FOR REASONS KNOWN, ONLY, to nature, former president Olusegun Obasanjo doesn't speak without the entire nation catching cold. One of such reasons, I suppose, is that his capacity to generate controversy seems legendary.

Few weeks past, he made a scotching criticism of governance under the Buhari administration, anchoring on the (i) president’s seemingly-incurable nepotism, which tends to be polarizing Nigerians, more than at any time in our history, as a federation (ii) his failure on promise to deliver on the war against corruption (iii) his lacklustre performance in the management of the economy, which, today makes the Nigerian, intolerably-deprived and absolutely-poor. While most Nigerians hailed OBJ's exemplary courage to state the obvious, the ruling party commended the observations and went on to highlight some of the president's achievements, which, in their views, ought to have caught the attention of Obsanjo, thus moderating his criticism and advice to Mr President not to venture into contesting for the second term.

On their side, foot -soldier politicians/party loyalists of the ruling party were divided in their views. While the few moderates among them toed the party line, as regards the speech, the majority of them joined the crowd of Obasanjo's traducers, especially the anti-Obasanjo guild of media practitioners, to exhume documents and past newspaper cuttings that painted the picture of an Obasanjo, who abuses woman; an Obasanjo who is corrupt; an Obasanjo who sleeps with other women and an Obasanjo who did this and did that. None of the crowd-wailings came up with arguments to negate, just, a single point of Obasanjo's claims on the state of governance under this president. A Yoruba-speaking fellow, I suppose, was hired to stage another “ajekun iya ni oje” type of drama, raining curses on Obasanjo, all for expressing his views about the way our country is run. These tactics manifest, at best, the worst form of crudity and ultra-pettiness. They fail, woefully, to contribute, rationally to the issues raised in Obasanjo's letter - these tactics are what leave our politics in the hands of mere opportunists and brigands, making our people the most miserable people on the surface of the earth.

Obasanjo, over the years, whether in or out of government, has demonstrated a thorough mastery of the subject of human and material management, earning him a global recognition. While one needs to sympathize with and appreciate the modest achievements of this administration, the points raised in Obasanjo's letter are germane and constitute significant blot on the performance sheet of this administration. The issue of nepotism has been raised, severally in different areas even, within the ruling party, both in the appointment of key officers of state and in the dispensation of justice, under the guise of fighting corruption. Ineptitude in the management of the economy had left Nigerians poorer than any other national, with our currency being  the least-valued, anywhere. This embarrassing state of affairs has necessitated the calls from some quarters for a DNA test for baba whose performances they say, fall far short of expectation, judging from the fact that he led the government which drove WAI, in 1984 His tactlessness in confronting corruption, head long, seems the lowest and the most embarrassing point of his administration.

Weary, hopeless and utterly frustrated, the Nigerian citizenry, most heartily can no longer wait to see an idea that'd rescue this country from the two fingers of the same leprous hand which the APC and PDP, represent, slogan or none. Generally described as half a dozen and six, each of them is an assembly of irredeemable crooks, with vested interests, in politics whose satanic notions and expectations of governance are at variance with those of the citizenry. It is on this premise that the populace seems anxious to welcome the Obasanjo-led third force as a body to rescue our country from the grip of bandits without conscience so the citizenry can have a relief from avoidable penury and hopelessness in the mist of plenty. This rescue mission is most necessary today as the only alternative being that our country sits on a keg of gunpowder, awaiting explosion. Prominent among factors of instability is the unexplainably-large gap between the take-home pays within the public sector that has a senator allegedly going home with the sum of N35m every month, even, in a country in which the minimum pay in the working class is N18, 000 per month! (a sad ratio of 1:1944). Here, we are talking of a country in which the working class, generating the national income, are badly pauperized while an all-comer political class live in excessive opulence, on the public wealth.

Having taken a cursory look at the list being bandied  by members of the CNM, I must confess that, apart from my hope in the person of Obasanjo, that list parades a class of people I refer to as technocrats who, in public life, have demonstrated commitment to service of mankind and society. This, to me, gives hope of emancipation more than this semblance of  little to the left and little to the right arrangement on ground.