I think Obasanjo should be probed. You see, President Buhari has been very generous and mild towards his predecessors, not wanting to cause discomfort and embarrassment for them out of respect for the positions they held.
“But, Obasanjo is a man who does not respect himself, who thinks he is the President-General of Nigeria for life and has a right at any time to wade in and be very caustic and publicly insulting to his successors, just because he’s envious of the same position he held. He cannot detach himself from the Presidency.
“I think he needs to be brought to order. He has been tolerated enough in this country. The President’s remark was very appropriate and more and more should come because Obasanjo ran one of the most corrupt governments this country has ever seen.”
Prof Itse Sagay (SAN) speaking on ex – President Olusegun Obasanjo in relation to the 16B dollars allegedly spent on electricity during his administration.
I know it will come to this. I know that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo will, one day, have his comeuppance but I have always thought that day wouldnt come until a Pharaoh mounts the Nigerian presidency, who knows not Moses. However, as Sagay said, Obasanjo, for his perennial inability to know that there are things statesmen should not say, or say in the manner he says them regardless of who the victim of his virtuperations are, may just have brought comeuppance upon himself much earlier than expected . He may just, this time around, have climbed the tree beyond its leaves, or why the perpetual sanctimony when you are not anywhere near the cleanest man around? Or could he have forgotten most Nigerians were around during his 8 years in office?
Can anybody remember President Muhammadu Buhari ever losing his cool, speaking of anybody at all, talk less of his military superior, the way he asked the question: where is the power, unmistakably referring to Obasanjo?
Having convinced himself that he is the best thing to have ever happened to Nigeria, Obasanjo talks to whoever: clergy, governor or President, the way he would to his house help. Obasanjo knows no bounds; in his eyes, he is Lord and master; the capo du tuti, of Nigeria. Proceeding from this egomaniacal mindset therefore, he has written scathing letters to everybody that was ever Head of state of Nigeria, except that he forgot to address one to himself even though he deserved his tirades the most.
Until governor Ayo Fayose, at a public gathering some years ago, showed him that he is a true born Ekiti, Obasanjo talked down to state governors as if the federal government and the states are not coordinate arms of government. His repugnant, constant putdown of Ekiti in the days when his favourite song was OMO O LE JO BABA (like father, like son) was the leitmotif for my long running column, now going on 14 years, to, at least, try put the lie to such a hate- filled campaign of calumny against my place of birth.
But his encounter with the National Assembly, not once but severally, must be the crown jewel of this self loving man’s contemptuous treatment of others.
Granted that the 8th Assembly has not been particularly sparkling, how on earth would an internationally respected elder statesman, not a Dick or Harry, describe an arm of government as an “assembly of thieves and looters, a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers”, as he did at the public presentation of Justice Mustapha Akanbi’s autobiography?
Should a two term President, in deed, anybody at all, if rational, ever open himself to the possibility of having a thoroughly demeaning response like the one he got from those he traduced directed at him?
For thundered back Hon Abdulrazak Namdas, Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs: “Obasanjo is understandably angry with the National Assembly as an institution, having foiled his ambition for a third-term in office even after trying to corrupt the members with a bribe of at least N50m each.
He birthed the 4th Assembly with corrupt practices from day one. He bribed every legislator on inauguration in 1999, to vote against late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. “Have we forgotten the sacks of money displayed on the floor of the House of Representatives, being bribe money paid some honourable members to impeach the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Ghali N’abba? “Have we forgotten that he used his position as President to extort money from businessmen and contractors to his government to build his presidential library?”
After a public encounter like the above , a Yoruba man of any age, acculturated in the Omoluabi ethos of the race, would be expected to know that enough was enough, and to subsequently weigh his words. No, am not saying he shouldn’t call attention to things going wrong in society, but the ever perspicacious Yoruba say there are ways you call even a simple thing like Baba, so as not to give offence. But all these matter nothing to Obasanjo who, after his latest letter to a Head of state, has been going round all over the country either mouthing inanities, or laying wreaths, bad mouthing a President Buhari who is doing his damnedest to clear the 16- year Augean stable Obasanjo birthed, and nurtured, through the two weak and clueless successors he singly foisted on the country; through the most rigged election the world over as one of them self – confessed and during which period corruption in Nigeria became systemic, and assumed, industrial scale.
Reading the EFCC report on the whopping $16billion invested in the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) is very fascinating, indeed. Arising from the fact that the investigation happened during the administration of one of two presidents he foisted on the country, EFCC went to great lengths to show that Obasanjo knew nothing, whatever., about the huge expenditure. The report, if possible, would have said somebody else it was, who approved the contracts. But Baba loomed too large in his administration to let that happen. Take this, for example: EFCC wrote: “After an in-depth investigation and rigorous check on all documents relating to these contracts, the payments made so far, and the contractors handling the project, it is impossible to draw a nexus between the former President, his relations or any front who benefited from the proceeds accruing from the contract payments.”
Pray, why on earth was this necessary if there wasn’t a determined effort to cover up Obasanjo who, incidentally, established the anti corruption agency besides being the ‘giver’ of the sitting President? Why go to all this length and not let the courts conclude as the EFCC did? What does EFCC take Nigerians for, fools? While the small matter of the
controversy which surrounded a mere N3.5 billion contract in which
- Schneider, an Austrian, petitioned the presidency and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EF-CC) and in which the name of Iyabo, the former president’s daughter featured prominently is on my mind, EFCC should please show Nigerians another report in which an individual has been so cleared ahead a judicial interrogation commences.
Fortunately, however, clearing Obasanjo was a tall order, as the anti graft commission must explain the following portion of the report: “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) COULD NOT ACCOUNT FOR THE WHEREABOUTS OF $1 BILLION”.
Now if Obasanjo is running round every nook and cranny of Nigeria, not only laying wreaths and ascribing killings to Buhari, but , ipso facto, criminalising him, doesn’t he know that in pointing one finger at Buhari, four are pointing directly at him? Of course, we all know Obasanjo as consumate master of decoy, claiming, for instance, that governors were the ones behind his 3rd term project, as if they were the ones hankering after life presidency. By the same logic he now demonizes Buhari for the unfortunate killings for which not even a sadist of a president can be happy, not to talk of instigating, Nigerians must now ask Obasanjo to account for, not 16B dollars about which he has asked Nigerians to head to libraries and bookstores to read his magnum opus, but the little 1B dollars that has remained untraceable under his watch.
This is the least he can do for us poor Nigerians out of the 11 Trillion SERAP says PDP burnt on electricity between 1999 – 2015.
#OURMUMUEDONDO#’