Abuja — Nigeria's former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, was one of the most respected statesmen in the world.

Not many disagreed when he was listed, in a book by Crocker Snowe, as one of the "Five Who Could Save The World".

He shared the honour with Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, late Pope John Paul 11, and Jimmy Carter.

Mr Obasanjo had written himself into world history when he opened the second wave of civil rule in Africa by voluntarily handing over power to civilians in 1979.

That was not the first military to civilian change of baton in Africa as many have mistaken it to be, but the earlier two in Ghana did not stimulate the kind of excitement that followed the Obasanjo example.

Another reason for the respect Obasanjo received was the spirited support Nigeria, under his 1976 to 1979 watch, gave to freedom fighters against colonialism and South African apartheid regime.

As a member of the Five Eminent Persons that engaged apartheid South Africa in the talks leading to Mandela's release, and with Nigeria's role in both the Lancaster Talks and later Lusaka Talks clearing the way for Zimbabwean independence, and his insistence on Robert Mugabe and not Joshua Nkomo or Abel Muzorewa, as the leader of a free Zimbabwe, his place in contemporary African history was assured.

Obasanjo was barely 42 when he handed over power to Shehu Shagari in 1979. He became an activist of the Africanist kind, remaining a constant feature at developmental conferences concerning the continent.

When some Nigerians felt the country needed a healer after Sani Abacha's death, after the man's despotism, they went to Obasanjo to beg him to be a civilian President.

Seven of eight years

For seven of the eight years as President, he served as Africa's Number One peace broker and notched up a public persona as an anti-corruption crusader.

Then, he attempted to arm-twist the national legislature into granting him a tenure elongation by amending the constitution to allow him another term of four years after two terms.

As that effort failed, his popularity plummeted worldwide, and as he handpicked a successor, ramming him through a globally condemned non-transparent election, his public rating hit rock bottom. He became an international social pariah, never invited to conferences and developmental summits any more.

As Obasanjo was spending his final week at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, he said in an interview that he was sure that future history would be kinder on him than the then current Nigerian conventional rating.

To drive home his point, he called attention to Winston Churchill who after successfully leading Britain through World War 11, was voted out of office as his popularity had fallen. Yet, decades later, history rehabilitated him as an uncommon statesman.

What Obasanjo overlooked then was that Churchill's rehabilitation came about as historians pored through his memos and as the reasons why he took certain decisions were declassified and became public. His nobility of purpose (at least to the British and Western causes) became known.

Unfortunately for Obasanjo, as more things about his governance become public knowledge, what comes across about him is that of a man with no ennobling traits, power hungry, revenge-seeking, arrogant, a man who could do nothing right and who was all the while feathering his own nest.

And the reason is easy to decipher; both Obasanjo and former military ruler Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) stayed eight years in office, but all the money that accrued to the nation from oil in IBB's tenure was less than what Obasanjo received in any given year as petroleum price went stratospheric .

The gods of oil were on Obasanjo's side, yet, he seemed to derive joy from raising petrol pump price, not just yearly, but at Christmas and other festive periods.

Added to that, he embarked on a massive privatisation programme, selling out everything the government had ever owned. This too pumped more money into the government's coffers. Yet, Nigerians saw no improved funding of any social sector, say education or health.

As Obasanjo continued to receive a press drubbing, he was constantly being belittled as his successor, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the rigging of whose election has almost irredeemably blighted Obasanjo's image. Yar'Adua has adopted the reversal of Obasanjo's policies and decisions as the unchanging policy of his administration.

And you could hardly fault him: since the May 29, 2007 handing over date, scandals have been sprouting up at the rate of one week one scandal and all seem to have something in common - Obasanjo's name. It is as though when he was not dolling out concessions to his business friends, he was ordering the Bureau of Public Enterprise to sell off public utilities as his whims moved him.

In one case he brought together a group of business moguls to form Transcorp, a business octopus with tentacles everywhere.

With almost a controlling share there, he proceeded to unbundle choice public entities: Hilton Hotel, (Nigeria's largest) the nation's former landline telephone monopoly and its cellular arm, plus landed property scattered across the land, at rock-bottom price.

Oh yes, he granted Transcorp oil blocks too. Last month, President Yar'Adua began moves to recover the telephone company from Transcorp, and the nation rose as one to cheer him on.

Then, when Obasanjo is not directly involved in a scandal, his children are proving to be real chips off the old block by effectively representing their father in several of such scandals.

Obasanjo's first son Gbenga, a Medical Doctor and his favourite daughter, Iyabo, a Cornel University-trained Veterinary Doctor, and now national Senator, have been mentioned in several scandals.

Yet, Obasanjo had hung on to political relevance in Nigeria by exploiting his Board of Trustee (BOT) chairmanship to dictate who becomes chairman of the party.

While President, Mr Obasanjo concocted a doctrine that the President is the party leader because in the US, no one hears about a party's national chairman once the President had been elected.

Standing on that plank, he removed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) founding chairman, Mr Solomon Lar, within a year in office, replaced him through a sham election with Mr Barnabas Gemade. Continue to dictate.

Mr Gemade was also removed for Mr Audu Ogbeh, who when he refused to resign, had a gun pointed at his head, and was warned by the then Number One citizen, a former military General, that a nurse is not afraid of seeing blood.

Mr Ogbeh got the message and asked for pen and paper and scribbled his resignation and lived.

A Deputy National Chairman of the party, Aminasokari K. Dikibo, was not so lucky. Driving to Asaba, Delta State capital, where a stubborn Governor (then) James Ibori was to host a Niger Delta regional (South-South) summit to push that the next President would come from the region, his car was stopped and a single bullet blew out his brains.

One hour later, Obasanjo who was visiting Lagos blamed it on highway robbers. That of course was the end of that meeting, which was called to press for the presidency when Obasanjo was still dreaming of tenure elongation. That assassination is yet to be solved.

After Obasanjo lost his tenure elongation bid, which I had reported exclusively end of May 2004 in Daily Independent on Sunday but Nigerians refused to believe me, Obasanjo began moves to run his Mr Fix It Tony Anenih, an uncommon tactician who had made every Obasanjo wish come true, out of his BOT office of the PDP. He got the party's constitution changed to allow him assume the position on his leaving the presidency.

Constitution amended

The party's constitution was amended to give a former President precedence in an election to that post. As Nigeria's other ex-President, Shehu Shagari, has remained apolitical since he was overthrown in a coup on New Year's Day 1994, the post was automatically Obasanjo's.

And his BOT chairmanship wish became a fact within the month Obasanjo left office.

How much control would Obasanjo wield in the party? After several postponements, the convention arrived last Saturday.

President Yar'Adua had said he was not interested in imposing anybody as National Chairman.

But Obasanjo who lacked such fine sensibilities and democratic dispositions, criss-crossed the nation while campaigning for ex-Governor of Ebonyi State, Dr Sam Egwu. Babangida projected former Senate President Pious Anyim who fought Obasanjo policies while head of the bicameral national legislature.

On the day of the convention, last Saturday, Obasanjo, having failed to get President Yar'Adua to endorse his candidate, canvassed that the convention be cancelled. President Yar'Adua refused.

Then the state governors moved to stop an acrimonious election that had the potential to re-open old wounds by projecting none of the two front runners, Dr Egwu and Mr Anyim.

Instead, they supported a former National Secretary of the party, Vincent Ogbulafor, who was sacked by Obasanjo, along with most members of Ogbeh-led party executive.

A section of the Nigerian mass media has speculated that Obasanjo had made peace with Mr Ogbulafor the new party boss.