The attack on former President Olusegun Obasanjo

The attack on former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, remains a topical issue. This incident which occurred at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, on Monday 08, November 2010 was shocking in many respects.

It is alleged by some news reports that the attacker, whose identity was not immediately known, had earlier before Obasanjo’s arrival, attempted to enter the presidential wing of the airport, but was turned back by Air Force personnel as he could not explain his mission at the wing. Some news reports described the middle-aged man, who pounced on the former President inside his car, as mad.

It is alleged that the former President’s chartered jet touched down a few minutes after 9:00am and as the convoy of three vehicles tried to negotiate its way towards the local wing of the airport, the man emerged from nowhere. He ran towards the Jeep in the middle of the convoy, opened the door and started kicking and raining blows on the former President.

The opening of the car door drew the attention of both the Air Force personnel and Mobile Policemen, and they quickly dragged the man out of the car and gave him the beating of his life. The attacker was also alleged to have screamed persistently amidst beatings, “America is watching …America is watching.” He was described as well fed and dressed up.

His reactions, the description of his person and his utterances suggest some level of sanity.

After listening to the views of several Nigerians, it appears that there are two schools of thought regarding this incident.

The first group of Nigerians posits that the attacker is a member of the growing legion of disgruntled, frustrated and angry Nigerians ready to dispense jungle justice, at the drop of a hat, on those they perceive to have contributed to their penury and suffering.

They allege that while the leaders feed fat on the spoils of office, Nigerians, as a people, are at war with hunger, poverty, diseases and destitution. It is their stand therefore, that all is fair in love and war - people in love and soldiers in wartime are not bound by the rules of fair play. The most pressing primordial need is that of survival and this man may have reached his wits end in the survival game.

But was this attack deserved by former President Olusegun Obasanjo? There are choruses of answers from both groups. Some say yes, he was a past leader of the country with several tenures and had a hand in the drift of the country to the present state of near coma.

But the other group anchors their objections to this attack on a number of grounds. Some members of this group argue passionately that the former president is the next best thing that has happened to the country since the discovery of oil in commercial quantity at Olobiri by Shell sometime in 1957. They list his litany of contributions to nation building, including fighting and bringing an end to the Nigerian civil war, introduction to the country of Global system for mobile communication (GSM) and securing debt pardons from the Paris and London club amounting to some $18 billion and paying another $18 Billion for the country to be debt free. It is also argued that as an elder statesman and a septuagenarian, he didn’t deserve that kind of attack, considering our culture and respect for the elderly.

They also argue, and I buy into this argument, that nothing civilized was achieved by this violent attack. We’re not animals living in the jungle. If everyone took laws into their hands, anarchy will reign supreme and chaos will be let loose upon the land. Civility and being law abiding are virtues expected of all citizens, we’ll otherwise be drifting to the state of nature as described by Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher born prematurely in Wiltshire, England on 5 April, 1588. He gave a famous quotation describing life in the state of nature as war of every man against every man, “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

This attack at the international airport which ought to be one of the most secured, strategic places in the country, and on a former president, also calls to question the competence of our national security apparatus. We have had several recent instances of security lapses.

The Boko Harem sect, despite their timely warning, ahead of the Bauchi State jail break, set the prison ablaze, leading to the escape of 157 members of the sect awaiting trial.  The twin bomb blasts at the Independence Day anniversary event in the nation’s capital, Abuja, also exposed the soft underbelly of our porous security machinery. The unending kidnappings and armed robberies in the eastern part of the country also point to the fact that we need to overhaul our national security to meet the challenges of the present day.

Our national security agencies, in terms of training and equipment, appear to be using flint for striking fire in an era where the criminals are using cutting-edge lighters to ignite their unwholesome and consuming fire.