next four years. You will witness the speed with which they will fall over each other as they scramble for proceeds from the sale of petroleum. The absence of a mandate will make it difficult if not impossible for Yar’Adua to keep them in line. After all they all know the tricks, lies, and theft they used to bring him in. Where then would he find the moral courage to call them to order? It’s going to be only a matter of time before the cookies Mr. Obasanjo baked will begin to crumble.