Obasanjo is no messiah, and Nigerians should stop behaving as though they have amnesia.
The former president has earned the right to speak. He has not earned the right to have history edited before he speaks.
That distinction matters now because Olusegun Obasanjo remains one of the most influential voices in Nigeria’s political conversation. He writes open letters, issues warnings, challenges political leaders and offers prescriptions for the country with the confidence of a man who has occupied the highest office in the land and watched successive administrations struggle with the same failures. His interventions command attention partly because of his experience, but experience should never be confused with infallibility.
Obasanjo is not Nigeria’s moral referee. He is a former president with a complicated record, and Nigerians should stop allowing age, status and eloquence to turn memory into amnesia.
He has every right to advise Nigeria. Nigerians have every right to remember the record of the man giving the advice.
The latest exchange with former Ogun governor Olusegun Osoba.
That exchange brings an older question back into view. Why does Nigeria so often allow the people who helped shape its political history to become the principal editors of that history when they later narrate it themselves?”.
In July 2026, Obasanjo responded publicly to Osoba’s account of the political realignments surrounding the 2003 election, disputing the suggestion that he had deceived Alliance for Democracy leaders. The substance of their disagreement is important, but so is the larger question it raises. Why does Nigeria so often allow the people who helped shape its political history to become the principal editors of that history when they later narrate it themselves?
Obasanjo knows the Nigerian political system from the inside because, for eight years between 1999 and 2007, he did not merely observe it. He controlled the executive branch of government at a time when the presidency possessed enormous political influence, the PDP dominated the national political landscape and oil revenues provided the federal government with considerable resources. His administration achieved things that should be acknowledged honestly. Nigeria secured substantial external debt relief, economic growth improved, foreign reserves rose significantly, banking reforms were undertaken, and institutions such as the ICPC and EFCC were established. Those achievements are part of his legacy and should remain there.
But so are the failures and controversies.
Electricity is one of the clearest examples. Obasanjo’s administration committed substantial public resources to the power sector, yet Nigeria emerged from those eight years without the dependable electricity system Nigerians had been promised. The spending subsequently became the subject of a major parliamentary controversy, with figures popularly cited reaching about $16 billion, although the precise figure and what should properly be included in it were disputed, including by Obasanjo himself. The sensible question, therefore, is not whether every naira in the headline figure can be attributed in precisely the same way, but why such enormous expenditure did not produce a transformation commensurate with the promises made.
That question does not become illegitimate because the president who presided over the spending later became an elder statesman.
The same principle applies to the third-term controversy. Obasanjo’s presidency became the centre of an attempt to amend the Constitution in a way that would have allowed him to seek another term. The proposal generated intense political resistance and was eventually rejected by the Senate in 2006. Whatever position one takes on the intentions behind the project, the episode remains one of the defining tests of Obasanjo’s relationship with presidential power. A president who spent years building political authority around the centre cannot later be treated as though the dangers of excessive executive influence were problems he merely discovered after leaving office.
His political style deserves scrutiny for the same reason. Obasanjo was not a passive occupant of Aso Rock. He exercised enormous influence over the PDP, intervened in internal party contests, maintained powerful relationships with governors and political allies, and engaged in fierce political battles with people who had once stood beside him. His relationship with Atiku Abubakar, his vice-president and eventual political adversary, became one of the most consequential rivalries of that era. The details of those battles are not merely old political gossip,they reveal how personalised power could become within the political system of the period.
And then there was the 2007 election.
The election that brought Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to power was heavily criticised by international and domestic observers for widespread irregularities, vote-rigging, violence and intimidation. Human Rights Watch described the presidential election as badly flawed, while other observer missions documented serious failures in the electoral process. The transfer of power that followed was constitutionally significant, but that should not require Nigerians to pretend that the election itself met the democratic standards the country deserved.
This is particularly relevant whenever Obasanjo speaks about democracy.
It does not mean that he has no right to criticise subsequent governments. It means that his own experience must accompany his criticism. A former president has something ordinary political commentators do not have: a governing record against which his prescriptions can be tested.
That is why the question Nigerians should ask is not whether Obasanjo is allowed to speak. Of course he is. The more important question is whether Nigerians are allowed to remember.
Over the years, Obasanjo has remained deeply involved in national affairs. He wrote an open letter to Muhammadu Buhari on insecurity in 2019. In 2023, he addressed Nigerians during the presidential election and openly endorsed Peter Obi. In 2026, he returned to the political arena through his public response to Osoba. He has every constitutional and moral right to participate in national debate.
But every intervention from a former president should carry the weight of the record behind the signature.
That is not disrespect. It is accountability.
Obasanjo can be right about Nigeria today and still have been wrong about Nigeria yesterday. He can offer valuable advice while having made serious mistakes. He can correctly identify the failures of another administration without becoming a flawless authority on governance. His achievements can deserve recognition without becoming a licence to forget his failures.
Nigeria has developed a dangerous habit of allowing political reputations to improve with age. Time softens memories. Former presidents become elder statesmen, elder statesmen become national fathers, and national fathers eventually become treated as though they existed above the ordinary standards by which the rest of political society is judged. The language changes, the photographs change, the titles change, and slowly the record itself begins to change.
We should resist that temptation.
A complicated record does not become a spotless one because the man who carries it has grown older.
This is not an argument for silencing Obasanjo. It is an argument for listening to him with context. If he criticises corruption, Nigerians can consider the argument while remembering the controversies of the government he led. If he speaks about democracy, they can examine his position while remembering the 2007 election. If he discusses electricity, they can hear the prescription while remembering the enormous resources committed to the sector during his presidency. If he speaks about political leadership, they can engage the argument without pretending that his own exercise of presidential power was beyond criticism.
The same standard should apply to every former president.
Nigeria does not need another political personality to become an untouchable moral authority. It certainly does not need to replace the cult of the sitting president with the cult of the former one. The country has spent too much of its history searching for exceptional individuals to rescue institutions that should never have depended on exceptional individuals in the first place.
What Nigeria needs is political memory.
Memory that keeps achievements and failures on the same page. Memory that allows Nigerians to praise a leader without worshipping him and criticise him without pretending he accomplished nothing. Memory that refuses to let eloquence become evidence, longevity become absolution or political stature become immunity from questions.
Obasanjo should continue writing his letters if he believes they can help Nigeria. He should continue challenging governments and participating in the national conversation. His experience makes his voice worth hearing.
But Nigerians must remember that the person holding the pen has also held power.
That is the part of the story we must never edit out.
Obasanjo is an elder statesman, but he is also a former president with a complicated political record. Both descriptions are true, and neither should be allowed to erase the other.
So let us read the letters. Let us debate the arguments. Let us take whatever wisdom they contain. But let us also ask the question that should follow every former ruler who returns to tell the country how it ought to be governed:
What did you do when you had the power?
That question is not an attack on Obasanjo.
It is the minimum respect we owe history.
Because Obasanjo is no messiah. He was a president, and presidents, like the rest of us, must live with their records.
Stephanie Shaakaa shaakaastephanie02@gmail.com
08034861434
