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Tag: Obasanjo

  • Obasanjo urges prompt distribution of inputs to farmers

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has called on the Federal and state governments to ensure prompt distribution of farm inputs to farmers to end hunger in the country.

    Obasanjo made the call at the launch of the Nigeria Zero Hunger Roadmap in Abuja on Wednesday, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

    He said the distribution, especially in preparation for the 2017 planting season, would boost food production, improve nutrition content in food and reduce recession currently facing the country.

    Obasanjo, who is also the Chairman of the Zero Hunger Review Committee, said the hunger initiative was to support and encourage government to implement policies and plans toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goal number two by 2030.

    He urged the 36 states with Abuja to implement the recommendations of the report starting from this month.

    He noted that the report would be implemented first in four states of Benue, Sokoto, Ebonyi and Ogun as pilot, while eight more states would be added to the programme by 2019, and all the states of the federation followed subsequently by 2021.

    “Zero hunger in Nigeria cannot be left to the governments alone; neither can it be left to the civil society nor the private sector alone because it will cost trillions of naira,” NAN quoted the ex-President as saying at the forum.

    “There must be strong support for farmers at all levels and producers or farmers’ organisations and government must provide the right policies and regulations.

    “We must give agribusiness a new image and make farmers the king which they are as sustainers of lives and foundation of economic activities.”

    The Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, suggested the collaboration of various stakeholders to ensure the implementation of the report.

     

  • Ogundokun urges Obasanjo, Awujale to reconcile

    Ogundokun urges Obasanjo, Awujale to reconcile

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, have been advised to settle their differences.

    Speaking with reporters in Osogbo, Osun State, a former publisher, Chief Abiola Ogundokun, appealed to the duo to give peace a chance following their hot exchanges on business mongul and Chairman of Globacom Communications, Mike AdenugaJr.

    He said they should remember that many Nigerians were looking up to them as leaders.

    According to him, there were many channels open to them to resolve their differences other than statements being credited to them daily on the pages of the newspapers.

    He advised Obasanjo and Awujale to think of the good things that they had shared in the past.

    Ogundokun said he could still remember how Obasanjo intervened and resolved the feud between Oba Adetona and the former Ogun State governor, Chief Olabisi Onabanjo.

    He said: “Both former President Obasanjo and Oba Adetona are respected leaders and they should not forget that all eyes are on them because many Nigerians are looking on to see how they would be able to resolve their differences amicably. I believe former President Obasanjo deserve the confidence of  Oba Adetona before he wrote the book, which is causing between them.

    “I suggest to Yoruba leaders to employ the tools of discipline, love and respect for one another before committing any matter to book. Once there is a disaffection as a result of sharp disagreement on issues its wound hardly heals. We should note that leaders in other tribes don’t fight dirty on the pages of the newspapers.”

  • Awujale versus Obasanjo

    Awujale versus Obasanjo

    IT has taken almost six years for the autobiographical book of the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, to attract the attention it richly deserves. No one is prepared to say how the new publicity happened, but sometime last week, someone sent an excerpt of the book to media houses containing an unflattering description of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo as a venal, vainglorious and grasping leader. The excerpt has caused an uproar. Chief Obasanjo is predictably peeved, but no one is coming to his defence. He apparently does not need one, for he himself is a one-man wrecking crew. Satisfied that the excerpt has received rapturous attention, the shadowy figures behind the first excerpt, or perhaps someone else altogether, has decided to draw public attention to other scathing parts of the book. Where the first excerpt deals with a duplicitous Chief Obasanjo, the second focuses on the political malfeasance of the equally grasping and venomous ex-military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida.

    Oba Adetona’s recollections are detailed and riveting. Perhaps the evasive and epigram-loving Gen Babangida will respond sometime soon. However, the impatient and unreflective Chief Obasanjo could not wait. His response indeed evoked a mystery. For a book that is so well written and elegantly produced, it is a mystery that it has taken so long to foment a fitting buzz around it. While media professionals have proved to be consistently lazy in doing justice to good books, it is intriguing that Chief Obasanjo, who is so mercilessly skewered in the book, has not had the time to peruse the book, indeed study it. And when his attention was drawn to the said excerpt, as he put it condescendingly, it is shocking that he rushed to publish a response without getting a copy of the book to enable him pen a comprehensive and reflective response. It is vintage Obasanjo.

    The book is undoubtedly frank and revealing. The now widely advertised famous excerpt in particular shows Chief Obasanjo as a dishonest, unfeeling and unprincipled opportunist. Neither his public service (1976-79; 1999-2007) nor his private image, both as a father and as an individual, disproves the conclusion so poignantly reached by the Awujale. It is, therefore, surprising that there are indications that some Yoruba elders might wish to intervene in what they describe improbably as a quarrel between the ex-president and the Ijebu monarch. There can be no reconciliation between the two, nor should there be, for both gentlemen are the products of very dissimilar backgrounds: one is principled and noble in his carriage and words; and the other has since his military days remained a rake and rambling man. What is there to reconcile? Indeed, how do you reconcile fire and water?

    The Awujale autobiography reveals many things about many people. But for the purpose of this short essay, the excerpt in reference should suffice to address the topic of today. It is clear the Awujale is not a fan of Chief Obasanjo, that great and self-righteous narcissist. But whether the excerpt sets out to paint a realistic picture of the duplicitous and unprincipled former president contrary to the one he continues to project falsely, or it simply sheds light on the contrived misunderstanding between the business mogul, Mike Adenuga, and Chief Obasanjo and his Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is not immediately clear. What is clear, however, is that the picture painted of the Obasanjo persona is a terrible deconstruction of a man so morally perverse that it is a miracle he ruled for eight years, not to talk of finding his way out of the presidency in 2007.

    The summary of the Awujale thesis is that Chief Obasanjo unreasonably harassed Mr Adenuga in order to get at the then Vice President Atiku Abubakar, with whom he was at daggers drawn, and that, as a condition to stop the witch-hunt, the ex-president opportunistically coaxed the donation of a massive library building out of the business mogul. The uncompleted building is stil on the university campus as evidence. Oba Adetona did not mince word. His account is detailed, restrained, elegant and convincing, complete with instances, locations and sometimes eyewitnesses. Chief Obasanjo was on the contrary truculent, abusive and, for effect, diversionary and deliberately insinuative. It would require a leap of faith to believe the ex-president’s account. There was no conviction behind his response, only chutzpah, and it was obvious he had been cornered. First, he said it was beneath him as president to sit down with Mr Adenuga before the press, suggesting that he had no reason to meet with the business mogul, not to talk of cajoling him to contribute a building block to the Bells University of Technology. Then, most fallaciously, he passed the buck for that cajolery to the genial Professor Julius Okogie, who was at the time the vice chancellor. Of course, no one would doubt that the letter asking for that humongous donation would be signed by the vice chancellor. But to suggest, no matter how remotely, that Chief Obasanjo did not know about the letter to Mr Adenuga and other generous contributors would be stretching credulity to its elastic limit.

    It did not require the exposition of the Awujale to tell the public just how deceptive and intimidatory Chief Obasanjo is. But it helps that, using definite examples and mentioning names and instances in his autobiography, the Awujale has done the public the great service of disrobing the masquerade. It would be interesting to find out how the list of donors was drawn up, or whether it could have been done outside the inspiration and connivance of Chief Obasanjo as a bullying president. It requires someone of such quaint and contradictory moral perspective like Chief Obasanjo not to see the contradiction of receiving, assuming he did not solicit, help or donation from a businessman under investigation, if not persecution, by the EFCC. The fact underscored by the Awujale in the short excerpt is that Chief Obasanjo has never been loyal to anything or person, not to talk of loftier and more esoteric matters of ideas and ideology. Furthermore, suggests the excerpt, Chief Obasanjo broke every rule known to the Nigerian constitution, and every moral compass known to man. He got away with nihilism because he was so indecent as to be prepared to deploy every force and evil imagination known to law or even outside the law.

    The case made against Chief Obasanjo in the Awujale autobiography is so revealing that it is not surprising the former president immediately opted for ancillary matters and other digressions alien to the book. But the ex-president’s response missed the mark so badly that he began to accuse the Awujale of having stakes in Mr Adenuga’s and Aliko Dangote’s business empires. He forgot that he became the subject of many allegations because he was president and faced accusation of conflict of interest when he asked for donations, directly or indirectly, and covetously established connections with other people’s businesses. Oba Adetona is right never to have trusted Chief Obasanjo, and even more principled by refusing to at first back the retired general for the presidency in 1999. The oba does not give the impression in the excerpt that his view of Chief Obasanjo has changed. Indeed, he is not disappointed.

    Chief Obasanjo has done spectacularly well for himself. He is not known to wait until he has left office before feathering his nest, as a former super permanent secretary once recounted in a newspaper article of the moment a former military head of state, Murtala Mohammed, wanted to replace Chief Obasanjo as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters. And as his first wife, Mama Iyabo, also corroborated, the ex-president is not guided by any moral restraint despite his sham and fulsome display of religiosity. Even some of his children, one of whom he betrayed spectacularly, are aghast at the monstrosities he seems so effortlessly capable of. Nuhu Ribadu, former boss of the EFCC may deny all he wants, but the facts available suggest that the ex-president manoeuvred EFCC to less than salutary duties. The impeachment of Governors Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo State, Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State prove how disreputably Chief Obasanjo bastardised the constitution and tore to shreds the moral and political fabrics of the republic.

    Such a man, so burdened by the cumulative moral baggage mentioned in the Awujale excerpt, cannot find the conviction and logic to fault the poignant allegations against himself. Indeed, it is fitting that he made only half-hearted attempt to dispute the Awujale’s account of his serial betrayals. From all indications, Chief Obasanjo will go back and read the entire book in the hope he can find more materials to deploy as a tool of vilification against the Ijebu monarch. But the true hope is that having spent nearly all his adult years faking a moral credential he is not capable of sustaining, and having vilified and undermined his betters with a severity that is truly fanatical and farcical, at last, someone like Oba Adetona and books like that salient autobiography will finally put paid to the former general’s pretensions. History, it is clear, will judge him very badly. But the real catharsis for a long-suffering people, including some members of his family, forced to swallow his atrocities for the past few decades, will be when his self-confessed thick skin is breached and he is exposed and demystified.

  • Obasanjo, Southeast and presidential politics

    Obasanjo, Southeast and presidential politics

    FORMER president Olusegun Obasanjo is not too finicky with concepts. He embraces and uses them liberally, sometimes fitfully. For a man who prides himself on having one of Nigeria’s thickest skins, it is not a surprise that he furiously hurls concepts at the public with very little thought, not to say accuracy, and with little care for the implications. He rarely makes a public appearance without leaving newsmen with something to write about, or the public without something to gnash their teeth over. The eminent governors who invited him to the December 29 Southeast Security and Economic Summit obviously expected Chief Obasanjo to indulge himself again in one of his concept-hurling pastimes. He did not disappoint them. He gave newsmen and denizens of the social media something major to celebrate, and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) something to snarl at.

    It is not certain that the Southeast summit would have received the wide mention it got had Chief Obasanjo not been there. Most of those who invite the former president to participate or chair their events want him not for the salience or the depth of his views, but for his controversial opinions which often attract massive publicity. He himself is grateful for these invitations, for he is keenly aware that of all the past presidents and heads of state, he still hugs public limelight the most. Other past leaders are nearly all mummifying in their dotage and anonymity even while they are still alive. No occasion is too small for the peripatetic Chief Obasanjo to honour, and none too big to overawe him. And except it clashes with other engagements already booked on his crowded calendar, he will honour every invitation, he will speak thunder, and he will let the chips fall where they may.

    Now, who remembers the substance of the discussions that engaged the Southeast summiteers? Even the newspapers themselves focused almost exclusively on Chief Obasanjo. If he really did not have something major to say, as was the case two Thursdays ago, they would still focus on his mannerisms and any other thing that catches his fancy. It was hugely sufficient for the governors and the newsmen that Chief Obasanjo was there. After all, he seems to give legitimacy to every event he attends, a legitimacy he often confuses with goodwill. The most valuable thing he had to say to his grateful audience on December 29 was of course this imprecise homily: “The South East is known for their spirit of enterprise and adventure and you have to utilize it for improved development and security. You must work together and not be divided. You must shy away from the spirit of individualism and must earn solidarity with your neighbours.”

    Few probably understood what he meant by individualism. It is not even obvious that he also understood its ramifications. Do the Igbo think they are individualistic? Do they think their republicanism equates with individualism? And does that individualism, assuming the Igbo are afflicted by it, counteract their national political aspirations? Chief Obasanjo has never had any analytical depth, not to talk of deploying concepts, whether original or borrowed, with the profundity he often assumes he is capable of. From his statement before the Igbo two Thursdays ago, it appears that the former president imagines the Igbo are divided, and that that division was the bane of their politics. Why he does not appreciate that no ethnic group in Nigeria can boast of unity is difficult to understand. After all, the Yoruba from which he claims ancestry have never really been united, not to talk of uniting behind him. Yet, he became president, and still enjoys some influence nationally and internationally.

    MASSOB disdainfully dismissed Chief Obasanjo’s view as conceited and self-serving, and the man himself a dangerous politician who constituted an existential threat to Ndigbo. The group said that during his eight years in office, he deliberately orchestrated problems for Ndigbo and undermined and frustrated some leading Igbo politicians. He was not the kind of man an ethnic group should romance, MASSOB said. They concluded by saying that Chief Obasanjo’s motives were suspect, and that he was probably working with some Igbo politicians to “destabilise the developing cohesion among Igbo leaders.”

    Fresh from his seething controversy with the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, over his lack of altruism in anything, Chief Obasanjo will regard the MASSOB outburst as blowing in the wind. He has identified what he thinks are the major factors militating against Igbo political aspirations. He could not care less what anyone thinks to the contrary. However, the essential underpinnings of his thesis are dangerously faulty and misleading. For a man who was twice Nigerian head of state/president, it is disturbing that he is perennially unable to rise to the height of reasoning and logic expected of him.

    While it is in a general way true that the Igbo must earn trust from their neighbours — not solidarity as Chief Obasanjo mistakenly rendered it — their problem is not individualism. Indeed, more specifically, it is not even the Igbo that must earn that trust; it is the Igbo politician with national aspiration. Otherwise, everyone will get enmeshed in the jaded stereotypes that are ossifying into the hatred and bigotry threatening the country’s body politic. Yes, the Igbo may seem individualistic — though more appropriately republican — and sometimes individualism may have its drawbacks just as it has its strengths, but the Hausa/Fulani are also atavistically feudalistic, and the Yoruba a cross between stifling monarchism and raucous anarchism. But these really are unhelpful stereotypes. What is indisputable is that the three leading ethnic groups in Nigeria have their cultural and experiential peculiarities that appear to influence and shape their worldviews.

    Notwithstanding these peculiarities and stereotypes, no tribe has been barred from producing either statesmen with great intellectual and charismatic appeal or popular leaders whose idiosyncratic worldviews imbue them with crossover appeal to other tribes. The stereotypes did not stop Chief Obasanjo himself from winning the 1999 presidential poll, though he competed against the more eloquent and intellectual Olu Falae, an alumnus of Yale University. No stereotype could weaken the breathtaking and brilliant appeal of the great Zik of Africa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, the orator who won elections in many parts of Nigeria, including the implacable Southwest. And no stereotype could undermine or debar M.K.O. Abiola from winning what is still regarded as the freest and fairest election ever in Nigeria in 1993, defeating Bashir Tofa of northern extraction.

    MASSOB missed the point when they focused on the person of Chief Obasanjo whose execrableness admittedly rankles. They should instead have focused on his controversial thesis. A careful examination of all the presidential elections conducted so far in these parts will reveal that the polls had their own internal logic and dynamics. They contain enough lessons for any person desirous of winning a presidential poll. That thesis of anchoring electoral victory on ethnic groups, as some think, does not exist in reality. The Igbo must not be misled. Goodluck Jonathan won in 2011 because he represented a more centrist alternative to the parochial and unyielding Muhammadu Buhari. President Buhari won in 2015, not because he is Hausa/Fulani, but because of the economy, Boko Haram insurgency, and the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls. Chief Abiola won in 1993 because he effortlessly transcended the religious, political and cultural divides of Nigeria and showed an accommodating spirit.

    There is nothing wrong with the individualism or republicanism of the Igbo. It is part of their strengths. The archconservatism or feudalism of the Hausa/Fulani is not an insurmountable obstacle, for it seems to be in consonance with their culture, religion and way of life. And there is nothing wrong with the Yoruba’s immersion in excessive progressivism that is adulterated with monarchism and a reckless hint of anarchism. If anyone from these tribes or any other tribe wants the presidency, he must judge the spirit of the times, find what appeals to the largest number of Nigerians, and either join forces with those who can reinforce and compliment his attributes or single-handedly replicate Chief Abiola’s disarming persona. The Igbo want the presidency. They will not get it simply because they are Igbo or because they judge it their turn. They will have to produce a brilliant and eloquent champion with enough charisma and crossover appeal who can be trusted by the majority.

  • Yoruba and Obasanjo in Nigerian politics

    If there is one person whose personage in national polity offers a case study, it is no other than General Olusegun Obasanjo. Whether in his career in the military or his debut into Nigerian politics, he is so far the luckiest person in Nigerian public life.

    To some, he is seen as the symbol of Nigerian unity. Some will not even mind giving him the cognomen of one that can lay down his life for Nigerian cause. What such people may not remember however is that whether in the military or in government, his so-called courage is shielded by mortal cowardice. Various accounts of the war showed him as somebody gifted in hiding himself away from trouble zone only to emerge from nowhere to take credit that he did not deserve.

    But even if we did not have details of his military career, the incident of February 3rd, 1976 when even as number two man, he had to disappear upon hearing the news of the assassination of his principal, General Murtala Muhammed. He was later to be located somewhere in the Ikoyi home of late Chief S.B Bakare.

    Even after surfacing, he could not on his own muster the courage to take the leadership position until the necessary courage was instilled in him by the likes of Danjuma, Shehu Yar’Adua and others. At that critical stage in his life, Nigeria was not worth dying for. It turned out to be a peculiar idiosyncrasy to him that the first thing he usually did with sword of authority was to turn that sword against those who risked their life to give it to him.  Just as it was with the likes of Alani Akinrinade, Alabi-Isama in the war front, so also was it with the Danjuma, Babangida etc. at the Dodan Barracks. The story is not different with those who equipped his wardrobe for presidential garment in 1999. Atiku Abubakar, Danjuma and business moguls like S.O Bakare, Fasawe, and Orji Uzor Kalu among others have different stories to tell on the 1999 episode.

    One may wonder, why in spite of all these, he is still being seen as the symbol of unity in the country. The reason for this is not far-fetched for those who care. The case of Obasanjo is the myth or paradox of the man who loves his distant cousin better than his direct sibling. The paradox is the passion of sacrificing the blood of his sibling brother to save the life of his cousin.

    The political narrative of that analogy is that in selling himself to other federating units of the country, he always sees his own race, the Yoruba race as the pawn or tool to ignite the lamp of Nigeria. Mention any Yoruba man, living or dead aspiring to the leadership of the country, Obasanjo would be quick to portray him to the other zones either as a tribalist or a Yoruba irredentist.

    Going memory lane, it was Obasanjo who, as military Head of State coined the slogan ‘the best candidate does not have to win at all costs in a democracy’. He deliberately coined that to quench the flame of the rising profile of Awolowo’s four cardinal programmes of the UPN.

    As if that was not enough, he arranged an official state visit to the eastern part of the country where he held clandestine meetings with the Igbo leadership regarding Awolowo’s role as Federal Commissioner for Finance which changed the face of the currency that finally led to the collapse of the Biafra dream.

    That for the East, for the North on the other hand, he would never miss the opportunity to remind their leaders that for him, one of them, Shagari could not have emerged as President in 1979 when he used his executive prowess to foil Awolowo’s aspiration.

    As it that was not enough, Obasanjo did not change his colour in 1993 during Abiola’s presidential bid. He did not hide his endorsement of the 1993 election annulment in ‘national interest’. His response to the Abacha clampdown on Yoruba leaders was a tacit endorsement of the anti-Yoruba Abacha agenda until nemesis caught up with him. In a nutshell, anything anti-Yoruba is to him in the country’s national interest. Needless going through the intrigues that brought him to power in 1999, it suffices however to state that all those who contributed in one way or the other for his emergence were to be paid back with the tag of either being a thief or crook.

    Although, ostensibly, the presidency was zoned to the South-west in 1999 at northern initiative, to assuage the pain of the Yoruba for the annulment, the period turned to be the worst for the South-west in the political history of the country. All sensitive positions that should ordinarily go to the South-west were given as bonuses to other zones with a view to portraying himself as a nationalist, in fact, as the only nationalist in Yoruba land; as against tribalists, which he had branded all other Yoruba leaders.

    Even his Vice President, Atiku Abubakar drew his anger in his bid to revive the SDP confraternity of the Babangida era. Atiku started by initiating a regular progressive meeting with the AD governors who were his political soul mates in the SDP days. Obasanjo tacitly queried him for undue interference in his political zone.

    He found a way of admonishing the AD governors for fraternizing with a Fulani man at his own expense. He thereafter initiated his own rapport with his ‘brother governors’. We all saw the end of that rapport. He made sure all the governors, except Bola Tinubu lost their second term bid. Only Tinubu can tell the story of what he went through in the hands of Obasanjo before he could secure his second term.

    Where other leaders used the opportunity of their incumbency to raise their people, the reverse is the case with Obasanjo. The Awujale had just narrated how he dealt the Mike Adenuga. Maybe one day, somebody will also tell the story of Chief Bakare of the Oluwalogbon fame in the hands of Obasanjo.

     

    • Sanni sent this piece from Ibadan.
  • Awujale: Obasanjo fought Adenuga because of Atiku

    Awujale: Obasanjo fought Adenuga because of Atiku

    Excerpt from Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S.K Adetona, Ogbagba II, Mosuro Publishers, 2010, pp. 187-195

    The EFCC in Lagos had come calling brusquely on Mike Adenuga (Jnr), Chairman Globacom on 9 July 2006. They broke his gate, swarmed into his house and kept him under ‘arrest’. When I heard about the arrest, I called the legal firms, of Ayanlaja SAN & Adesanya SAN as well as Professor Biodun Adesanya SAN to take up the matter and secure Mike’s release. They swung into action and gave indication that they would take the matter to court.

     By evening, it was no longer necessary to go to court as Mike, following his statement to EFCC, had been released with instructions to report regularly to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja. Mike proceeded to Abuja, accompanied by his lawyer, Prof. Biodun Adesanya SAN. Indirectly related to this case, the EFCC had quizzed and released Mohammed Babangida, Ibrahim Babangida’s son. The EFCC purportedly were on the trail of some money belonging to the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), but there was really more beneath the veneer.While Mike was in Abuja, he was counselled to see Obasanjo to extricate himself. For four days, he made attempts to see Obasanjo but was unsuccessful. After a few days in Abuja with no case pressed against him by EFCC, he returned to Lagos. Not long afterwards, and in the heat of this mess, Obasanjo did two things that puzzled me. He called Mike to meet him at a social event in Lagos –Engr. Olapade’s birthday celebration. Mike and Obasanjo were both captured by press photographers in the newspapers at the event. Following the celebration, Obasanjo asked Mike to accompany him to Ota. It was in Ota that he solicited for the construction of the Administration Block of his university, Bells University in Ota. Mike agreed and Carchez Turnkey Projects Ltd handled the project for him. It appeared the whole matter, the EFCC hunt, simmered and Mike continued about his business. On a trip to Ghana, he ran through his Nigerian daily newspapers and discovered that the situation was unfolding in a more revealing version. The EFCC had arrested Mohammed Babangida. Mike read between the lines and proceeded to the UK on exile. When I visited the UK, Mike came to see me, and wanted me to facilitate a meeting with Obasanjo so that he could present his side of the case. The allegations against him were as follows:a. That Abubakar Atiku, the Vice-President, gave Mike Adenuga money from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) which were invested in Mike’s bank, Equatorial Trust Bank (ETB), and that the funds were used in paying for the Globacom licence.b. That as a result of the connection in (a) Atiku was a major shareholder in Globacom. And Atiku used his clout to ensure that PTDF money got into ETB.c. That General Ibrahim Babangida, the former Head of State, was also a major shareholder in Globacom.

    It was not enough for Mike to merely present his case to EFCC, for it seemed the EFCC was under some remote control. The Presidency was after Atiku. Atiku at some point was the Chairman of the PTDF; an attempt was being made to indict him for alleged illegal and unauthorized channelling of PTDF money into Globacom. All sorts of rumours were flying around and the Presidency wanted to pin down the case against Atiku. If Ibrahim Babangida also fell into the trap, so much the better.

    A wide opening presented itself and EFCC seized it.

    G.Subair is Mike’s second cousin. His father died young and he grew up, just as I did in my early life, living with Mike’s mother. He worked for Mike and was seconded, amongst other things, to open the Kaduna office for Globacom. In need of accommodation or office space, he leased, on behalf of Globacom, a house, at 2-3 Dawaki Road in Kaduna belonging to Mohammed Badamasi Babangida and used that address in official correspondence and memoranda. Mohammed is the first son of President Ibrahim Babangida. This was Babangida connection to which EFCC hung on when they were rummaging through Globacom documents. This was, according to them, irrefutable evidence that Babangida was a major shareholder in Globacom and that his son, Mohammed Babangida, or G.Subair or Mike was fronting for Babangida in this venture.

    Mike told me how he had raised money through the BNP Paribas Bank in France and how he paid to New York for the Globacom licensing fees. All the money involved could be traced with supporting documents to France and New York in the form of a huge loan. The Bank BNP Paribas on its part had a letter stating clearly their involvement in the transaction and Mike wanted to present this among other documents to President Obasanjo. I called Obasanjo and relayed the facts as I had them from Mike to him. I requested for his fax number so that I could fax Mike’s letter explaining all the transactions and the Bank of Paribas letter to him. As soon as he gave me the fax number, I faxed the documents to him. Still, Obasanjo was not satisfied. It seemed that it was all a ruse because they were really after Atiku and Babangida and wanted Mike to implicate them. Mike refused to cooperate. If he was not going to cooperate, they thought, harassment would do it. On 19 August 2006, I made a statement to the press asking Obasanjo to caution Nuhu Ribadu, the head of the EFCC, about his mode of operations. I denounced the harassment of citizens by EFCC and urged them to go to court if they had anything concrete against anyone.

    While Mike was in exile, we shared a moment of relaxation together. We took a holiday together in south of France with some members of our families. I had with me my wife Olori Kemi, my daughter, Ronke and Oba Adekoya, the Dagburewe of Idowa. Mike came along with his two daughters and his niece.

    While on this holiday, the President of France, Jacques Chirac, was going to be holding a conference with African Heads of State in Nice. Coincidentally, we got to know that Obasanjo was booked to stay in the same hotel where we were staying. Later, we learnt he had changed his mind and would not be attending the conference. Then not long afterwards, we were told he had decided to attend after all. By the time he finally decided to attend, all the rooms in the hotel were fully booked and he was now booked into another, Embassy Hotel, which was a stone’s throw from when we were. I got to know that he would check in at 8.00am on the day of the conference. At 8.330am, I went to his hotel and took Mike along with me. From the reception, I spoke to him on the phone. When he asked from where I was speaking, I told him I was downstairs in the lobby of his hotel! He said he would send someone down immediately to lead me up to his suite, and he did so. I left Mike behind in the hotel lobby. When I got to his suite, there were already a number of people in the corridor, in his living room and the dining room waiting to see him. His ADC took me straight to see him in his bedroom. I had hardly settled down when he started talking to me about his deputy, Abubakar Atiku. He was at daggers drawn with Atiku. When he exhausted all he had to say about Atiku, he jumped on Theophilus Danjuma, his estranged friend. They fell out after Danjuma had served him as Minister of Defence. I sat there just listening. He needed to get a lot off his chest. He told me how would leave the Chirac conference immediately after the opening because he wanted to attend a PDP campaign in Gombe at 5.00pm that same day. He was lead campaigner for the PDP and Umaru Yar’adua for President.

    He reeled off a number of events where he was going to be engaged in the coming months, including the opening of the Obajana Cement Factory. Wait a minute! Something struck me at the mention of Obajana Cement Factory.I told him that I had heard that he and Aliko Dangote jointly owned the cement factory. I told him that I heard Dangote was fronting for him in the venture. His reply was to query whether I believed what I heard. I countered by saying whether I believed it or not was irrelevant to the question that I had asked him. He said nothing further on this. Before we left his room, I pointed out to him that now that he was approaching the end of his term in office, there were some people to whom he owed apologies: Chief S.O. Bakare (Oluwalogbon) was one. Chief Bakare gave everything to support Obasanjo when he was down. In spite of Obasanjo’s condemnation by the populace, Bakare still stood by him. I had forewarned Bakare that Obasanjo would eventually dump him. Notwithstanding, he stood by Obasanjo. In the end Obasanjo walked away. A few months in office they separated as friends.

    I told Obasanjo that Mike Adenuga was in Cannes and that I had brought him with me. He was waiting in the foyer downstairs. I told him that the reason I brought Mike along was that it was not unlikely that Obasanjo would hear that Mike was in Cannes while he was in town and would deem it discourteous if Mike did not show up to pay his respect. Now that I had told him, that Mike was downstairs, it was now up to him, if he wanted to see Mike, to send someone to bring him up. Obasanjo objected to Mike coming to see him in his suite. Instead, he said he would see Mike downstairs on his way to the conference. At this point, I volunteered to go downstairs and wait with Mike. Obasanjo again objected, insisting that he and I should go down together. Soon after, his ADC came into the room to remind him about the time. He went into his bathroom, got ready and we went to the lift with his Foreign Minister.

    When we got down, Mike came forward to greet him. ‘I have nothing against you, it is a matter of principle’ Obasanjo told Mike. Mike in turn said, ‘Your Excellency, I understand. Thank you.’ That was all the exchange they had.

    When Obasanjo left office in 2007, we met at the 90th birthday ceremony for Chief T.O.S Benson in Lagos on 23 July 2007. As a matter of fact, we sat side by side. In the course of our conversation, I told him I was going to be in Abeokuta the following day. He said he would be in Ota when I was there, but that he would specifically come to Abeokuta to host me for lunch. He kept his word. So much so that he called me on the phone when lunch was ready! I assured him that I would not miss lunch and I would be with him as soon as I was through with my meeting.

    I went as promised for lunch with Oba Adekoya, the Dagburewa of Idowa. When we got there, Obasanjo also had Alhaji Ola Yusuf from Owu, Abeokuta, who had come to see him and he too joined us for lunch. We were four at table. It was sumptuous lunch, and I had never been treated to anything like it in our long relationship.

    Mike Adenuga was still in exile abroad and Obasanjo steered the lunch talk in his direction. He asked me to ask my son meaning Mike Adenuga, to return home. I requested that he should leave the matter until after lunch and it would be tackled on a one-to-one basis between us. He agreed.

    After lunch, we went into his private sitting room. I declared that what Nuhu Ribadu, Chairman of EFCC, was doing in respect of Mike Adenuga was wrong and he was doing it at Obasanjo’s behest. I told him that I refrained from interfering because I wanted to see how the law would pan out on the issue. The kernel of the matter really, as I told him, was his disagreement with Abubakar Atiku, his deputy, and they had taken the matter almost life-and –death level. Mike Adenuga was a pawn in the crisis and he should be given the right to defend himself.

    I reminded Obasanjo that he was no longer in office and he should back off in his pursuit of Mike. I went further to let him know that if Nuhu Ribadu did not desist from molesting Mike, I would go into the ring with them. Here I made clear that I would take him and Ribadu to unnecessarily and unjustifiably pursue Mike. Obasanjo promised to see Ribadu and to ask him to back off. He further promised to give me a feedback on this.

    When I did not get his feedback, I called him a number of times, but the phone would ring and not be answered. Eventually, I called his aide, Bodunde Adeyanju, who on picking my call passed the phone to Obasanjo to speak to me. Obasanjo told me Ribadu was out of the country and he would get back again to me on Ribadu’s return. I told Obasanjo how difficult it had been to reach him on the phone. I offered a solution. I would ask Mike to send him a phone which he would give his aide, Bodunde, as an intermediary. This way, all I had to do was call that number and Bodunde would pass it to him if he wanted to speak to me. He agreed and Mike sent the phone down the next day. But still Obasanjo did not come back to me on the issue.

    Mike remained in exile in London and nothing much was heard again or raised by the EFCC about him. Later in 2007, I called Mike in London and told him I wanted to know why he had refused to return home. Since he had no skeleton in his cupboard, then he should return home. I explained to him that the purpose of the wealth with which he had been divinely endowed was to care for his needs, and his interests. It was also for use to defend his honour and integrity. For these reasons, I urged him to return home.

    Thereafter, Mike returned home. Nobody touched him and no institution has prosecuted him because there was no genuine reason from the onset for anybody to touch him. However, the construction project at Bells University slowed considerably while Mike was in exile and a few solicitous calls from Obasanjo to Mike while he was in exile did not change the pace of work. On his return from exile, the school Bells University had the temerity to write to him seeking for a meeting to discuss the continuation of the project. When I got to know, I offered to be in attendance at the meeting and sent word round that I would be in attendance. I had the intention to lambast all of them. They must have sensed it because up till now, the meeting has not been held!

    All the enormous goodwill which Obasanjo carried into office was squandered with a performance that left him with a second term short of tangible achievements. Eight years in office was ample time to put electricity on a very strong footing. Eight years was enough to put down a strong foot against corruption and make a clear difference. Eight years was adequate for orderliness and the rule of law to triumph in every facet of our society. These were the basis upon which I gave him my support for the office. Some new State Governors have shown how much good can be achieved in a shorter time.”

  • Obasanjo to Awujale: Your claims about me untrue

    Obasanjo to Awujale: Your claims about me untrue

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday replied the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, on the monarch’s assertions of him in his autobiography “Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S. K. Adetona, Ogbagba II,” published in 2010.

    Obasanjo said Oba Adetona’s assertions of him are “tissues of lies and untruth.”

    In the autobiography, the monarch had accused Obasanjo of using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to blackmail and extort during his tenure as president of the country.

    The ex – President in a statement issued from his Presidential Hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, and made available to The Nation, said it was the then Vice-Chancellor of Bells University, Prof. Julius Okogie, who invited billionaire businessman, Chief Mike Adenuga, to contribute to a project at the institution but didn’t inform him about it until Adenuga pulled out of the arrangement.

    Obasanjo noted that Adenuga did not need to send anything to satisfy him or establish his innocence but only needed to satisfy the EFCC.

    The ex- President said with the insistence of Adenuga to send documents to him, the Awujale was insinuating that he was the one to be satisfied and not the EFCC.

    Obasanjo said, “The extract from your Autobiography “Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S. K. Adetola, Ogbagba II,” published by Mosuro Publishers 2010, pp. 187-195, which I attached to this letter was presented to me for my attention.

    “Your assertion in the publication was a tissue of lies and untruth.  Olopade is one of my best friends and yes, I would be at his birthday celebration but I would not have invited Mike, your cousin, to meet me anywhere other than my office or official residence as President of Nigeria.  Kabiyesi, do you think I would set the press up to capture me and Mike in a photograph for the newspapers?  That would be puerile of me as President.  Of course, I could not say that Mike could not do that.  That you think that I, as President of Nigeria, would descend to such depravity makes me think of you much less than I thought of you, until now.”

  • How Obasanjo tried to humiliate Mike Adenuga, by Awujale

    How Obasanjo tried to humiliate Mike Adenuga, by Awujale

    The paramount ruler of Ijebuland,Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona has sensationally revealed how former President Olusegun Obasanjo tried to rope in business mogul,Otunba Mike Adenuga in for corruption in 2006.
    The case in question was the botched attempt to arrest Adenuga by security operatives that year.
    The incident forced the multi-billionaire into exile.
    The revered traditional ruler writing in ‘Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S.K Adetona, Ogbagba II’ recalled efforts made to stop Adenuga from alleged persecution by Obasanjo and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) led at the time by Nuhu Ribadu.
    His words: “The EFCC in Lagos had come calling brusquely on Mike Adenuga (Jnr), Chairman Globacom on 9 July 2006. They broke his gate, swarmed into his house and kept him under ‘arrest’. When I heard about the arrest, I called the legal firms, of Ayanlaja SAN & Adesanya SAN as well as Professor Biodun Adesanya SAN to take up the matter and secure Mike’s release. They swung into action and gave indication that they would take the matter to court.
    “By evening, it was no longer necessary to go to court as Mike, following his statement to EFCC, had been released with instructions to report regularly to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja. Mike proceeded to Abuja, accompanied by his lawyer, Prof. Biodun Adesanya SAN. Indirectly related to this case, the EFCC had quizzed and released Mohammed Babangida, Ibrahim Babangida’s son. The EFCC purportedly were on the trail of some money belonging to the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), but there was really more beneath the veneer.
    “While Mike was in Abuja, he was counselled to see Obasanjo to extricate himself. For four days, he made attempts to see Obasanjo but was unsuccessful. After a few days in Abuja with no case pressed against him by EFCC, he returned to Lagos. Not long afterwards, and in the heat of this mess, Obasanjo did two things that puzzled me.
    “He called Mike to meet him at a social event in Lagos –Engr. Olapade’s birthday celebration. Mike and Obasanjo were both captured by press photographers in the newspapers at the event. Following the celebration, Obasanjo asked Mike to accompany him to Ota. It was in Ota that he solicited for the construction of the Administration Block of his university, Bells University in Ota. Mike agreed and Carchez Turnkey Projects Ltd handled the project for him. It appeared the whole matter, the EFCC hunt, simmered and Mike continued about his business. On a trip to Ghana, he ran through his Nigerian daily newspapers and discovered that the situation was unfolding in a more revealing version. The EFCC had arrested Mohammed Babangida. Mike read between the lines and proceeded to the UK on exile. When I visited the UK, Mike came to see me, and wanted me to facilitate a meeting with Obasanjo so that he could present his side of the case. The allegations against him were as follows:
    a. That Abubakar Atiku, the Vice-President, gave Mike Adenuga money from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) which were invested in Mike’s bank, Equatorial Trust Bank (ETB), and that the funds were used in paying for the Globacom licence.
    b. That as a result of the connection in (a) Atiku was a major shareholder in Globacom. And Atiku used his clout to ensure that PTDF money got into ETB.
    c. That General Ibrahim Babangida, the former Head of State, was also a major shareholder in Globacom.
    “It was not enough for Mike to merely present his case to EFCC, for it seemed the EFCC was under some remote control. The Presidency was after Atiku. Atiku at some point was the Chairman of the PTDF; an attempt was being made to indict him for alleged illegal and unauthorized channelling of PTDF money into Globacom. All sorts of rumours were flying around and the Presidency wanted to pin down the case against Atiku. If Ibrahim Babangida also fell into the trap, so much the better.
    “A wide opening presented itself and EFCC seized it.
    “G. Subair is Mike’s second cousin. His father died young and he grew up, just as I did in my early life, living with Mike’s mother. He worked for Mike and was seconded, amongst other things, to open the Kaduna office for Globacom. In need of accommodation or office space, he leased, on behalf of Globacom, a house, at 2-3 Dawaki Road in Kaduna belonging to Mohammed Badamasi Babangida and used that address in official correspondence and memoranda. Mohammed is the first son of President Ibrahim Babangida. This was Babangida connection to which EFCC hung on when they were rummaging through Globacom documents. This was, according to them, irrefutable evidence that Babangida was a major shareholder in Globacom and that his son, Mohammed Babangida, or G.Subair or Mike was fronting for Babangida in this venture.
    “Mike told me how he had raised money through the BNP Paribas Bank in France and how he paid to New York for the Globacom licensing fees. All the money involved could be traced with supporting documents to France and New York in the form of a huge loan. The Bank BNP Paribas on its part had a letter stating clearly their involvement in the transaction and Mike wanted to present this among other documents to President Obasanjo. I called Obasanjo and relayed the facts as I had them from Mike to him. I requested for his fax number so that I could fax Mike’s letter explaining all the transactions and the Bank of Paribas letter to him. As soon as he gave me the fax number, I faxed the documents to him. Still, Obasanjo was not satisfied. It seemed that it was all a ruse because they were really after Atiku and Babangida and wanted Mike to implicate them. Mike refused to cooperate. If he was not going to cooperate, they thought, harassment would do it. On 19 August 2006, I made a statement to the press asking Obasanjo to caution Nuhu Ribadu, the head of the EFCC, about his mode of operations. I denounced the harassment of citizens by EFCC and urged them to go to court if they had anything concrete against anyone.
    “While Mike was in exile, we shared a moment of relaxation together. We took a holiday together in south of France with some members of our families. I had with me my wife Olori Kemi, my daughter, Ronke and Oba Adekoya, the Dagburewe of Idowa. Mike came along with his two daughters and his niece.
    “While on this holiday, the President of France, Jacques Chirac, was going to be holding a conference with African Heads of State in Nice. Coincidentally, we got to know that Obasanjo was booked to stay in the same hotel where we were staying. Later, we learnt he had changed his mind and would not be attending the conference. Then not long afterwards, we were told he had decided to attend after all. By the time he finally decided to attend, all the rooms in the hotel were fully booked and he was now booked into another, Embassy Hotel, which was a stone’s throw from when we were.
    “I got to know that he would check in at 8.00am on the day of the conference. At 8.330am, I went to his hotel and took Mike along with me. From the reception, I spoke to him on the phone. “When he asked from where I was speaking, I told him I was downstairs in the lobby of his hotel! He said he would send someone down immediately to lead me up to his suite, and he did so. I left Mike behind in the hotel lobby.
    “When I got to his suite, there were already a number of people in the corridor, in his living room and the dining room waiting to see him. His ADC took me straight to see him in his bedroom. I had hardly settled down when he started talking to me about his deputy, Abubakar Atiku. He was at daggers drawn with Atiku.

    “When he exhausted all he had to say about Atiku, he jumped on Theophilus Danjuma, his estranged friend. They fell out after Danjuma had served him as Minister of Defence. I sat there just listening. He needed to get a lot off his chest. He told me how would leave the Chirac conference immediately after the opening because he wanted to attend a PDP campaign in Gombe at 5.00pm that same day. He was lead campaigner for the PDP and Umaru Yar’adua for President.
    “He reeled off a number of events where he was going to be engaged in the coming months, including the opening of the Obajana Cement Factory. Wait a minute! Something struck me at the mention of Obajana Cement Factory.I told him that I had heard that he and Aliko Dangote jointly owned the cement factory. I told him that I heard Dangote was fronting for him in the venture. His reply was to query whether I believed what I heard.
    “I countered by saying whether I believed it or not was irrelevant to the question that I had asked him. He said nothing further on this. Before we left his room, I pointed out to him that now that he was approaching the end of his term in office, there were some people to whom he owed apologies: Chief S.O. Bakare (Oluwalogbon) was one. Chief Bakare gave everything to support Obasanjo when he was down. In spite of Obasanjo’s condemnation by the populace, Bakare still stood by him. I had forewarned Bakare that Obasanjo would eventually dump him. Notwithstanding, he stood by Obasanjo. In the end Obasanjo walked away. A few months in office they separated as friends.
    “I told Obasanjo that Mike Adenuga was in Cannes and that I had brought him with me. He was waiting in the foyer downstairs. I told him that the reason I brought Mike along was that it was not unlikely that Obasanjo would hear that Mike was in Cannes while he was in town and would deem it discourteous if Mike did not show up to pay his respect. Now that I had told him, that Mike was downstairs, it was now up to him, if he wanted to see Mike, to send someone to bring him up. Obasanjo objected to Mike coming to see him in his suite. Instead, he said he would see Mike downstairs on his way to the conference. At this point, I volunteered to go downstairs and wait with Mike. Obasanjo again objected, insisting that he and I should go down together. Soon after, his ADC came into the room to remind him about the time. He went into his bathroom, got ready and we went to the lift with his Foreign Minister.
    “When we got down, Mike came forward to greet him. ‘I have nothing against you, it is a matter of principle’ Obasanjo told Mike. Mike in turn said, ‘Your Excellency, I understand. Thank you.’ “That was all the exchange they had.
    “When Obasanjo left office in 2007, we met at the 90th birthday ceremony for Chief T.O.S Benson in Lagos on 23 July 2007. As a matter of fact, we sat side by side. In the course of our conversation, I told him I was going to be in Abeokuta the following day. He said he would be in Ota when I was there, but that he would specifically come to Abeokuta to host me for lunch. He kept his word. So much so that he called me on the phone when lunch was ready! I assured him that I would not miss lunch and I would be with him as soon as I was through with my meeting.
    “I went as promised for lunch with Oba Adekoya, the Dagburewa of Idowa. When we got there, Obasanjo also had Alhaji Ola Yusuf from Owu, Abeokuta, who had come to see him and he too joined us for lunch. We were four at table. It was sumptuous lunch, and I had never been treated to anything like it in our long relationship.
    “Mike Adenuga was still in exile abroad and Obasanjo steered the lunch talk in his direction. He asked me to ask my son meaning Mike Adenuga, to return home. I requested that he should leave the matter until after lunch and it would be tackled on a one-to-one basis between us. He agreed.
    “After lunch, we went into his private sitting room. I declared that what Nuhu Ribadu, Chairman of EFCC, was doing in respect of Mike Adenuga was wrong and he was doing it at Obasanjo’s behest. I told him that I refrained from interfering because I wanted to see how the law would pan out on the issue. The kernel of the matter really, as I told him, was his disagreement with Abubakar Atiku, his deputy, and they had taken the matter almost life-and –death level. Mike Adenuga was a pawn in the crisis and he should be given the right to defend himself.
    “I reminded Obasanjo that he was no longer in office and he should back off in his pursuit of Mike. I went further to let him know that if Nuhu Ribadu did not desist from molesting Mike, I would go into the ring with them. Here I made clear that I would take him and Ribadu to unnecessarily and unjustifiably pursue Mike. Obasanjo promised to see Ribadu and to ask him to back off. He further promised to give me a feedback on this.
    “When I did not get his feedback, I called him a number of times, but the phone would ring and not be answered. Eventually, I called his aide, Bodunde Adeyanju, who on picking my call passed the phone to Obasanjo to speak to me. Obasanjo told me Ribadu was out of the country and he would get back again to me on Ribadu’s return. I told Obasanjo how difficult it had been to reach him on the phone. I offered a solution. I would ask Mike to send him a phone which he would give his aide, Bodunde, as an intermediary. This way, all I had to do was call that number and Bodunde would pass it to him if he wanted to speak to me. He agreed and Mike sent the phone down the next day. But still Obasanjo did not come back to me on the issue.
    “Mike remained in exile in London and nothing much was heard again or raised by the EFCC about him. Later in 2007, I called Mike in London and told him I wanted to know why he had refused to return home. Since he had no skeleton in his cupboard, then he should return home. I explained to him that the purpose of the wealth with which he had been divinely endowed was to care for his needs, and his interests. It was also for use to defend his honour and integrity. For these reasons, I urged him to return home.

  • Obasanjo to Ebonyi: introduce annual national yam exhibition

    Obasanjo to Ebonyi: introduce annual national yam exhibition

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged the Ebonyi State Government to introduce annual national yam exhibition to encourage farmers to put in more effort in agriculture.
    Obasanjo, who noted that Ebonyi was one of the four pilot states selected for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal’s Number Two, an international zero hunger project, suggested that the best yam farmer should be given accolades to motivate others.
    The former President spoke at a one-day Southeast Economic and Security Summit in Enugu.
    Also, Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi called for the resolution of boundary disputes to foster peace and development in the Southeast.
    In a statement yesterday by Umahi’s Chief Press Secretary, Emma Anya, the former President said: “Last year, leaders met in New York, the United States of America (U.S.A) at the end of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They came with sustainable development goal and had 17 goals. Item Two is zero hunger by the Year 2030.
    “So, they approached me and said: ‘Yes, zero hunger, but we want you to lead the zero hunger review in Nigeria.’ We took four states and said we will focus on the four as pilot states.
    “I want to take Ebonyi, which is one of the four pilot states in the federation. Why can’t Ebonyi as a yam producing state have an annual yam exhibition? An annual yam exhibition where you will have judges that will determine who is the best yam farmer of the year. Not only in Ebonyi State but also across Nigeria. But Ebonyi State will be the state hosting the annual yam exhibition. That way you bring new interests to yam production. You start glamorising farmers and farming.”
    The event was hosted by Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and attended by Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, Abia State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, Anambra State Deputy Governor Nkem Okeke and retired army chiefs.
    Umahi said an end to boundary disputes in the Southeast was imperative for peace and development to take place in the zone.

    Umahi said: “Let me say that one of the key areas the promoters and organisers of this very important programme must help us to look into is our boundary problems among our states.
    “There are many developments that should have taken place in those locations where we have issues with one another. I think there is need to resolve them.”
    The governor, who noted that the challenges facing the region were beyond economic and security, urged the leaders of the zone to unite and ensure peaceful coexistence among the states.
    Umahi said: “We also need other summits. There is nothing we can achieve as a people without a political platform. So, we will need a political summit and integration; we will need cultural summit and integration. We will also need a love summit and integration.”
    The governor said mineral resources abound in the Southeast but regretted that not much had been done to harness them.
    He called for public private partnership (PPP) arrangement as well as the federal Government to assist the states in the South-East to develop their natural resources and boost the economy of the Igbo and Nigeria.
    Umahi added: “Our economic summit and security, to my understanding, must be of two types. And for this to work, the promoters are already in place. That is, the organisers. So, these promoters and organisers should look at the individual states in the Southeast where we are endowed with natural resources and give ideas to bring people who can assist us in the development of the God-given natural resources.”
    Ekweremadu condemned the continued detention of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Leader Nnamdi Kanu and called for his release.
    He said: “If the court says you should be released from detention, the government must do everything to respect that. Everybody who is accused of an offence must, as a matter of necessity and in good time, have his say in court.
    “This reminds me of the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu. Whatever is his offence, he must have his say in court. If the court says he should be released, he should as well be released.”

  • Obasanjo to Southeast: unite to get your due

    Obasanjo to Southeast: unite to get your due

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday urged South Easterners to unite to achieve the development of the region.

    He spoke at the South East Security and Economic Summit in Enugu.

    According to him, the zone would not achieve much with continued individualism and lack of cohesion

    He said the people seemed to have forgotten their spirit of enterprise and communal efforts, which stood them apart from other ethnic groups in the country.

    He said the zone was unique and that it needed to use its uniqueness to its advantage to negotiate the actualisation of their aspirations.

    “The South East is known for their spirit of enterprise and adventure and you have to utilize it for improved development and security.

    “You must work together and not be divided. You must shy away from the spirit of individualism and must earn solidarity with your neighbours,” he said.

    Obasanjo urged the state governments to leverage on the abundant natural resources in the zone to improve the lives of their people.

    He said that the South East could be the food basket of the nation, adding that state governments needed to take the responsibility of engaging the youths to check restiveness.

    “I don’t think I should be eulogized for facilitating this summit in the South East because I did the same thing when I visited Maiduguri because of the problem of Boko Haram,” Obasanjo said.

    Chairman of the summit, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, said the event was non-partisan and a commitment to the economic and security well-being of the region.

    Anyaoku, a former Secretary General of the Commonwealth said the South East felt neglected as it was experiencing the worst economic challenge in the country.

    “Although every other zone in the country is experiencing economic malaise, that of the South East is more grievous.

    “There is a sense of neglect and non-inclusion in this zone by the Federal Government and that is why coordination among the state governments is very necessary,” he said.

    He appealed to the governors and the organised private sector to devote greater attention to building bridges of unity in the zone.

    Anyaoku said there would be no need for the Federal Government to periodically bailout state governments if the country was restructured with fewer federating units.

    “The summit is also working for the advancement of the entire country. If the Nigerian federation is restructured with fewer units, this country will achieve greater stability,” Anyaoku said.

    Host Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), Okezie Ikpeaze (Abia), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) and Nkem Okoye, the deputy governor of Anambra state, attended.

    Other dignitaries include former vice president Alex Ekwueme, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and former Chief of Army Staff  Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika.

    First Republic politician and minister, Mbazuluike Amaechi ;President of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Enwo Gary Igariwey former governor of old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo and Industrialist Dr. Paschal Dozie.

    There were also former ministers Josephine Anenih, Frank Ogbuewu, Frank Nweke Jnr and Barth Nnaji who is the convener of the summit.

    Also there were former national chairman of APGA, Victor Umeh ; national chairman of United Peoples Party (UPP), Chekwas Okorie; Director of Budget and former commissioner in Lagos state, Ben Akabueze; former IGP Ogbonna Onovo, Lt. Gen. Chika Obiako and a traditional rulers.

    But President Muhammadu Buhari, who was expected to give a keynote address did not show up.

    He was also not represented and there was no explanation as to why he did not attend.

    Ministers from the South-East also were not at the meeting.

    The South east caucus in the senate on Wednesday  announced that it would not attend. But Senator Sam Egwu attended.

    Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha also did not attend and was not represented.

    Imo state was the only state not represented at the summit as Okorocha did not send any representative.

    Narrating a lesson he learnt from former Vice President Ekwueme, Obasanjo told the people of the South-east that “whatever you can do for yourself, don’t let others do it for you”

    He said he need not to be appreciated for being a part of the initiative of the summit as being done by speakers “because what we know the South-East for is entrepreneurship.”

    According to him, the South-East people and indeed the Igbo can stand and survive any test in whatever trade and condition.

    He admonished the people to move away from individualism and embrace joint efforts.

    “Charity begins aýt home but you move the charity to other places when the home is secured. We have a challenge of youth restiveness. They have education but no job. They have skills but no production. The result is frustration which leads to restiveness, “ he posited.

    He advised that the summit must not end and forgotten and urged that a standing committee be put in place with a view to reviewing progress periodically.

    Ekweremadu’s demand for the release of leader of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu attracted a standing ovation. “Whatever his offence, Nnamdi Kanu should be released once the court has ordered so,” he said.

    Ekweremadu also called for the establishment of state and local government police.

    Governor Ugwuanyi lamented the decay in infrastructure in the South-East which forced the governors of the zone to use their lean resources to fix Federal roads in their states.

    He said Enugu was yet to be refunded N22b it expended on Federal roads while the 3 Federal institutions in the state are owing it N12.9b in taxes.

    Ikpeazu made a case for access to seaports for the South-East people because 80 percent of imports to the country were by South-East people.

    Umahi thanked Obasanjo for initiating the summit and call for other summits regarding issues like political, social and other relevant aspects of life.