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Tag: Obasanjo

  • 2015 face-off: President in fresh plot against Obasanjo

    2015 face-off: President in fresh plot against Obasanjo

    Loyalists of former President Olusegun Obasanjo have raised alarm over alleged plans by the Presidency to discreetly ‘deal’ with him for allegedly launching a ‘cold war’ to discredit the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    According to sources, the Presidency is under pressure to revisit investigations into the $180m Halliburton scandal. They claim that some groups are being covertly sponsored to file petitions at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the former president over the killing of innocent people in Odi and Zaki-Biam communities in Bayelsa and Benue States respectively.

    The former president had during his tenure ordered troops to invade Odi over the killing of military men by militants. A similar infraction that provoked the same measure happened in Zaki-Biam.

    The alleged counter-attack by the Presidency is coming against the backdrop of recent public criticism of President Goodluck Jonathan’s handling of the Boko Haram insurgency and other security challenges by Obasanjo.

    Barely a week after the airing of the critical comments, Jonathan hit back during his presidential media chat saying that rather than stamp out militancy, the Odi invasion only killed innocent old people and children.

    The spat between the president and his erstwhile godfather is seen in political circles as the latest evidence of increasingly tense 2015 power struggle within the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). Obasanjo is said not to be favourably disposed towards backing a Jonathan second term. He is suspected to be one of the boosters of a potential presidential bid by the Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido with the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, as the undercard.

    Investigations by our correspondent confirmed that the camp of the former President had been gripped with fear in the last one week over the alleged plot by certain forces in the presidency to launch a campaign of calumny against him.

    It was learnt that the ex-President after receiving intelligence alert last weekend tried to stop some negative advertisements against him in some newspapers, but he only succeeded in convincing a South-West-based newspaper to grant him concession.

    Apart from media attacks, loyalists of the ex-President are disturbed about moves to revisit investigations into the Halliburton scam, as well as plans by some influential groups to go to the ICC.

    A highly reliable source in Obasanjo’s camp, who spoke in confidence yesterday, said: “They are planning to deal with Baba because they think he will not support the 2015 project. Already, they have started this plot with media attacks, including placement of indicting advertisements against Obasanjo.

    “We have got intelligence report that some people are trying to prevail on the Presidency to revisit the $180m Halliburton scandal since Mr. Adeyanju Bodunde, a former Personal Assistant to Obasanjo, was implicated in the alleged scam.

    “They are plotting to frame up the ex-President in the Halliburton scandal. It is sad that they are desperate; they want to hang something on Obasanjo’s neck in order to intimidate him to shelve any involvement in 2015 project. Yet, we are in a democracy. Obasanjo should be entitled to his opinion no matter how bitter it is.”

    Bodunde was arraigned in 2010 alongside George Mark, Jeffrey Tesler (now at large), Hans George Christ, Heinrich J. Stockhausen, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, and Bilfinger Berger GMBH.

    George Mark, Jeffrey Tesler, Hans George Christ, Heinrich J. Stockhausen; Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, Bilfinger Berger GMBH were alleged to have sometime between 2002 and 2003 conspired to make several cash payments of $1million (five times) totalling in equivalent the sum of $5million to Bodunde. They were alleged to have committed the offence contrary to Section 16 of the Money Laundering Act 1995(as saved by Section 23(2) of the Money Laundering Act 2004) and punishable under Section 15(2) and (3) of the Money Laundering Act 1995(as saved by Section 23(2) of the Money Laundering Act, 2004). Julius Berger had engaged in plea bargain.

    The source also admitted that if there is any worry at all in Obasanjo’s camp, it is the ICC dimension to the plot against the former President.

    “They want to use some groups to write petitions to ICC on Odi military campaign in 1999 and the Zaki-Biam issue. Their plan is to put an obstacle before Obasanjo to distract him from serving as a rallying point for politicians of like minds seeking a fundamental change in 2015,” he said.

    “At least a group from Bayelsa State has indicated interest in filing petition before the ICC. So, you can see what we are saying and why we have every cause to be concerned. Even at that, Obasanjo has not told any of his associates the direction he wants to go in 2015. I do not know what is behind this witch-hunt.”

    When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said: “What I can say is that this government is not witch-hunting anybody, it does not do so.

    “Let me put it on record that it is not the style of President Goodluck Jonathan to witch-hunt or intimidate anybody. The President is an extremely liberal person, he does not believe in vengeance or oppressing anyone.”

    Okupe also denied any crisis of confidence between the President and Obasanjo.

    He added: “The media may present the situation as if there is a problem between the President and ex-President Obasanjo, but there is no truth in such insinuation. From inside, I do not see any issue or disagreement between the President and our former leader.

    “Ex-President Obasanjo is an elder statesman and somebody that enjoys the love and respect of the Presidency.”

  • Group condemns Obasanjo

    The Southern Mandate, a coalition of socio-political groups in the Southwest, Southsouth and Southeastern geopolitical zones, yesterday condemned ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo for describing President Goodluck Jonathan as a weakling who is incapable of quelling the Boko Haram insurgency.

    It said Obasanjo’s “place in history is that of a villain and nothing more.”

    Obasanjo had, at the 40th anniversary of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s call to ministry at the Word of Life Bible Church in Warri, Delta State, blamed President Jonathan for being indecisive against Boko Haram.

    But in a statement in Abuja, signed by five coordinators of the coalition, the group said instead of Obasanjo seeking forgiveness, he took pride in the Odi massacre.

    “It is not always every advice of an elder statesman that should be taken seriously. Government must wear a human face and its essence is for the welfare of the citizenry, the protection of lives and property, and maintenance of human dignity.”

     

  • Nigeria’s leadership tragedy is by choice, says Obasanjo

    Nigeria’s leadership tragedy is by choice, says Obasanjo

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said Nigeris’s leadership problem is not an act of God but that of the choice made by both the rulers and followers.

    He said with the enormous human and material resources the nation has, citizens do not have any reason to be poor.

    Obasanjo spoke at the Airtel’s Night of Influence with CNN host Fareed Zakaria.

    The former President said bad leadership is man-made.

    “It’s not our fate, it’s not our destiny from God, it is the choice we make.

    “I’m optimistic that the country will rise up from the ashes of its present gloom.”

    The former ruler was responding to the keynote presentation on the Political Economy of Africa-The Challenge of Leadership by Zakaria, which identifed corruption, weak leadership and absence of a strong political institution as the challenges besetting the country.

    The CNN host called for massive investment in the people through the provision of education and basic health facilities “because a malnourished child is not likely to do well in school.”

    Zakaria recalled that the Arab Spring succeeded through the use of power satellite, the Internet and the mobile phones.

    He added that in the pre-revolution era in Egypt, there were just two TV stations: one for the culture of the people and the other, to air the actvitites of former President Hosni Mubarak and his family.

    The CNN host said with the coming of satellite TVs, people are becoming enlightened, adding that the ubiquity of the Internet and smart phones converged to upstage the system in the Arab world.

    Zakaria said India and Nigeria share certain similarities, one of which is that the former started experiencing six per cent growth 10 years before it was noticed.

    “But Nigeria, and indeed Africa, was also growing but unnoticed.”

    He said the lesson that needed to be learnt from the West is that of political institution with strong quality.

    Europe, according to him, allowed the rule of law to flourish .

    He urged the people to demand accountability from the ruling class.

    “A government that is forced to rely on its people will be forced to enrich the citizens,” Zakaria said.

    He lamented that the inability of any African leader to win the Mo Ibrahim Prize for leadership is a sad commentary on the crop of leaders on the continent.

  • Obasanjo’s revolution alarm

    Obasanjo’s revolution alarm

    We don’t need this prophesy from a former leader who helped sow the ominous seed

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has never been competitive as an original thinker. But his diatribes usually make the headlines all the same. In recent times, he has been associated with threats that Nigeria will be engulfed by a revolution as a result of unemployment and inefficiency in governance. Yes, Nigeria’s elites may truly be laying the groundwork for a revolution, unless they become more responsive to the aspirations of the people, but we don’t need former President Obasanjo to remind us. Indeed, considering that he is the longest serving head of government in Nigeria (military and civilian tenure combined), such mantra amounts to self-indictment.

    Between 1976 and 1979, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo served as the head of military government. Again, Gen. Obasanjo was elected, some will say selected, as civilian President in 1999, and after four years he was reelected in a seriously marred election, for a second term of four years. Between the two terms, Obasanjo has had more time than any other Nigerian to set the country on the path of national development. Regrettably, nothing of such happened; and by his recent cant, as if we don’t already know, Nigeria is still doddering from mismanagement and decades of corruption and arrested development.

    According to Obasanjo, the revolution will be triggered by the high level of youth unemployment, which he put at 71 percent as at 2011. He claimed that when he took over the reins of government in 1999, the level of youth unemployment was 72 percent, but that he reduced it to 52 percent by 2004; that is five years after he took over government. While we do not wish to contend Obasanjo’s private and self-serving statistics with him, as it is his way of massaging his own ego, the decline referred to by him shows that he failed to set the country on a path of sustainable development, when he was in charge. As many argue, the current crisis is a by-product of the poorly guided neo-liberal economic policies that his administration adopted years back.

    Interestingly, Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai are reported to have called on Nigerians to rise up in revolution against the corrupt leadership in the country. According to Pastor Bakare, the revolution must take place for a proper democracy to take root, and it is his hope that such a revolution would also sweep off the corrupt leaders in the churches and mosques. Pastor Bakare advised Nigerians to ask their clerics, where they get the money with which they whet their new appetite for private jets. In his view, if the money is not from offerings made in the churches and mosques, then it is likely corrupt money from the seats of power across the country.

    Clearly, from these opinions, many Nigerians, including the culprits, have come to realise that Nigeria is in harm’s way, due to the enormity of corruption within the system. We have argued repeatedly that unless there is a drastic change in the leadership style, Nigeria is bound to implode under the weight of its dubious leadership and the inefficiency foisted on it over the years. Unfortunately, those in authority pretend not to hear the warnings, until they move away from the ding of power. As Obasanjo’s tirade shows, the stark reality of the crisis only crystallised now that he is no longer in power. This has been the country’s lot over the decades, as those unprepared for leadership are foisted on the country.

    But if you ask President Goodluck Jonathan, or any of his ministers and spokespersons, they will reel out dubious statistics to suggest that the nation is making steady progress. For instance, while Obasanjo and Bakare are shouting that the current leadership has failed, and the teeming unemployed youths may take the country down to the abyss, the tune from Aso Rock is the exact opposite. It is in that vainglory, that the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, is wasting scarce public resources going around the country, propagating what he calls good governance. Between Maku’s propaganda and Obasanjo’s prognosis lies the faulty paradigm that we foolishly call governance in Nigeria. Of course at the root are corruption-induced pretences, bare- faced lies and demagoguery. In the game, the ordinary Nigerians are regarded as short in memory and bereft of critical mindset to sieve the wheat from the chaff.

    What is certain is that the level of unemployment is very high. Also, that the present political leadership has scant regard for the fight against corruption, and that one possible consequence is that the masses of the country may exercise the option to revolt over these inadequacies.

  • Election: Obasanjo leads ECOWAS observers to Ghana

    Election: Obasanjo leads ECOWAS observers to Ghana

    …Kuffour heads to Freetown for Sierra Leone’s poll

    Former president Olusegun Obasanjo will lead a 250-member Economic Community Of West African States team to monitor Ghana’s general election billed for December 7.

    A statement issued on Thursday by the ECOWAS communication unit said the trip is within the context of the region’s instrument for provision of support to member states holding elections.

    It reads: “The ECOWAS team, comprising representatives of various segments of the West African society, will be in the country for nine days to observe the conduct of the presidential, legislative and local elections, expected to contribute to the deepening of democratic culture in the country.

    “An ECOWAS assessment mission was in Ghana last October to review preparations for the elections during which the mission members met with various stakeholders, including representatives of political parties, civil society organizations and the national electoral commission, to discuss their perspectives on the preparations for the elections.

    “Through these missions, the region seeks to promote a culture of transparent and credible elections, consistent with best practices for the enhancement of regional peace and stability.”

    In the same vein, Ghana’s former president John Kuffuor will lead a 150-member ECOWAS Observer Mission to Sierra Leone’s general elections scheduled for November 17.

    The observers drawn from various segments of the society in the region, according to the statement, will also be in the country for nine days for the presidential, legislative and local elections.

    “The objective of the two missions is to help entrench a culture of transparent and credible elections that will contribute to the promotion of regional peace and stability,” it stated.

     

  • Imagine Obasanjo, Bakare as revolutionaries

    Imagine Obasanjo, Bakare as revolutionaries

    Almost in quick succession, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president, and Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly spoke about revolution or made revolutionary remarks in the past few days. Of the two, Bakare confuses us the more. Whenever he presents himself in public we are in a quandary what to make of him: a pastor full of the character of his Lord, temperate in speech, gentle, kind and empathetic, or a typical Nigerian politician who must have things his way, opinionated, aggressive, inconsiderate and, in the literal sense, eager to bring the house down on everyone? The former president, on the other hand, is a self-canonising and irritable politician who speaks daggers, if Hardball is permitted to adapt Shakespeare, and uses it with utmost relish.

    Obasanjo drew first blood and triggered the misspeaking that has culminated in the noisily talk of revolution. Newspapers and online media described his speech as revolutionary, and reported that it was made in Dakar, Senegal where he had gone over the weekend to attend a West African regional conference on youth employment sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the African Development Bank (ADB). They paraphrased him as saying that unless something drastic was done urgently to address youth unemployment, which hovered around 71 percent, we would head inexorably towards revolution. Inexpert paraphrasing can, however, become a very problematic issue in mass communication or in the hands of a clumsy redactor.

    Though the media said he spoke of revolution, all the former president said was this: “I’m afraid, and you know I am a General. When a General says he is afraid, that means the danger ahead is real and potent.” In his refutation after he was widely reported to have spoken of revolution or warned that one was likely, the former army general said those who quoted him spoke bad English. He could never call for a revolution, he said, apparently because he had too much at stake in a system that has callously misused its citizens, a system he himself did his damnedest to promote, ossify and institutionalise.

    If Obasanjo did not call for a revolution, what then did he do? A careful reading of his sanctimonious rationalisations in Dakar seems to lead the analyst to the point where he stopped just short of calling for a revolution, but hinted that social chaos was unavoidable. Knowing him for who he is, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, he would see opportunity for his kind of leadership in such chaos; and more, he would recommend a suppression of protesters if it came to that. In short, he would do anything but recommend a revolution.

    Not only did the media misquote and misinterpret Obasanjo, their reports also brought out the hardliner in Bakare. The Latter Rain Assembly pastor simply assumed Obasanjo was quoted correctly and then concluded that the former president would be a victim of the revolution he called for in Dakar. More fanatically and sacrilegiously, Bakare said religious leaders, especially the private jet ensemble, could not escape the repercussions of popular revolt going by the damage they had caused the nation by their greed and connivance. Speaking in Lagos on Monday, he had said: “I am not inciting the public against the church and the mosque, but the congregation must demand explanation from their leaders. They must demand to know where they are getting the money. If it is not from the church offering, then it is from Abuja. All general overseers must go to prison. If the revolution does not begin in the church, it cannot spread; if it does not begin in the mosque, it will not spread, because they control the population.”

    From his Dakar speech and follow-up explanations, it is clear no one should ever imagine Obasanjo a revolutionary; this closet radical is too conservative and too indebted to the decaying system to be one. Bakare, on the other hand, does not just seem to be unalterably irreverent and iconoclastic; his remarks show him to be more than a revolutionary. He seems in fact to be a Trotskyite or perhaps even a Stalinist, or a hybrid of the two Marxist tendencies, but certainly not a priest.

     

  • Obasanjo, Mark, Ekweremadu harp on party discipline

    Obasanjo, Mark, Ekweremadu harp on party discipline

    Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Senate President, David Mark, and Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, on Monday underscored the need for discipline in political parties.

    Obasanjo, Mark and Ekweremadu spoke at a two-day workshop organised by the National Institute for Legislative Studies with the theme: “Party politics in Nigeria and lobbying, the lobbyist and the legislature.”

    The former President noted that without discipline, no political party can endure.

    Describing discipline as an important aspect of the military, he warned that no human institution can fulfill its obligations without discipline.

    Obasanjo also stressed the need for the electorate to hold political office holders accountable to their party manifestoes.

    He regretted that political parties in the country have reduced party manifestoes to “mere instruments for political campaign.”

    He added that most political parties in the country throw away their party manifestoes shortly after being voted into office.

    Obasanjo, who said that some political parties operate without manifestoes, wondered how political parties or elected officers would be held accountable to their promises by the electorate without manifestoes.

    He said, “I want to say that there are some areas, where political parties need improvement. One of them is the issue of manifestoes. What I have come to see and understand in Nigeria is that manifestoes are prepared for campaigns and afterwards, they are thrown away.

    “How then can we hold parties and their elected leaders to their promises and manifestoes? Or if they have no manifestoes, what do we hold them to.”

    He noted that since political parties are the only vehicle through which individuals can participate in election, politicians should acquire basic ingredients of party politics in order to make election fair, free and transparent.

    Mark on his part urged the panelists to direct their ingenuity on how to solve the problem of indiscipline, lack of cohesion, ideology drought and absence of internal democracy and transparency in political parties.

    He added that deep reflection should as well be given to the malady of intra and inter-party squabbles.

    For Ekweremadu  internal party democracy is a prerequisite for democratic governance and national development.

    Ekweremadu, who is also Chairman of the Governing Council of the National Institute for Legislative Studies said political parties are critical institutions of democracy, since “their philosophies and manifestoes are the fulcrums around which politicking and governance should ordinarily revolve.”

     

  • Jonathan hails Obasanjo’s appointment into Queen’s jubilee trust

    Jonathan hails Obasanjo’s appointment into Queen’s jubilee trust

    President Goodluck Jonathan has felicitated with former President Olusegun Obasanjo on his appointment as the Country Representative for Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust.

    The President in a congratulatory letter to Chief Obasanjo, according to a statement issued by his media aide, Dr. Reuben Abati , expressed confidence that in this new honorific position, the former president would through his “wide network of contacts across the Commonwealth, ensure that the Trust generates the resources required to fund legacy projects in the name of Queen Elizabeth.”

    President Jonathan while wishing Chief Obasanjo success in his new endeavour, said that he considered the appointment not only a personal honour to the former head of state, but also to Nigeria as a country.

     

  • Ondo polls: Accept defeat, Obasanjo tells Oke

    Ondo polls: Accept defeat, Obasanjo tells Oke

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday asked the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the recent Ondo State governorship election, Mr. Olusola Oke, to accept defeat in good fate.

    He said going to the election petitions tribunal to challenge the result of the election in which Mr.Oke came second will amount to a waste of time and resources. The former President spoke at the South-West caucus meeting of the party in Ibadan.

    The former President said the party and Oke have nothing to be ashamed of about the Ondo election and that the PDP candidate performed well. He said that rather than brooding over what might have been all PDP members should learn necessary lessons from the election. He told Oke pointblank: “there is no perfect election.”

    “Whatever may be the shortcomings of the election should be overlooked since such may not necessarily upturn the table. We should accept defeat and start looking forward,” he added.

    Obasanjo who arrived the venue of the meeting close to the end re-iterated that the ruling party is “not sufficiently disciplined and there cannot be any meaningful progress and development without culture of discipline.”

     

     

     

     

     

  • Obasanjo to play leading role at energy summit

    Obasanjo to play leading role at energy summit

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is set to play a leading role in the ongoing African Energy Summit, in Dubai, the Chairman, World Energy Forum, Dr. Harold Oh, has said.

    Oh disclosed this on the official Website of the 2012 World Energy Forum taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

    He said the Summit was an integral part of the World Energy Forum, adding that Obasanjo had been admitted as a new member of the Board of Directors of the global body.

    “President Obasanjo will play a leading role in the African Energy Summit which is an integral part of World Energy Forum 2012,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the WEF chairman as saying on the summit.

    Over 80 participants including Presidents, Prime Ministers and their representatives from different parts of the globe as well as the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, are attending the three-day event.

    The event is being held outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, for the first time.

    The summit is expected to come up with a universally cheap access to energy and sustainable development as well as re-define progressive energy infrastructure “for all.”