Whenever I think of Obasanjo, I remember something that Ken Saro-wiwa said during one of my visits to him in detention. This was shortly before he was sentenced. On that day, I-was expecting him to be very depressed since we had just known from our own network to expect the worst. However, I found him confident, witty as ever, and good humoured. At some stage in our conversation, a member of MOSOP expressed concern that security operations in Ogoniland had made it extremely hazardous for the movement to show any presence. Appraising him with no apparent sympathy, Ken said, "Young man, don't make too much of that. At times like this, every good person belongs in prison. You should be worrying about being out there, not about being in here."

Perhaps, this remark keeps coming to my mind because it helps me come to terms with Obasanjo's incarceration. For Obasanjo is a good man, not without blemishes, but decidedly a good man.

I will never forget the first time I met him; he was already President then. I had been invited along with a few others to a daylong brainstorming exercise in Dodan Barracks with General Obasanjo. When 1 was asked to make my opening statement, I condemned the leadership style in Nigeria, indicted military rule, and expressed skepticism about the redemptive prospects of the Obasanjo regime.

After listening to me with controlled unease for a while, Obasanjo suddenly erupted. Banging the table with clenched fists, he rejected my criticisms stoutly. For good measure he accused me of being out of touch with the country and indulging a fertile imagination. On and on, he went.

Then just as suddenly, he started making jokes and quickly put everyone at ease. In the course of the day, snatches of his interventions convinced me that he had been seriously assessing my criticisms. He had obviously decided to put his feelings aside to deal with ideas on merit in our quest for solutions.

I found this very reassuring at a time when I was beginning to regret my return to Nigeria. Somehow, I felt that a country which produced someone like Obasanjo as leader must be doing something right and could do a lot better.

"Could do a lot better". That phrase crystallized my image of Obasanjo several years later when I had got to know him. For it is that simple faith in Nigeria's ability to do better that drives him. It underlies his thinking, his irrepressible enthusiasm, and his explosive energy. And it structures the wonderful immensity of his concerns and interest.

Even in this improbable country of improbable happenings, one must wonder what Obasanjo is doing in pr/son. I have thought long and hard about this, and I still can't go beyond Ken's answer. So be it then. It is some consolation.

The gloom will lift. The old order is moribund and those who are trying to sustain it have no chance and no future. What we are seeing now is the game end. A new wholesome reality is already fully formed waiting to be born; the question is not whether it will arrive but whether we can lessen its birth pangs.