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On the whole, the latest epistolary misadventure by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a gratuitous insult on the collective intelligence of Nigerians. In particular, his laborious attempt to prey on the innocence of much younger generation constitutes a grievous assault on public morality, seeking to force morsels of sheer falsehood down the throats of a demography perhaps too young to comprehend events which Obasanjo furiously tried to misrepresent.
\nIt is noteworthy that it was the Obasanjo administration that abolished the teaching of history in Nigerian schools ostensibly to aid this kind of historical revisionism he routinely engages in; a decision now happily reversed by the President Muhammadu Buhari government.<\/p>\n
Contestants for the presidential office in Nigeria routinely consult with and court Obasanjo , not because of his electoral value which is minuscule, but out of respect for his status as a former Head of State. It is, however, obvious that the man himself has no respect for that status, as he continuously embroils himself in partisan politics in a most pretentious and dishonest manner and refuses to rise to the demands of statesmanship.<\/p>\n
In the statement entitled \u201cMy Appeal To All Nigerians Particularly Young Nigerians\u201d, General Obasanjo rtd plumbed into new depth in hubris and hypocrisy never seen in all his career as political busybody after office who seems to see Nigeria as a movie where only he is the all-conquering hero while others are doomed villains. Some psychoanalysts are wont to diagnose this Obasanjo\u2019s peculiar political affliction as post-power-withdrawal-syndrome (PPWS): false omniscience compounded by chronic inability to accept the reality of being out of political office.<\/p>\n
Even in the US, whose variant of presidential system of government we practise, former Presidents maintain a decorous distance from government after office, opting wisely not to be a distraction to their successors. Not so the meddlesome Obasanjo.<\/p>\n
That same mindset led him to stab MKO Abiola in the back in faraway Harare, Zimbabwe, by saying he was not \u201ca messiah\u201d even when most Nigerians had started viewing the winner of the June 12 polls of 1993 as the symbol of democracy after the annulment. It soon came to light that whereas a group of retired generals including Muhammadu Buhari and Theophilus Danjuma were resolute in their call for the de-annulment through the platform of a \u201ccommittee of elders\u201d, Obasanjo, the supposed \u201cconvener\u201d, was said to have plotted the floating of an \u201cinterim government\u201d to replace the now discredited Babangida regime.<\/p>\n
While Obasanjo\u2019s right to support any candidate of his choice in the forthcoming presidential polls must be recognized as guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution, how condescending of him to decree his preference on Nigerians based on a cocktail of bare-faced lies and crude revisionism. In fact, there\u2019s a widespread allegation that the latest gambit by the political busybody of Ota is part of a larger nefarious scheme to incite disorder around the country with a view to clearing the grounds for the resurrection of his favourite contraption: interim national government (ING) !<\/p>\n
Third term agenda<\/p>\n
Contrary to his posturing as a democrat who came to office for the second time at a questionable age 62 and left at 70, Obasanjo\u2019s feverish gamble for life presidency between 2005 and 2006 was actually thwarted by a pro-democracy coalition of progressives like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and several others.<\/p>\n
Bribes ranging from N50m to N100m (amounting to whopping N20bn of public funds) were allegedly handed over to federal lawmakers to approve a clause smuggled into the list of amendments proposed by a \u201cconfab\u201d (hurriedly set up by Obasanjo), removing the cap on the two-term limit enshrined by the 1999 constitution. Despite the outrage expressed across the land, Obasanjo had soldiered on through his battalion of political foot soldiers. But on the day the contentious bill was to be decided, the lawmakers voted their conscience and stood firm on the side of Nigerians against Obasanjo\u2019s imperial life presidency ambition.
\nIs it not therefore ironic that a man unwilling to vacate Aso Rock at 70 (in 2007) is now moralizing against anyone above age 70 aspiring for the same office today? It\u2019s always been known that Obasanjo suffers deep insecurities manifesting in his \u201cMr. Too Know\u201d antics. But never did anyone imagine that the chicken farmer would carry his accustomed charlatanism as far as arrogating medical expertise to himself as to now also be certifying who is fit or not for the rigor of office through nothing but the estimation of the eyes based on \u201cmy own personal experience\u201d.<\/p>\n
Obasanjo\u2019s waste versus Buhari\u2019s prudence<\/p>\n
While it can be said that prevailing anaemic circumstances of the world economy in 2015 were not quite favorable to the Buhari administration upon takeoff, we make bold to say that, contrary to doomsday scenario painted by Obasanjo, President Muhammadu Buhari has been more prudent in the management of the little the country has earned. How ironic that Buhari that inherited a wrecked economy in 2015 from PDP under the influence of Obasanjo is now being blamed for the hardship suffered by Nigerians, hardship that truly resulted from systemic damage inflicted by PDP\u2019s 16 years of sustained squandermania. Discerning Nigerians surely know better. They can see and feel the relief brought about by Buhari\u2019s rail revolution, massive investment in infrastructure like the second Niger Bridge and numerous roads built or reconstructed across the country. However, despite that oil price averaged $100 per barrel for most of the Obasanjo years and two subsequent PDP administrations, Nigeria has very little or nothing to show for it, other than tales of bare-faced looting and waste for 16 years.<\/p>\n
Under Obasanjo\u2019s watch, a senate panel found that national assets \u2014 indeed our common patrimony built from independence in 1960 \u2014 worth $100bn were auctioned to cronies and fronts at a ridiculous $1.3bn through a dubious privatization programme. This constituted the root of the massive joblessness in the country.<\/p>\n
Also, House of Reps committee found that Obasanjo wasted $16bn on the so-called power projects. Rather than electricity, Nigerians experienced worst darkness. According to his deputy then and incidentally the present PDP\u2019s flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar, \u201cIn some cases, some contractors were paid 100 percent of the contract sum\u2019\u2019 \u2026without performance !
\nSo pervasive was sleaze under Obasanjo that Atiku, while testifying before another senate committee in 2007, revealed that his boss was fond of \u201csending handwritten notes to PTDF (Petroleum Trust Development Fund) to release money to buy vehicles for his girlfriends\u201d.<\/p>\n
In one last act of moral, political and financial atrocity in 2007, Obasanjo literally commandeered captains of industry and PDP governors to Ota to raise over N7bn for the building of his personal library (memorably dubbed \u201cPresidential Laundromat\u201d by Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka).
\nFor a man who enrolled in PDP in 1998 with only N20,000 reportedly in his bank account after a stint in prison, Obasanjo left power in 2007 stupendously wealthy with vast farm estates in many states and private university.<\/p>\n
False claim of mentorship<\/p>\n
Typically, megalomaniac Obasanjo lied that the leading presidential candidates who had visited him addressed him as \u201cmentor\u201d and that, according to him, their respective quest for the No 1 job in the land was to continue where he stopped his \u201cgood work\u201d. We presume that included Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. It is another shameless lie by a meddlesome interloper in an orgy of self-adulation.<\/p>\n
To start with, many will easily recall that the same Obasanjo had issued a statement shortly after the APC candidate paid him a courtesy call months back categorically stating that the visit was \u201cnon-political\u201d in response to \u201cmisconception in a section of the media\u201d. So, how come this contradiction now? In any case, keen watchers of political events will attest that Tinubu\u2019s accustomed progressive leaning is antithetical to Obasanjo\u2019s imperial messianism. It is an ideological contestation dating back to 1999.<\/p>\n
All through Obasanjo\u2019s eight-year imperial presidency, Tinubu\u2019s fidelity to progressive ideology led him to challenge Obasanjo\u2019s excesses through the instrumentality of the courts and constitutionalism. Indeed, through constant diligent litigations, Lagos under Tinubu was able to win over 13 landmark cases against the federal government at the Supreme Court that not only enriched constitutionalism but also extended the frontiers of federalism in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Tinubu\u2019s opposition also manifested in his refusal to be deceived by Obasanjo\u2019s antics in 2003 in the latter\u2019s desperation to capture the South-west and end his personal shame as a President without political home-base. It is on record that Tinubu emerged the only Yoruba governor who survived Obasanjo\u2019s onslaught against the entire South West. Ever so treacherous, Obasanjo betrayed the other five AD governors by rigging them out of office, with Tinubu becoming \u201cthe last man standing\u201d.<\/p>\n
His petty hatred for Asiwaju and lack of vision led him into scuttling the first-of-its-kind Independent Power Project (IPP) initiated by Lagos State in 1999. It also explained Obasanjo\u2019s illegal withholding of councils fund belonging to Lagos for over two years following the creation of 37 additional council areas. Even after the Supreme Court ruling directed the release, Obasanjo continued his unconstitutional perfidy of withholding the state\u2019s local government revenue, to punish Lagos. The funds were not released until President Umar Yar\u2019Adua assumed power in 2007.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the redrawing of Nigeria\u2019s electioneering calendar is a testament of Obasanjo\u2019s rigging inclination. Today, off-season governorship contests are organised by INEC in states like Edo, Osun, Ekiti, and Kogi due to the theft of popular mandate under Obasanjo\u2019s watch, having declared the 2007 polls a \u201cdo or die\u201d for his party. In Edo, Osun and Ekiti in particular, it is a well-known fact that Tinubu spear-headed the struggle to retrieve the stolen mandates through the court. So, how could Obasanjo therefore list Tinubu among his \u201cmentees\u201d who wish to continue where he \u201cstopped\u201d?<\/p>\n
He mischievously twisted Tinubu\u2019s \u2018Emilokan\u2019 statement before the APC presidential primaries out of context in a futile bid to de-market the APC candidate. The very poor understanding of that phrase by a supposed Yoruba (?) man will only fuel doubts already expressed in some informed quarters about Obasanjo\u2019s roots. Tinubu made his statement within the context of the internal dynamics of APC , and the fact that he later emerged as candidate by an overwhelming majority shows that his claims are infallible. Nobody worked as hard as Tinubu to win the support of delegates during the primaries and today he is second to none in aggressively seeking the support of voters across the country to achieve success in next month\u2019s elections. Ironically, the only concrete reason Obasanjo offers for supporting Peter Obi is that it is \u201cthe turn\u201d of the South-East! What a contradiction!!<\/p>\n
Capacity to identify and nurture leaders<\/p>\n
It is laughable that Obasanjo has the temerity to deem himself qualified to lecture Nigerians on who to elect as a leader. Throughout his political trajectory in public life, he has unfailingly demonstrated gross incompetence in this regard. In 1979, his military regime was designed to produce the weakest leadership in a political terrain that had such proven leadership talents as Adamu Ciroma, Aminu Kano, Maitama Sule, Waziri Ibrahim, Nnamdi Azikwe or Obafemi Awolowo among others. In 2007, after his two-term tenure and the failure of his third term agenda, he influenced the emergence of two PDP successors who failed partly because of weak institutional foundation he had laid and partly because of their own limitations. Obasanjo in a fit of mindless hypocrisy claims that strength and vitality are requirements for the presidency but was the same man who knew of the late good man Umaru Yar a dua\u2019s terminal condition and still used the coercive agencies of state to impose him on Nigeria ! The late president Yar adua himself publicly acknowledged that the 2007 election under Obasanjo was extremely flawed . This is in sharp contrast to Lagos State where the Tinubu administration designed a 25-year development Masterplan for the state and inspired a succession of competent leaders who not only sustained but also improved on the legacies of Tinubu\u2019s administration, making Lagos the fastest growing in Nigeria and the 5th largest economy in Africa today.
\nIn endorsing Obi, Obasanjo resorted to verbose and nebulous generalities without telling Nigerians in concrete terms what were his preferred candidate\u2019s track record of performance as governor in Anambra state.<\/p>\n
The shame of Anambra<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most laughable of the megalomaniac stunts by Obasanjo was naming Peter Obi among his \u201cmentees\u201d. Older Nigerians and just anyone old enough to comprehend series of abominable occurrences on the political landscape around 2003 must have reacted to such claim with derisive laughter and guffaw. It is perhaps a reflection of Obasanjo\u2019s penchant to prey on the poor memory of the average Nigerian that he now seeks to dress Obi, his one-time victim, as a \u201cmentee\u201d. Given the well-known facts of history, many are left wondering if it was not the same Obi that Obasanjo\u2019s thuggish enforcer, Chris Uba, robbed of Anambra governorship in 2003. It took the refusal of Dr. Chris Ngige to surrender Anambra\u2019s treasury to Obasanjo\u2019s surrogates (Chris Uba and co) for Nigerians to know that the polls were rigged in favour of PDP in Anambra at the expense of APGA\u2019s Peter Obi. While the dirty fight lasted between the electoral robbers in Anambra, the police were implicated in a botched attempt to kidnap the then sitting Anambra governor and force him to resign from office. When that failed, hapless people of Anambra woke up one morning soon afterward to witness a reign of terror unleashed on Awka, the state capital, with Government House and other government structures either razed or vandalized by armed thugs. Fingers were pointed at Chris Uba, the self-styled \u201cgodfather of all godfathers\u201d. While the show of shame lasted, it came to light that the Uba was working for Obasanjo. When asked to clarify his relationship with Chris Ubah during a Presidential Chat transmitted live by NTA soon afterwards, Obasanjo shamelessly downplayed the infamy by describing him as an \u201centhusiastic party (PDP) supporter\u201d in Anambra!<\/p>\n
With this brazen attempt at revisionism by this political megalomaniac, discerning Nigerians are unlikely to miss the audacity of willful mendacity. This speaks to Obasanjo\u2019s incorrigible penchant to always twist facts, manufacture lies to launder his dirty undergarment and project himself as Nigeria\u2019s only messiah since independence.<\/p>\n
But informed Nigerian voters surely can see through Obasanjo\u2019s chicanery. That is why they will not heed his self-serving call. Rather, come February 25, they will go out in large numbers and vote Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the only one among the present parade of candidates with the requisite capacity, competence and character to leap Nigeria from a country of potentials to one of greatness.<\/p>\n
Obasanjo\u2019s selfish plot to impose a puppet and regain his lost maniacal grip on power shall fail , again\u2026just as his perfidious and pernicious third term agenda !<\/p>\n
Dele Alake , former commissioner for Information and Strategy Lagos State, is the Adviser Media, Communications and Public Affairs of the APC Presidential Campaign Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the whole, the latest epistolary misadventure by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a gratuitous insult on the collective intelligence of Nigerians. In particular, his laborious attempt to prey on the innocence of much younger generation constitutes a grievous assault on public morality, seeking to force morsels of sheer falsehood down the throats of a demography […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n