Nigeria’s elite blame tribe, religion, region to hide nation’s failures — Obasanjo

In one of the most searing indictments of Nigeria’s ruling class in recent memory, former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has accused the nation’s elite of deliberately weaponising ethnicity, religion, and regional identities as convenient smokescreens to hide personal incompetence, institutional failure, and moral bankruptcy.

Speaking at the globally streamed Toyin Falola Interviews on Sunday, Obasanjo lamented that Nigeria’s deepest crisis is not merely structural but fundamentally ethical, rooted in a corrosive leadership culture that refuses introspection and accountability.

The panel for the wide-reaching intellectual exchange comprised distinguished Professor Toyin Falola, Catholic Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr Kingsley Moghalu.

The edition attracted live audiences from over 32 countries, reaffirming the platform’s growing stature as one of Africa’s most influential arenas for critical thought and governance interrogation.

“I believe that we do not give one another the recognition and respect that we deserve,” Obasanjo declared as he reflected on what he described as a deepening culture of disdain, arrogance, and social dehumanisation among the political class.

He recounted with dismay how public officials casually speak about fellow Nigerians “as though they are slaves,” warning that such rhetoric signals a dangerous erosion of civic equality and national dignity.

Rejecting any notion of graded or hierarchical citizenship, the former president affirmed the constitutional and moral equality of all Nigerians: “I don’t believe that there is anyone in Nigeria that has rights more or less than the rights that I have.”

For Obasanjo, this elite mindset of superiority lies at the heart of Nigeria’s persistent instability, popular alienation, and democratic fragility.

Pushing his argument further, the elder statesman accused political leaders of retreating into identity politics whenever governance expectations collapse. According to him, failure in leadership is routinely externalised and displaced onto ethnic, regional, or religious fault lines.

“When they want things and they don’t get it, they either blame religion, region or tribe. They never see anything wrong in themselves,” he said.

In Obasanjo’s view, this pattern of scapegoating not only weakens institutions but systematically fractures national unity by turning fellow citizens into political enemies.

He warned that the habit has become deeply institutionalised, creating a governance environment where responsibility is permanently evaded and incompetence endlessly recycled.

Obasanjo further cautioned that the long-term implications of this elite behaviour pose a grave danger to Nigeria’s corporate existence and democratic future.

Nation-building, he insisted, is not the burden of government alone but a collective moral obligation that demands discipline across all social strata.

“Nation building is the responsibility of all of us,” he stressed. “How much of it have we done or are we doing?”

He argued that until Nigerians, especially those in authority, begin to internalise accountability as a civic duty rather than a political threat, the country will remain trapped in a vicious cycle of blame, underperformance, and social distrust.

On Nigeria’s constitutional contradictions, Obasanjo was equally forthright. While acknowledging that no constitution is perfect, he questioned the sincerity of Nigeria’s operational secularism, given the existence of religious courts embedded in the constitutional framework.

He recalled how the Sharia crisis in Zamfara State emerged not from spiritual conviction but as a political survival strategy by a threatened governor seeking protection from internal party rivals.

“He introduced Sharia not because he wanted to practice it the way it should be done,” Obasanjo revealed. “He did it to make himself untouchable.”

For him, the episode perfectly illustrates how religion has been converted into a tactical shield in elite power struggles.

On legislative excesses, the former president noted with alarm how lawmakers, in defiance of constitutional restraint, fix their own salaries and allowances with little regard for national economic realities.

Comparing legislative budgets from 2000–2007 with present figures, he said the difference was “astonishing,” arguing that constitutional abuse by its operators—not merely the document’s imperfections—remains at the heart of Nigeria’s governance crisis.

“There are parts of the constitution that if I have the opportunity to change, I would immediately change,” he reflected, “but I will not blame the constitution as much as I would blame the operators of the constitution.”

On the personal question of regrets from his long years in public life, Obasanjo offered one of his most reflective moments of the evening, drawing from a quiet conversation with his doctor in London many years ago. “When he turned 65, I asked him if he had any regrets,” Obasanjo recounted.

“He said you only regret what you should have done but did not do, and which you may never have the opportunity to do again.” Measuring his own life by that definition, Obasanjo said he had just one major regret: failing to push through a single ECOWAS currency when political and economic conditions were most favourable.

At the time, he noted, Nigeria had over $45 billion in reserves, more than $25 billion in excess crude, and five countries, Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Togo and Ghana, already aligned as what he called a “common destiny bloc.”

“We had enough money to float the Eco. If I had done that, then ECOWAS could have survived,” he said. “Now it is in tatters.”

Yet even amid the fragmentation of regional diplomacy following recent coups, Obasanjo insisted he remains an optimist. Recounting his private diplomatic efforts after the inauguration of Ghana’s President John Mahama, who extended invitations to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, Obasanjo said the junta-led states remain deeply hostile to ECOWAS and specifically to the leaders of Nigeria, Benin and Senegal.

Still, he argued that geography, shared bloodlines, and porous borders make permanent isolation impossible. He criticised Nigeria’s decision to close borders, cut electricity to Niger and issue military threats, describing such actions as historically unjustified and diplomatically reckless.

“Nigeria had coups many times; nobody threatened to attack us,” he said. “What we did then was to send people to explain.”

He maintained that patience, humility, and dialogue—not coercion—remain the only viable path to regional reintegration.

Earlier in the interview, Obasanjo had delivered an equally unsparing diagnosis of the Congo crisis, tracing the roots of the conflict to the Rwandan genocide, unresolved migration questions, structural state weakness, and predatory global interest in strategic minerals.

Drawing from his own experience as a Nigerian UN peacekeeper in Congo in 1960 and later as UN envoy in 2010, he noted with irony that “the problems of Congo then are still the problems of Congo today.”

He lamented Congo’s weak federal structure, absence of a true national army, and the replacement of institutional security with presidential guards.

“Congo has no military organisation that can defend its territorial integrity and protect its people,” he said, warning that until internal reforms take precedence, foreign powers—driven by gold, cobalt and strategic minerals—will continue to dominate its fate.

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