Obasanjo Booed on Emirates flight.

Former Nigerian three-term
president, Olusegun Obasanjo was
booed on an Emirates flight 783
from Dubai to Lagos on 14
November 2013.

Obasanjo was returning from a
business trip in Dubai when Nigerians around gave him an unfriendly welcome on the flight with boos and invective.

The Nigerians had been waiting on
the queue to board when they were asked to make way for the First Class premium passenger. Eager to board “sharp sharp” (hurriedly), the Economy class
passengers protested that after
Obasanjo took them hostage for
over 10 years as President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, they
were not so ready to step aside to
make way for him, to control them from the “passenger seat”.

Obasanjo first came to power in
Nigeria through a military Coup
d’Etat on 13 February 1976. He
handed over power to Shehu
Shagari on 1 October 1979 following democratic elections after two years in power. He went into private life as a farmer and traditional chief in Ogun State. He came back from retirement and contested elections winning twice to become civilian President from 29 May 1999 to 29 May 2007.

Nigerians blame him for most of
their woes as they claim he is the
Godfather of all Nigerian Presidents since late 2000's and he has also being accused of not fulfilling half of his promises during his two tenures as the president, rather he worsened the country's developmental plan especially after the much sung democracy his regime began with.

Ikechukwu, one of the passengers
from Enugu, returning from a
business trip to India, said Nigeria
needed to fight a war before
democracy; human rights and
governance would come to the
country. He said the three regional divide of the country represented in the Y in the country's Coat of Arm is a bane that could only be corrected by a war. Merit will only be respected in Nigeria when that happens.

Nkechi, another passenger on the
Emirates flight touted him that
Nigeria has been undergoing a
perennial warfare since the Biafra
war. Ikechuku waived her aside and said that was a political war with just one region, Biafra fighting the rest of the country.

Obasanjo did not settle on his seat
in the First Class. He stood up and
went round the plane as if to test his popularity. Nobody stood up to challenge the political juggernaut of Nigerian politics, nor did they try to stop him.

I asked Obasanjo, from my seat, if he was not afraid of being assaulted by an irate passenger. He was leaning over me screening my face as if looking for a lost friend. He showed me a Rastafarian walking behind him saying, “He takes care of
me.” He also added that he is a
survivor of many attempts on his life and was not scared of a few boos.

Obasanjo escaped death on 13
February 1976 when Army Colonel
Dimka targeted him and General
Murtala Muhammed in a Coup
d’Etat. Murtala was killed but
Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma, chief of army staff survived.

Obasanjo was appointed Head of
State by the Supreme Military
Council. Obasanjo spoke out against human rights abuses during the dictatorship of Sani Abacha between 1993 and
1998. He was arrested and
imprisoned for his participation in an aborted coup. He was only released when Abacha died suddenly in 8 June, 1998.

Obasanjo provoked a controversy when he planned to revise the constitution to allow him to run for a third and fourth term.
Obasanjo is credited to have
ushered in democracy with the 1979 Constitution of the Second Republic styled after the Constitution of the United States of America. Yet the trappings of absolute power blinded this visionary of Nigerian politics to
want more than two terms in office and probably a life presidency.

Nkechi intimated that if Obasanjo
had appeared like that in an airport in Nigeria, he would have been pelted with rotten eggs.

Emirates flight 783 from Dubai
landed at Murtala Mohammed
airport in Lagos Nigeria at 12:15pm.

Obasanjo checked out without any
further booing or pelting with rotten eggs as Nkechi had suggested will happen on the Nigerian soil.

Via Modernghana.com