Obasanjo’s unending war against Yoruba leaders
Leaders like the late Ahmadu Bello, an active participant in the recruitment process of mostly disadvantaged Nigerian youths into the military and many model builders believe the major incentive for Nigerian youths and their counterparts elsewhere in West Africa for joining the military was the opportunity it provided to climb the social ladder. Additional incentives for many of the new recruits including the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo, driven by inferiority complex, was the potential acquisition of power and influence, through political intrigue and military tactics, instead of long years of intellectual and bureaucratic preparation which defined power wielders of the period. A young, very calculated Obasanjo therefore “ ‘set out early at dawn’, to scheme for power with great tenacity, without, in the words of Andrew Young, his friend and former United States’ UN permanent representative, “caring not about who […]