The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Chief Obasanjo

  • COMMENTS

    COMMENTS

    For Olatunji Dare

    Thank you so much Prof Dare for your explanation on the memoir and the magistrate. The judge should be heavily sanctioned or sent back to the Law school. This kind of ruling incites violent reaction; in fact it makes ’Boko Haram’. As for the editors at The Nation, please Prof organise seminars for them. Their negative reaction to anything about Obasanjo: good or bad, is very unbecoming. Freedom of speech is very important. How can a judge attempt to stop somebody from talking because he felt what he will say may be libellous? From Abimbola Rotimi, Ondo State.

    Good morning Sir, Re: Mainstreamers at work. There are two Nigerians as a student in the mid seventies most of my colleagues and I would have gone to war for any day, we thought. But I am happy and I believe most of my colleagues too are happy to have had the opportunity to see the flip side of these guys. God bless you. From Msb Mahmud, Lagos

    Why not the court allow Chief Obasanjo’s book circulate rather than ban it to expose the evil acts of our leaders, despite that Obasanjo himself is not saint over the allegation levelled against our leaders for their conducts? If we continue hiding things without exposing evil acts, Nigeria will not move forward. From Gordon Chika Nnorom

    Sir, Ebino Topsy is confused where he is and ashamed to return home. He has destroyed all he stood for as a youth. Imagine Ebino campaigning for Obasanjo, and what of Omisore. Haa! Wonders shall never end. Anonymous

    When some people say IBB is an evil genius, I always disagree with them. Rather Obasanjo is in the best position to be called that name. Obasanjo was part of those who introduced zoning system into the country but turned around and said there was no zoning in 2011.  Inconsistency is the most  powerful attribute of Obasanjo during and after his tenure. He should check his record first before descending on others because he who points a finger at someone, the remaining four are pointing at him or her.   From Hamza Ozi Momoh Apapa Lagos.

    Re-The memoir and the magistrate.  Justice Ashi is one of them, doing judgment the manner he feels rather than considering what the entire  laws say- criminal, civil, administrative, constitutional etc. Although former president Obasanjo should have respected the law and go back to court(s) to challenge the wrong  judgement of Justice Ashi rather than also breaking the law by going ahead to launch his book ‘MY WATCH’. This is why it may take Nigeria a long time to grow. Were it to be the poor that breached the law, your guess is as good as mine. Both of them acted ultra-vires. From Lanre Oseni.

    Uncle Ebino deserves whatsoever name you call him. Must he join PDP? Please, tell Sam Omatseye to do more of Ebino political disaster in subsequent write up. No apology to him. From Isaac.

    Prof. You rightly condemned Buruji and Justice Ashi for the petitioning and granting of the petition against the publication of the Obasanjo book without first going through it. But then you also seem to have fallen into the same ditch by writing on the book when you have neither set your eyes on it nor read the content there from. Or don’t you think that what influenced your writing on the book without first reading it could equally be the same that motivated them to want to stop the publication without first going through the book? Of course the petitioner, I think, wouldn’t have resorted to the court action had he given a second thought to it. It isn’t only ridiculous for him to opt for a legal action against the publication of a book he hasn’t read, he was also by the court action inadvertently attracting wider attention to the said libelous- content in the book, contrary to his reason for wanting to stop the publication in the first place – From Emmanuel Egwu. 

     

    For Gbenga Omotoso

    Your article is quite splendid and germane to the socio-political events in the country. You’ve done more than Santa Claus by doling out Christmas gifts to everyone that leads our political and economic terrain. Your article is steep in humour, laden with parodoxical tropes, spiced with oral acrobatics. You are indeed the editor of the year, the Achebe of journalism. Anonymous

    Mr Omotosho I just read your Christmas day piece. You were a little bit biased in the Santa gifts galore. Are you saying the Labaran Maku; Dr Peter Ayodele Fayose; Chief Nyesom Wike; Mr Femi Fani-Kayode and other  enfant terrible are undeserving of your largesse? Haba! Try and make the list more exclusive in the spirit of the season. My own gift for you is a lorry load of ink for your  ever sharp pen. From Olusegun Owoeye. Kogi State.

    You did not mention Dieziani in your article. Why? Does she not deserve a space here? Thanks and Merry Christmas.By now Nigerians studying the Jonathan-led PDP administration have come to sure conclusion that a leopard cannot change its spots.  let us take their money and still vote them out this time around. Wankar Daniel

    Reacting to your piece, When Santa comes to town, as witty as it sounded, our leaders should be ashamed of their performances in the out-going year. Though, we know shame doesn’t appear in their dictionaries. Hope we can gift them the humble pie at the polls in 2015. From Adesina Kunle, Abeokuta

    For sure your gift to Emperor Okupe was the best. But will he read and study those quotations? You have done your very best. Compliment of the season. Anonymous

    I always enjoy your style in the editorial notebook. Please keep it up. From N. O. Olawore

    ‘When Santa comes to town’ is a master piece and a good parting shot for them. Ph.ds with tunnel vision. You left out Rueben Abati. How come? From F Onagoruwa.

    Thanks for your piece; Santa comes to Town, in The Nation today. But what yuletide gift do you have for our own Reuben  Abati? He seems missing  in action these days. It would have been interesting to hear from him in these seasons of change versus transformation agenda. From Wole Alawode, Ijagbo, Kwara State.

    My dear Omotoso, thanks  for those generous gifts. But alas! You’ve left out the almighty-Petroleum Queen? She deserves Santa Claus gift too. Anonymous

    Mr. Gbenga, your gift to Mama Ngozi, for her misdirection of the Nigerian economy, is most fitting. You are a fine literary pugilist. From Sam.

  • Nigeria’s economy is sick – Obasanjo

    Nigeria’s economy is sick – Obasanjo

    …wants NNPC records released to public

    … Faults $78 budget benchmark

    In spite of hard knocks from the Presidency in the last few days, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo remained unrepentant on Wednesday against the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    He said the nation’s economy is in doldrums if not in reverse and wrote off the Gross Domestic Product growth which the administration had prided as a prime achievement.

    Obasanjo spoke in an eight-page address at the public presentation and launching of the autobiography of a former Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Justice Mustapha Akanbi, held in Abuja.

    He said there is likely to be a drastic devaluation of Naira again which will hurt Nigerians.

    He asked the government to release records of crude oil proceeds to the public.

    He also faulted the $78 benchmark for 2015 budget and warned that the nation might be in a bind if oil price falls to $75 per barrel.

    The former president said if Saudi Arabia is planning its next year’s budget on $68 per barrel as benchmark, why Nigeria can’t prepare against shock.

    Clad in a light brown Babanriga, Obasanjo, who was serious-minded, told a shocked audience that Nigeria has not prepared for the rainy days.

    “The fourth issue I will briefly like to comment on is the economy. What the public know or see of the economy is not what the economy truly is.

    “For quite some time, the covered and the hushed up corruption has had its toll on the economy. The non-investment and disinvestment in the oil and gas sector by the major international oil companies has added its own deleterious impact.

    “Our continued heavy dependence on one commodity had not adequately prepared us against any shock in that one commodity on the international plane.

    “With the figure of $78 per barrel as benchmark, we will be in a bind if oil price falls to $75 per barrel. I am made to understand that Saudi Arabia used $68 per barrel as benchmark for its 2015 budget.

    The former president gave a stunning verdict before the audience, saying the economy is in doldrums if not in reverse.

    The declaration drew a thunderous ovation from most people at the full capacity Ladi Kwali Hall of the posh Sheraton Hotel and Towers.

    He added: “Our inadequate protection of almost all local industries with heavy cost of energy has dealt a hard blow on most indigenous industries. The economy is in doldrums if not in reverse.

    “The often-quoted GDP growth neither reflects on the living condition of most of our people nor on most of the indigenous industries and services where capacity utilization is about 50 per cent.

    “We had not adequately prepared for the rainy days in the management of proceeds from oil and gas resources.

    “And with crude oil purchase by the US from Nigeria going down by some 30 per cent in the last three years as a result of shale revolution, things are not looking up in the oil and gas sector and hence, in the economy.

    “The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that the price of oil has not bottomed yet and that the price will continue to go down through the first half of 2015 if not for the whole year.

    “With shale revolution and America’s self-sufficiency in energy and possibly becoming a net exporter as well as with the prediction of IEA, we must re-strategize.

    “The position may be that, in future, we will have a budget that cannot be funded. We may have to borrow to pay the salaries and allowances. Revenue allocation to states and local governments has already drastically reduced. Capital projects at all levels of government may have to be drastically cut or stopped.”

    On the devaluation of the Naira, Obasanjo said it will lead to horrendous advantage for poor Nigerians

    He said: “Sooner or later, the Naira will have to be drastically devalued without any advantage to our one commodity economy but with horrendous disadvantage to already impoverished Nigerians.”

  • Officer and gentleman Gowon at 80

    Officer and gentleman Gowon at 80

    He comes closest than anyone in Nigeria, alive or dead, to the universal definition of an officer and a gentleman. Though he was overthrown in humiliating circumstances at a relatively young age, having become head of state at 32 and ruled for about nine years, he has had the good fortune of outlasting his enemies and detractors. Indeed, not only is he aging gracefully, balding pate and all, he is gradually and robustly mummifying before our very eyes. General Yakubu Gowon is 80 years old, and seems set to chalk up many more years, still fit and sound.

    He assumed power in 1966 after the countercoup, but planned to relinquish power to a democratically elected government in 1976. In 1974, after leading the country through a civil war, he reneged. But given the acclaim that still follows him, his affability, and the huge respect given him everywhere he goes, the mind can’t comprehend what fame would have been his had he handed over power at the time he promised and laid a sound and solid foundation for democracy. Nevertheless, till today, he stands head and shoulder above every Nigerian ruler since independence, including the popular Murtala Mohammed and the chimerical Olusegun Obasanjo.

    Yet he has a blot on his escutcheon. The civil war years showed Gen Gowon an enormously courageous man. But his worldview since then, especially when things are collapsing around him all over the country in terms of corruption and evident misrule, is reflected in his preference for prayers and gentle admonition of the rulers of the day, even when tough rebuke would have been more appropriate. Here, the sanctimonious Chief Obasanjo betters him; and the more abrasive but now late Gen Mohammed trumps him. Dr Gowon is a man of enormous  humaneness and tremendous personal qualities. His leadership skills during the war were quite invaluable, and his contributions to the war effort and the consequent peace incalculable. But his geniality and profound empathy, not to say his continuing reluctance to serve as the country’s conscience, may consign him to a less inspiring but safe corner of our history.

    Given his outlook, he is unlikely to be able to fulfill the role of someone else of our profounder imagination,. But that is precisely the dilemma of his life: that the virtues that promoted him to sainthood in our gentle estimation have also conspired to vitiate his fame and achievement. That dilemma, even if it were possible to resolve, has unfortunately ossified around him, and will be interred with his bones. Nonetheless, this outstanding Nigerian, probably the best ruler Nigeria has produced, deserves to be celebrated much more than he has ever been.

  • Season of venomous letters

    Season of venomous letters

    His previous letters were not always a model of grammatical rectitude, nor even of moral and philosophical correctness, but his latest to President Goodluck Jonathan, dated December 2, but leaked to the media weeks after, offends every rule known to man, whether of common sense or of morality, of grammar or logic, of religion or politics. A more temperate man would be capable of arranging his thoughts with more finesse and better control of emotions than former President Olusegun Obasanjo did in his angry and caustic 18-page letter. Indeed, only Chief Obasanjo, judging from his antecedents and misshapen worldview, could have presented salient and weighty issues in such an offensive manner that commentators are left in a quandary whether to separate the message from the messenger or to consider the two in their obvious inextricable interconnectedness.

    Commentators have urged the separation of the message from the messenger. They hope that that would create a fair and unfettered understanding of the issues raised by Chief Obasanjo, and help promote the cause of peace, stability and good governance as the former president pretended to aim after in his letter. Already, Dr Jonathan is being pressured to respond to the issues raised in the controversial letter, and to discountenance the moral qualification of the letter writer. It makes a lot of sense to ask everyone to de-emphasise the moral qualification of the writer, for of all the living and dead presidents Nigeria has had in its chequered history, Chief Obasanjo appears to be the least qualified morally, politically or even philosophically to admonish, let alone censure, anyone. If no separation between the message and messenger is done, it is feared, the weight of Chief Obasanjo’s moral turpitude could considerably overshadow or attenuate some of the poignant points he raised in his letter.

    In short, the country is being asked to do a fractional distillation of the letter: separate the message from the messenger and isolate all the issues, while at the same time distilling the points one after the other in such a way that none of those points, no matter how seemingly contradictory, is diminished by the other or by the letter writer himself. The problem, however, is that the former president stands imposingly and almost inextricably between every point he raised. No useful consideration of any point could be done without being choked by the inconveniencing obtrusion of the follies and foibles of the letter writer. The scheming of Chief Obasanjo is too evident in every point he raised to be ignored. He was disingenuous, as indeed he likes to pride himself, but there was absolutely no altruism in him; and even his disingenuousness, in the light of his previous letters to Dr Jonathan and other presidents, is questionable.

    While it may seem more sensible to de-emphasise the failings of the letter writer, and instead focus more critically on the message he tried so futilely to convey, a much better approach would be to sift through the letter to identify areas for leadership improvement. For in the end, it is as important to curb Chief Obasanjo’s sanctimoniousness and end his unguarded and continuing meddlesomeness in national affairs as it is to extirpate the leadership mediocrity he has repeatedly helped to enthrone and which his letter has helped to draw attention to once again. Chief Obasanjo warned that he had a thick skin, and would simply disregard the criticisms, insults and sabre-rattling certain to follow the letter. By inference, he was also saying that anyone who seemed to have sympathy for the Jonathan camp or focused on the writer rather than his message would be engaging in a sterile exercise. We should not gratify him.

    He is doubtless famous for his inurement to insults and criticisms, no matter how accurate, well-meaning or wounding. And having got away with murder, as it were, in his previous letters to past presidents and heads of state, some of whom came to grief soon after, he seems accustomed to having his way and getting commentators to draw a line between the message and the messenger. Nigerians apparently do not understand that the problems Chief Obasanjo complained of were caused by his own distorted theology, monstrous politics, appalling worldview and extreme narcissism. It is, however, time he was told he would not be allowed to toy with the country; that he could not impose bad leaders only to turn round to assail and condemn his hapless stooges; that he could not foment evil and bring disaster upon the country and turn round to present himself a knight in shining armour; that he could not lay mines in the country’s politics only to turn round to either amputate shattered limbs as a benevolent doctor or administer euthanasia as a mercy killer.

    It is now more urgent than ever that the messenger must be demystified, disrobed and castrated if the country is to make progress. For he is not just integral to the country’s problems, as evidenced by his more than 30 years of anarchic intervention in national affairs, he is also in fact the architect of many of Nigeria’s recent woes. But while the demystification is going on, it is also urgent that as the architect is being led figuratively to the gallows, the social and bureaucratic monstrosities he has sired, his misbegotten political sons, and his eternal cocksureness must share his fate. So, commentators must dexterously weigh in balanced cadence the messenger and his message, the architect and his building, the creator and his creature, the hobgoblin and its spinoffs. Chief Obasanjo has wreaked so much havoc on the country by imposing mediocre leaders upon it, a point he casually gloated over again in his letter, that he should be denounced together with his creatures. If we spare him as he expects, perhaps for fear of diluting the intensity and gravity of his message, he will once again be left free to foment more trouble.

    It is clear that most of the weighty statements and allegations in his letter, whether against individuals, Dr Jonathan’s government, or his political opponents, are geared towards only one thing – creating a new and wider political space for Chief Obasanjo to practise more chicanery, not for the country to be renewed or to help it foster a political system that is self-correcting and self-healing. Chief Obasanjo’s main objective is his determination to ensure that Dr Jonathan does not present himself for re-election, as if that would make the ambitious and intransigent president less undemocratic than he has become. Everything Chief Obasanjo said in his rancorous letter was aimed at forging a consensus against Dr Jonathan. No one is fooled. Was Chief Obasanjo himself not denied third term? And did he not out of spite saddle the country with misfits? Would a spurned Jonathan not be capable of worse mischief, especially seeing how quite desperate and tyrannical he has become under the pressures of the past few months?

    Dr Jonathan is under pressure to respond. He apparently will. But it would be strange if the country were to be satisfied with his explanations, for whatever he has to say would be undermined by his constant vainglorious assertions and also be as misleading as the original letter from Chief Obasanjo. It is expected that pressure will be brought to bear upon the National Assembly to probe critical parts of the former president’s letter, such as the nefarious oil deals and alleged training and arming of death squads. The legislature may succumb to the pressure; but even then, given the impotence they have displayed over key national issues in the past few years, it is hard to see any probe from them amounting to anything. Nothing, of course, will be said on all the other futile and thoroughly acerbic parts of the letter. Apart from underscoring a strange and warped theology, arrogating ecclesiastical immunity to himself, and creating an unsustainable air of self-importance, those futile parts were meant to burnish the credentials of the former president.

    Nigeria must be clear what to make of Obasanjo’s letter. Its value appears to be no more than having the truculent old warhorse on the side of the anti-Jonathan forces. His support, however, must be taken very gingerly, especially by the All Progressives Congress (APC) rainbow coalition, for every time he rallied to a cause, such as when he opposed former President Shehu Shagari or even General Sani Abacha, the outcome had never been salutary. His opposition to Jonathan will not be different, for his cause is not always the same as the country’s, nor should we entertain the presumption that our capacity for intrigues and malevolence matches Chief Obasanjo’s. The letter is futile; Dr Jonathan’s response will also be futile. Chief Obasanjo was and remains a cankerworm to Nigeria’s body politic; Dr Jonathan is tarred with the same brush. Even if the president’s nose is put out of joint, he will struggle in a two-horse race with Chief Obasanjo to impose another mediocre on the country, if we let them.

    Nigeria must, therefore, look beyond Chief Obasanjo’s pompous letter. Given the Independent National Electoral Commission’s suggestion that elections might be difficult to organise in the Northeast in 2015, a region that has become a bastion of the opposition, the hurdles confronting those who wish to unhorse Dr Jonathan could become gargantuan. Neither Obasanjo nor Jonathan should be spared, notwithstanding the puerile threats by uninformed aides of the president to equate the call for Dr Jonathan’s impeachment with treason. Chief Obasanjo was not just an incompetent president with a very poor grasp of issues, as his latest letter shows to everyone’s dismay, his godson is even much worse. The message and the messenger do not deserve a decent hearing and should be thrown out, lest Chief Obasanjo should imagine he had scored a point with us. The country, if its enlightened citizens have any sense about them, should insist on taking on Dr Jonathan on their own, not at the behest of anyone, nor on the prompting of schemers. If we don’t, a much crueller fate than the lassitude our cowardice and misconceptions have brought upon us in the past one decade and more will befall us again in 2015.