OBASANJO IS NOT A REAL LEADER - FANI KAYODE!

It would seem that there is no longer any safe place for Olusegun Obasanjo as even his former minister and and a man from his Southwest Nigeria turf has now switched sides and is piling on the Otta Deity too! His former minister of Aviation, Femi Fani Kayode said that Olusegun Obasanjo is a fake leader and possibly an alien from Mars? According Fani, “The truth is that the loyalty and support that an individual gives to any leader must be reciprocated and any leader worth his salt knows this. A leader that takes his followers for granted and takes pleasure in the destruction, humiliation, travails, shame and political persecution of his own loyalists is not a real leader but something else. On the other hand the leader that stands by his loyalists through thick and thin and that reciprocates the commitment, love, support, compassion and loyalty that he receives from them is a true leader. As far as I am concerned that is the difference between OBJ and IBB. Babangida recognizes these things and is loyal to his own whilst Obasanjo does not.”

Icheoku now asks, when was the chalice poisoned between Fani and his former mentor Baba Iyabo or did the Evil genius make an offer Fani could not refuse that forced him to switch sides? The problem with Nigerians is that virtually everybody is sycophantic and pleads your case according to their pocket books, the reason why corruption is endemic in the society. Look at Fani Kayode speaking in this pedestrian language that Olusegun Obasanjo should have condoned the looting of the state by people like him by shielding them from the EFCC just because they were loyal to Obasanjo, if Icheoku understands him correctly? Yet this SOB forgot that they were called or chosen to serve the country diligently and not to loot it blind because their leader would or ought to get their back; and he is supposed to be a lawyer and speaking legally? What a shame that a man who have paraded himself thus far as being above board should now condescend into the cesspit to protest the none-protection policy of Obasanjo of people who commit some criminality of looting state's treasury?

Ironically Fani Kayode contradicted his apparent pay master, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, and by necessary implication called Babangida a liar by holding opposing views on the performance of Obasanjo in office. Babangida graded Obasanjo's eight years in office as a "complete failure" while this talking-drum here says that the same Obasanjo's "record of performance between 1999 and 2007 is first class and second to none." Icheoku says may the real Fani Kayode please stand up and state truthfully whose side he is on, instead of speaking from both sides of his mouth, trying to perform the impossible task of serving two masters at the same time. How can the same Obasanjo government be both a "complete failure" and at the same time, "first class and second to none" yet Babangida is right and the one injured by Obasanjo's hurtful remarks?

Fani Kayode also took umbrage at Obasanjo for "making a grave mistake and inflicting a deep spiritual wound on himself by insulting Babangida in the way that he did." But the same Fani Kayode cleverly forgot to mention that Babangida first stoked the flame by messing with a sleeping lion when he said that Baba Iyabo's government was a "complete failure." Icheoku refuses to accept that Fani Kayode does not appreciate such uncomplimentary statement by Babangida to be a 'grave mistake which inflicted spiritual wound on IBB" and that such comment qualifies and rises to an insult?' Icheoku hopes that we are not losing our faculty here trying to decipher this Fani Kayode's hydra-headed equivocation; except he is trying to be clever by half because no one individual has mastered the art of successfully serving two masters at the same time and it is not going to start with this Fani. 

Understandably, Babangida's ability of staying with his loyalists should not be newsy as that is what every corrupt dictator and survivor the world over deploys to stay alive. Compromise them and make them dependent on your handouts and as a trade-off, they will take the bullets and put their hands in the blade, protecting the goose that lays their golden eggs. So where is the rocket science here for Fani not to understand why IBB is pathetically loyal to his loyalists as any endemically corrupt and compromising dictator is - people who share the same traits with mafia dons of the yore. Their trick is keep their loyalist in a short leech of permanent dependence and lengthen or shorten them depending on how they lick their behinds like the lap-dogs which they are, period! But conversely, the area-father himself is well versed in the art of surviving street fighting and does not particularly need anyone to fight his wars on his behalf. Obasanjo can personally take care of his business and does not need to keep the Fani Kayodes  of Nigeria on a short leech of permanent dependence in order to maintain their purchased and induced loyalty. 

The only sane truth in Fani's Punch Newspapers published diatribe against Obasanjo is that he acknowledged that Olusegun Obasanjo was "installed but not elected" president of Nigeria in 1999 through Babaginda's evil machinations of compromising anyone and everyone that stood in the way. In Fani's own confessional words, “President Obasanjo has to be eternally grateful to General Babangida because had it not been for the latter he would not have been released from jail, pardoned, rehabilitated, funded and installed as President in 1999.

Lastly, if according to Fani Kayode, Obasanjo's government was "second to none, making Obasanjo the greatest president Nigeria ever had;" Icheoku asks where does that claim then leave Babangida but in the dust of "second-rate none performed and worst president Nigeria ever had? Icheoku acknowledges that wrapping a hand around Fani Kayode's prevarication is rather an arduous task if not impossible at best; but if he intended to defend Babangida, he only succeeded in insulting him further by stating that Babangida's regime was left in the dust behind Obasanjo's government in terms of performance. If on the other hand he wanted to defend Obasanjo, Icheoku says calling someone "anything else" is not words of endearment at all; a matter made worse when he went a step further by categorically calling Baba Iyabo an ingrate and a fake leader from outer Space or did Icheoku hear someone yell "from MARS?"