Nigeria: Making and Unmaking of a "Small" President

A new book by a Thisday Newspaper Editor and former presidential spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi, has already started knocking the heads of those who ruled us for the past nineteen years together. Entitled (in typical fashion): Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President Was Defeated in Nigeria, the book has predictably returned former President Olusegun Obasanjo to an old hobby: Goodluck Jonathan bashing.

Obasanjo is well known for his life of ironies, pretences and contradictions. It was during his tenure that members of the National Assembly were reportedly routinely bribed to either remove or enthrone candidates of his choice as Senate President or Speaker or even to amend the constitution to enable him to obtain a third term. On one occasion, bags of old naira notes allegedly deployed for such inglorious venture by the Presidency were spilt on the floor of the House of Reps. Yet, Obasanjo regularly calls legislators "thieves". He engages them in exchanges of insults on the issue of corruption.

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