2mch:

This is ridiculous . Do the people of Venezuela read the news at all. See as dem import do or die master rigger. This is like putting a monkey in charge of a bag of bananas

........... OR putting Farouk in charge of a bag of dollars

Novice1: He can only "monitor' but was unable to organise free and fair elections

Leave the shameless F O O L

See deluded and sentimental e-idiots yabbing baba. Say all you like, FrogPrince Tinubu can NEVER be accorded such honour within International circles.

gbengalite: OBJ's pix monitoring the recently concluded Venezuela's election



http://50.57.96.152/picture/former-president-obasanjo-monitoring-elections-in-venezuela
twitter: @gbengalite

Abi na that babe chest he dey monitor?

OBJ is really a funny man! When I first saw the picture, I thought he was squatting on a chair or something but he is apparently wearing a dark blue pair of jeans (pants) or something! Unfortunately, Nigeria has been producing only losers as leaders and it seems the whole world will be calling this man until he cannot even move again!

CyberG: OBJ is really a funny man! When I first saw the picture, I thought he was squatting on a chair or something but he is apparently wearing a dark blue pair of jeans (pants) or something! Unfortunately, Nigeria has been producing only losers as leaders and it seems the whole world will be calling this man until he cannot even move again!

You are absolutely correct..they will still be calling him till he dies..no president in nigeria has achieve what Baba has achieved..all dos punk'd ass fool on nairaland abusing baba..their father can never and will never become a governor talkless of been a president of niger...but here they come talking rubbish..if not for baba all wat we enjoy today..we won't be..I respect baba anytime anyday....ikira fun baba

Slyp: O man God wot kinda continent is this..... Imagine obj mornitoring election, is a joke or ...... Now I see why Africa will always b backward. Is a shame u kw...

See how you disgrace yourself,so to you Venezuela is an african country. Go back to secondary school and do a little bit of geography! Ok?

I now know the reason why obasanjo is respect worldwide..he has been a loyal servant to british and america wayback.....I see why baba release bakassi..make the thing no go spoil baba reputation in the global world

Isn't it chavez that put obj in his place before; by telling him to stay in his country ans solve the problems., instead of prostituting all over the world. Anyways

adora4u1: What the heck is OBJ wearing? A sack of chicken feed?

No ooo, na d latest 'bullet-proof jacket'! Who wan die nah? God bless Nigeria.

Pics of obj den

I am sorry for the way every one of you that have abused and insulted this aged man like this. I try to imagine the way some of you have lived their lives and you are here condemning somebody, some of you are rapist, yahoo yahoo boy, thief, fraudster, ritualist, bloody liers, backbiters, and you all comment as if you or your fathers are saint. If your fathers should tell you how he got the money to train most of you, you will all shut up and bury your head in the Pit.

Obasanjo is human like you and bound to make mistakes like anybody, do you think its easy to be a leader without having conflicting policies. You lay so much emphases on his mistakes, looting and so many other things he did not even do...We better appreciate what we have because OBASANJO IS A NIGERIAN AND NOT A BRITISH. Nature of LIFE has given us Leaders like him and we have no choice other than to patch and manage people we have as leaders and also pray for them, so of us here our fathers are not better than this man. Thank You.

Obasanjo is so far the greatest Nigerian dead or alive.

Take it or leave it.

wetin baba dey do na movie him dey act?

[size=18pt] The Nigerian Disaster Called Obasanjo [/size]
Posted: October 17, 2010 - 18:22

http://saharareporters.com/report/nigerian-disaster-called-obasanjo-0

Obasanjo was a total failure in office the second time around from May 29, 1999, and did not deserve to come back in 2003, so he embarked on the greatest electoral fraud perhaps any country in the world had ever experienced.

The rigging was monumental, audacious, vicious and unprecedented and yet it was uncalled for and totally unnecessary because he would still have won the election anyway, he had no competition in the field. As a ruler, he punished us with lack of electricity, pot-hole infested unmotorable highways, worthless currency, dry water taps, hunger, massive unemployment, regularly closed schools, criminally charged environment, and primitive living conditions.

He made a lot of palaver about anti-corruption but there was the issue of the endless estacodes he garnered from travels around the world virtually every week, in a self-approved N9.3 billion jet, to enjoy civilized quality of life abroad, brought about in those countries by conscientious, dedicated, caring and focused leaderships. Yes, Obasanjo shelled out N9.3 billion (US $72 million), for his new power toy, a Boeing Business Jet 737-800 series for exclusive use, bringing to six, at the last count, the number of aircraft in the presidential fleet. In other words, our President had six assorted deluxe jets, while the US Air Force had only two aircraft available for the use of the US President. Whichever of the two the US President flew in, was designated Air Force One for that moment. Britain’s Tony Blair proudly flew with the British Airways.

President Obasanjo loved chasing after shadows and he was too pre-occupied with day-to-day partisan party issues. He did not know when to separate being a statesman from being a party man. He went around the world regularly visiting other heads of states without learning anything from them. Obasanjo thought he was a PDP President. He did not know that once he had been elected into office, the PDP became a discrete issue in his portfolio and he became President of Nigeria and father for all. I think this was one of the most serious problems we had with Obasanjo. He boasted all the time about being a PDP, and attended their mundane activities, as if he was an ordinary rank and file member.

He was so involved in his party affairs that he succeeded in turning his party into a personal instrument of vendetta, and single-handedly took all its major decisions, as he tried to do on the government level for the entire country. He jettisoned his party’s constitution; settled for non-elective rather than elective congresses and appointments into party positions, and alienated all the elders and founders of the party, and drove them into opposition parties. His Ministers also boasted about being party Ministers. I was shocked in 2005 when Ogunlewe, his onetime Minister for Works and Housing, told journalists that he was a PDP Minister.

One of the most serious problems that plagued us as a people during Obasanjo’s second time in power was his disdain for the rule of law, and in particular, the laws of the land. A president who would not obey his own laws, forfeits moral grounds to enforce such laws? That was the main reason for the general increase in lawlessness in our society during Obasanjo’s civilian leadership. Obasanjo introduced a vicious criminal streak that destroyed the moral fabric of our society. He actually worshiped criminality in a most unbecoming and disturbing manner. Court decisions taken against him or his regime were ignored.

For example, his holding on to huge funds legally due to Lagos State Councils was against the advice of two courts of the land, including the Supreme Court. His disrespect for court decisions became so frustrating that lawyers in the country had to go on strike by boycotting court sessions for a couple of days in March 2006, to protest against Obasanjo’s high-handedness. And in a speech on May 31, 2006, the retiring Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Muhammed Uwais, described government’s disregard of Court judgments as, “evidence of bad government.”

Obasanjo encouraged his lieutenants to ignore the laws and provided cover for them after the act. People who had access to Obasanjo took our laws into their own hands. They even went to him to share crooked banters because they assumed he loved listening to rogues and fraudsters, and would offer encouragement. To massage his ego, they told him he was the messiah Nigeria had been waiting for. He got carried away; patted the sycophants on the back, and gave them assignments on behalf of his party and government.

The President told the world in late 2003 that Chris Uba and Governor Chris Ngige confessed before him that the elections in Anambra state in 2003 were rigged. He said this without a sting of conscience or moral qualm. In fact, with his connivance and support, Chris Uba used the Federal police to abduct Governor Ngige because Ngige reneged on his promise to deliver substantial amount regularly from the state coffers to his political godfather, Chris Uba. When that strategy failed, Uba unleashed mayhem on the state with hired thugs hailed by police officers, burning cars and public buildings, including the state governor’s premises. When the efforts failed to remove the governor from office, or make the state ungovernable so as to get a chance to declare a state of emergency, Obasanjo awarded oil block to Chris Uba, and Obasanjo’s PDP sacked the governor from their party (the PDP), and promoted Chris Uba to the PDP’s trusteeship board. Uba was a PDP hero. In other words, you could be the worst criminal in the world, if you joined the PDP you were covered, as long as you were sharing your loot with the party.

On the other hand, Ngige’s name appeared to be too short for words, (he is short physically too). Imagine signing his own death warrant in broad daylight without undue duress, and having the effrontery later on to point accusing fingers. People lacking in self-honour and principles should not be allowed to rubbish our cherished values. Despite this, a coup is a coup, whether civilian or military, and Uba’s lawlessness in Anambra state should have been visited with the due process of the law.

Obasanjo replicated the Anambra state saga in Oyo state where an illiterate political godfather to Rashidi Ladoja, the governor of the state, was insisting on sharing the purported state’s security vote of N65 million monthly with the governor. The governor was playing footsie on the matter so, the national chairman of the governor’s political party, the PDP, Dr. Ahmed Ali, advised the governor to respect the wish of his godfather, and play the politics of his state, (or Ibadan politics as he put it). The party chairman, who himself was an aberration, because the president short-circuited his party’s constitutional provisions to plant him in the chairmanship position, was actually telling the governor to play ball and not be a fool.

Impeachment of the governor required two-thirds of the 32 members of the State House of Assembly to succeed, so the godfather’s 18 members in the house suspended their 14 members supporting the governor, and with the open backing of the Federal government, the Federal police prevented the 14 suspended members from attending the kangaroo assembly at which the 18 claimed to have impeached the governor. Obasanjo did not have sleepless nights over the matter. If anything, he and his party felt fulfilled that the new governor they had installed was dancing to the tune of the godfather. It was possible that the new governor was sharing his security vote with the godfather who in turn shared it with party members, to the satisfaction of the President and his PDP. The illiterate godfather nominated 90% of the state’s new commissioners and planted his crony, another stark illiterate, as the new Deputy-Governor.

Obasanjo sent Federal police to protect the illegal governor in office, and to tear-gas and arrest leaders of trade union and human rights groups, protesting against the illegality. The same way he tear–gassed, humiliated, and arrested our mothers, peacefully demonstrating solidarity with parents who had lost their children in an air-crash a few weeks earlier. Of course, governor Ladoja went to court, but that did not worry those who plotted the coup against him, because going by Nigerian courts’ traditions, the matter could drag until the end of tenure of the illegal regime in May 2007.

Obasanjo condoned his party’s fraudulent activities in Anambra and Oyo states but railed against his imagined Lagos state illegitimacy. In 2003, INEC (the Independent National Electoral Commission), posted false report on its Internet website some days before the actual gubernatorial election took place, giving victory in Lagos state to Obasanjo’s party. No one ever heard Obasanjo comment on that, or on the PDP’s well known rigged elections across Nigeria in 2003, that put him in power. Peter Obi of APGA’s stolen mandate, as the elected Governor of Anambra State, was restored in court, some three years into the illegal occupation of the position by Ngige of the PDP.

In the Delta State, rigging by the president’s party showed that all registered voters came out to vote, whereas voting did not take place in most areas of the state. The court ruled in Buhari’s case against Obasanjo, that the PDP massively rigged Obasanjo’s home state, Ogun, in 2003. Obasanjo not only rigged to claim that all registered voters in Ogun State voted during the 2003 elections, he added 600,000 fictitious votes of his own, to exceed the list of registered voters.

At a meeting with the South-West caucus of his party, the PDP, during a visit to Ogun state in early February 2006, Obasanjo said: “The person who rigged the elections in Lagos State came to me. You know I am a man of my words. It was in the presence of Bode George. The person prostrated and begged me. He confessed that he was the one who falsified the results of Lagos state. I told him God allowed it; otherwise, he would have been attacked by leprosy.”

Now what kind of future is there if the president of an aspiring democracy, openly, proudly, and confidently, admits that he condones electoral fraud? Why would anyone go to the president to prostrate and beg him on anything if the person wasn’t after some favours? The president did not contest election against the governor of Lagos state directly; therefore, such flippant talk should have been reserved for the PDP’s secretariat. But knowing that the president was gullible and would gladly embrace riggers of elections, the tale-bearer went confidently to the seat of power, convinced of a hearing, and a place in the future election plans of the president.

The president did not hand the fraudster over to the Police or INEC because apparently the ‘expert rigger of elections in Lagos state’ was God-sent. As a result, Obasanjo assured his February 2006 Ogun state audience, that Lagos state was already as good as won by the PDP in 2007. In fact, he had publicly given similar assurance before. That was while he was attending a rally in Central Lagos in 2005. He said then that the PDP would ‘capture’ Lagos in 2007. ‘Capture’ is a very strong word to use. It is a language of war, inappropriate in a family, or the Nigerian union context, but he was not joking. He was seeing the opposition parties as enemies.

He told his February, 2006, Ogun state audience: “We don’t want our enemies to surprise us but we have to surprise them so that by the time they open their eyes, they will discover that they are blind.” The president spoke of enemies as if he was at war with another country. He was supposed to be a father to all, but kept boasting instead of his rigging prowess, and confessing to aiding and abetting electoral fraud, (by the time they open their eyes), which obviously is a worst crime than converting state coffers into personal use, because rigged elections could lead to state disintegration.

To crush his enemies across the country, Obasanjo planted his cronies everywhere. He really did not have friends as such. If he could not use you, his parley-parley with you ended. Most people working with the president were compromised one way or the other. To compromise National Assembly members, the allegation is that he dangled lucrative contracts, oil bloc allocations, which they could sell to third parties, cash bribes, and other pecks. Compromise produced cobwebs in their cupboards, which he used to intimidate and coerce them.

^^part 2 smiley - The Nigerian disaster Obasanjo

When his criminal cronies were accused of corruption, he turned a blind eye, (and did not query or issue threats) to his Ministers loyal to him, and known to have been involved in abuse of office and book-keeping thefts. Chief Bode George, the deputy national leader of the president’s party, the PDP, was alleged along with others to have corruptly enriched themselves to the tune of N81 billion when Chief George was Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), and Ojo Madueke, the Secretary General of the PDP, was Minister for transport in charge of the NPA, but the president casually dismissed the findings of his EFCC by demanding further investigations to delay matters. Senators Mantu, Zwingina, and others, got off without a scratch with alleged attempts to extort N50 million bribe before confirming the nomination of Mallam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai as Minister because of the President’s overbearing influence on the Senate at the time.

Mantu, who was the Deputy President of the Senate, and the arrow-head at the National Assembly of President Obasanjo’s attempt to elongate his mandate in office, allegedly personally approved and paid himself from the Senate coffers, N50m rent on his own house in which he lived at Abuja, and another N40m to furnish it. When a Senate Committee set up to investigate the matter during the heat generated over the ‘third term agenda’ of President Obasanjo at the National Assembly, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) authority, headed by Obasanjo’s Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, made it virtually impossible for the Committee to determine the ownership of Mantu’s house.

The close subordinates used by Obasanjo as corruption scapegoats were people he planted in the system himself and discarded when they were no longer useful to his long-term agenda in power. Mr. Tafa Balogun, the onetime Inspector General of police, who stole N17 billion in office, N4.5 billion of which was from the Police Welfare fund, was appointed to the office and used to rig the 2003 elections from which Balogun garnered some of his loot.

Obasanjo planted Chief Adulphus Wabara on the Senate as president, and buffeted him with sumptuous contracts and oil bloc deals until Wabara started getting big headed and craving some independence. Obasanjo influenced his sack over a N55 million scam to teach Wabara and others thinking of defying the president, a lesson. Obasanjo said that much himself about the disgraced former president of the senate, who upset him for chasing after crumbs after being favoured with mouth-watering contracts. It made one wonder if the other well known corrupt lieutenants not given the Prof. Fabian Osuji’s sack treatment as corrupt Minister, were not dropping pecks on Obasanjo’s table.

Obasanjo often equated his personal feelings with that of the state and hounded perceived enemies to death or was nonchalant over issues affecting those who had offended him. The circumstances surrounding the unresolved deaths of Bola Ige, A.K Dikibo, Harry Marshall and Chuba Okadigbo, promoted the poisoned atmosphere for further political assassinations, including that of Funsho Williams in Lagos, and Ayo Daramola in Ekiti States, between mid July and early August, 2006. An atmosphere, which when taken along with the vicious and inhuman sacking of Odi and Zaki-Biam earlier, left a bad taste in the mouth about a possible sadist party, regime or despot, intolerant of opposition in the mould of the killer of Dele Giwa.

Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State, who was alleged by the EFCC to have converted some N25 billion from his state money to personal use, along with Ahmed Bola Tinubu of Lagos State, considered by Obasanjo to be stubborn, were the two most vociferous and independent minded governors to regularly demonstrate against the buffoonery of the Federal government in public matters. They both suffered seriously for this. Obasanjo, apart from illegally withholding funds due to Lagos state, did everything within his power to frustrate physical development in the state, as if it was an enemy territory and not part of Nigeria. He withdrew the operating license of Kalu’s thriving Slot airline to throw hundreds of employees into the unemployment market and destroy the airline. Kalu’s airline had to quickly relocate to Gambia, where fortunately, it found succour as the country’s national airline.

Obasanjo’s love affairs with Gen. Buba Marwa reached its height when ANPP was courting Marwa to be their flag bearer for the 2003 presidential polls. Obasanjo bribed Marwa with the Chairmanship of the Defense Industries Corporation, and prevailed upon Marwa to wait until 2007, when he could facilitate his chances. By mid 2005, it had become obvious that Obasanjo was using Marwa to fight his dirty war against Atiku, since he had no intention of vacating power that soon. Marwa was detained by the EFCC in December 2005 for a couple of weeks for laundering money for Abacha. He was not formerly charged or tried; the EFCC claimed that they were investigating. It is obvious that the EFCC had known about the Marwa money laundering business for a long while but choose the time when Marwa’s presidential campaign was becoming too strident and focused against the third term ambition of the president, to clip Marwa’s wings. Marwa soon after his EFCC experience went into limbo and announced through a personal aide that he had never been interested in the presidency. He tried to return to the presidential race in mid 2006, but his credibility was already a dirty, smelly rag.

As for Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, another ex-military dictator, who was aspiring to return as president in 2007, although he threw his hat in the ring in 2005, no patriotic Nigerian took him seriously because everyone knew he was scared stiff of Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC, that had assembled a heavy dossier on him. Babangida betrayed his fear of EFCC when at his August 15, 2006, birthday lecture, he described Obasanjo as not being a saint himself. Babangida, of course, used the tenure elongation campaign of Obasanjo, to try to re-launch his presidential bid in April, 2006, by being seen to be on the side of the masses, but no Nigerian was in doubt about his antecedence on the issue of democracy and what he would do if he got back to power. Nigeria’s massive foreign exchange savings would have been looted within hours of returning to power, that is for sure.

The accusation in 1999/2000 that the president’s deputy, Atiku Abubakar, privatized Nigeria Incorporated to himself was not investigated because Obasanjo’s third term ambition was not strong at the time. Atiku denied ownership of African Petroleum (AP), which in the end turned out to be a bobby trap, laced with huge hidden debt, and was re-acquired by the government through the NNPC Vice President Atiku Abubakar was the only strong, visible, potential presidential candidate fighting on doggedly while the tenure elongation issue lasted in the National Assembly.

On Thursday 7th September 2006, the Senate President read in the Nigerian Senate, a letter from President Obasanjo accompanying some documentary evidence, alleging conspiracy, fraudulent conversion of funds, corrupt practices, and money laundering, against the Vice President. The submission, which was for the information of the Upper House, claimed that the President, acting on information received from the USA government, set up an administrative panel to investigate the allegations against Vice President Atiku. The report of the panel, along with the findings of the EFCC, claimed that the Vice President utilized for private purposes, funds put in a fixed deposit account for the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PDTF), a department of government under his care. In essence, the Vice President was acting as money lender with government money for personal profit. Atiku’s defense was that he shared his loot with his Oga.

Apart from these numbing revelations about and from the VP, Obasanjo himself had loads of unanswered quarries on corruption, which Nuhu Ribadu was not prepared or in a position to investigate because Obasanjo was his boss. We usually did not get to know many details about the scams of our leaders until they left office so there was still time yet to expose and deal with Obasanjo. He spent billions of naira to guarantee uninterrupted power supply to the nation but only Aso Rock (the presidential villa) was partially out of darkness throughout his tenure. Instead of admitting that someone abused his trust or that they pocketed the investment on power supply and so could not plan properly, they kept insulting us with the lame excuse that one of the largest gas producing countries in the world ran out of gas for Afam and Egbin power plants. At other times, they cooed that water dried up at Kainji or that a fly hit the transmission line to the national grid.

The economic blue print of Obasanjo’s government was that the power output which was put at 3.5 mega watts at the beginning of his regime in 1999, would jump to 6.5 mega watts by 2001 so, the government invested colossal public funds to bring this about. The Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, (which I call ‘Please Hold Candle Now’), came into being on May 31, 2005, to replace National Electric Power Authority, NEPA nicknamed, ‘Never Expect Power Always.’ PHCN’s Chief Executive, Joseph Makoju, said in an interview published in the Guardian of May 14, 2006, that the government had invested over N275 billion in the sector in the past six years. N55b in 2000; N25b in 2001; N35b in 2002; N12b in 2003; N60b in 2004; N56b in 2005; and N50b was projected for 2006. After these heavy investments Nigeria was distributing on average, less than 2.00 mega watts of electricity in mid 2006. The Minister of Power said in May 2006 that, “Nigerians should not expect to enjoy regular power supply until 2056.” Obviously, that was too optimistic because the more we spent on power generation, the less power we got, thanks to the crooks surrounding the enterprise.

Major blue chip Nigerian companies were each spending in excess of N200 million on electricity generation monthly to keep their factories going. So also were the telecommunications companies. The Bureau of Public Enterprises said in May 2006, that $1.5 billion or N185 billion, was being lost yearly due to power failure in the economy. “The economy would have been more viable if power had been steady,” the Bureau said. Billions of naira was spent on the National Poverty Alleviation Programme, (NAPEP), of Obasanjo’s government. A Dr. Magnus Kpakol wore the portfolio around his neck like a medal of honour. The only poverty alleviation we saw was on the boss’ faces that were getting rounder and fresher, and in some cases, with stomachs getting bigger to bursting point by the day.

In addition to Obasanjo’s two billion naira library project scandal, he was alleged to have acquired by means that are not above quarries, kilometers of beach land for his Bell University business, on the left hand side of the road immediately after the Badagry town roundabout, on the Expressway to Seme, Benin Republic border. Those dispossessed of their land were threatening and waiting to fight for their rights and due compensation, at least, after his presidency has ended, which probably was another reason he required to remain in power indefinitely by corruptly amending the constitution by fiat.

His battles over land issues were matched only by his endless fuel pump price maneuvers. Obasanjo was alleged to own or have interest in Bell Oil and Gas Company, which apart from controlling some oil blocs, marketed crude oil, packaged gas, and imported refined oil for the NNPC. Some also alleged that Obasanjo had a hand in OBAT (probably Obasanjo Atiku?) oil marketing outfit retailing petroleum products with the state of the art facilities at the Beachland estate in Lagos. If these allegations are true, raising petroleum pump price daily was no more than a selfish, greedy obsession for untrammeled wealth.

Obasanjo increased fuel pump price twice as military head of state, and systematically in six years as civilian leader from 1999, from N20 to N65. But what do our leaders want so much loot for? Has greed no limit? They can’t take anything with them when they die? Their greed for foreign exchange at any price, to import refined oil, was responsible for the continuous fall in value of the naira.

Obasanjo denied the National Assembly the opportunity to probe NNPC’s accounts from 1999, when he took office. The early 2006 preliminary audit report presented by a London consulting firm, confirmed that a lot of fraud was being perpetrated at the NNPC, from the under declaration of lifting details and money collected, to the connivance with foreign oil companies to cheat Nigeria. Was it possible for such things to be happening without the president knowing about them, after all, he refused to appoint a full fledge oil minister from the inception of his 1999 presidency, and ran the office directly himself? In any case, when the final report by the foreign auditors was being presented to him and FEC, in late April 2006, he did not want the report presented. He rejected it off-hand, and asked the audit firm to go back and do more work on their report, obviously as a delaying tactic to kill public interest, that was at its height at the time on the matter.

Hon. Bashir Nadabo collected over 180 signatures in the House of Representatives to begin impeachment moves against Obasanjo in mid 2005. Sixteen impeachable offences, which soon grew into 18 were presented, and included the president’s reckless disregard for Constitutional provisions and the rule of law, including the judgment of the Supreme Court over Lagos state local government’s funds. Extra judicial spending, the non-implementation of budget, and the falsification of the 2005 Appropriation Act. The abuse of power, leading to security breach in Anambra State. Obstruction of the presentation of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources account books to the National Assembly, and the appointment of his children in government, including his son as the de-facto oil Minister. Obasanjo had the effrontery to accuse his hand-picked chairman of the PDP, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, of nepotism. Ali’s problem was that he recommended his wife and son for plum government posts, and was caught out by the press before he could consolidate. The president was only playing to the gallery when he denounced Ali; his own children were visibly or otherwise holding top-ranking positions in government at the time.

In late August 2005, Urji Uzor Kalu, the Abia State Governor asked Obasanjo the following questions: (1) Who collected the commission for the sale of Ajaokuta Steel Company and the Delta Steel Rolling Mill at Aladja? (2) Why has Obasanjo refused to probe the over N300 billion scam at the Ministry of Works between 1999 and 2003. (3) Why has Obasanjo not openly declared his assets? (4) Did Obasanjo not use tax payers’ money to finance the gigantic sports complex and hostels at his Bell secondary school through Strabag Company five years ago? Who is picking the bill for the transformation going on at frenetic speed at his Ota farm? (6) Why has there not been properly audited account of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources since he took over as Minister in 1999, despite evidences of major deals through cronies and the fraud at the NNPC involving crude oil sales? (7) Who has been cornering the commissions on crude oil sales? (cool What about his foreign accounts and the platinum credit card he collected recently? (9) Who got the Abuja national stadium contract that was inflated five times above its original quotation by a Chinese firm?

When Obasanjo was asked on a CNN interview in the US about his alleged foreign accounts, he said he would leave that to the EFCC to investigate. When the EFCC boss, Nuhu Ribadu, was asked by the Nigerian press if he was going to investigate the allegations made by Kalu against the President, Ribadu literarily said he could not probe the president because he needed to be spoon-fed with evidence. Partial spoon-feeding came, indirectly through the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit, (BMPIU), in a 65 page manual on public procurement reform programme in Nigeria, published on May 17, 2006, but EFCC still refused to act. The BMPIU report said the Abuja stadium contract was inflated by over N7bn, because the contract value of the stadium at N37 billion, failed its public procurement compliance test. The BMPIU, otherwise referred to as the Due Process office, confirmed that it achieved a post-procurement cost savings of N7.19 billion from the stadium’s contracts, implying that they were inflated by N14.19 billion at least. The contracts were awarded in 2000 before the Due Process office guidelines were formulated.

Three contractors executed the contracts. Package A, which was the Main Bowl plus Valodrome, was handled by Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. Package B, the Indoor Sports facilities and hockey pitch, were awarded to Bouygues Nigeria Ltd, and Package C, the Games Village, went to a company or group called CCEC. The CCEC’s (a group not publicly identified) aspect of the contracts, appeared to have been the most corruption ridden of the three. The contracts were placed under recurrent budget in the 2003 Budget. When the president’s third term campaign started it sounded like a huge joke. The first hint of the campaign was in mid March 2005, at a lecture in far away Germany when he said he was under pressure to remain in office after 2007. His plot to hang on to power began to acquire a life of its own during the Obasanjo’s Political Reform Conference of 2005, at which the issue was thrown out to the relief of most Nigerians. Chief Clement Ebri, Chairman of the Presidential Committee set up by Obasanjo in 2001, to review the 1999 Constitution, confirmed in an interview published in the Saturday Punch of April 22, 2006, that his committee did not recommend a third term for the President, Governors, or anyone. That none of the more than three million memoranda and oral submissions received by the committee mentioned the third term. That after submitting the report, the President sent it to all the political zones of the country, and none of the zones recommended third term. The Ohaneze Ndigbo was vehemently opposed to it as a body. So also were Afenifere, the Yoruba Council of Elders, the Arewa Consultative Forum, the South-South People’s Assembly, the Middle belt Forum and many other civil society groups and notable persons.

While Obasanjo was visiting Ogun State in early February 2006, a rented crowd along with his five PDP governors in the South-West sang joyously (in Yoruba) that they want Obasanjo to continue in office for the third term. The great ‘Messiah’ responded in glee, “I am lost for words.” General Abacha did worse than that in his time as head of state but it landed him in hell in the end. Every time our leaders toyed with extension of tenure it failed. Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida like Sani Abacha, tried it with unpleasant consequences. Yakubu Gowon’s advice that Obasanjo should learn from history and not rock the boat was rebuffed and vilified by Obasanjo’s uncouth hecklers who told Gowon to shut up.

The Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu’s led Senate Constitution Review Committee, heightened the third term momentum with its deviously crafted trick options that included three terms of four years per term for the President and Governors in its proposed constitution amendment bill. Mantu had been accused of numerous scams in the past and was kept in the Senate by the goodwill of President Obasanjo who controlled INEC. Mantu’s people signed a petition for his recall in late 2005 accusing him of gross incompetence but the petition was largely ignored by INEC.

In February 2006, the Mantu led National Assembly Joint Constitution Review Committee announced a schedule to take their three terms’ proposals around the country in the guise of public hearing. The public hearing, of course, was restricted to the notorious conclaves of his ruling party, and only cronies of the President and PDP card-carrying members were allowed to attend. The typical Nigerian public was harassed and arrested by the Police for showing up at the various venues to oppose the third term idea. The ‘public hearing’ exercise was estimated to have cost the Nigerian taxpayers a whopping N456 million, with N29.4 million of the amount earmarked for snacks alone. Azubuike Ishiekwene, editor of Saturday Punch, claimed in early 2006, that a Ford Foundation grant of US $2m to the Mantu led Constitution Review Committee had not been accounted for. Other sundry appropriations amounting to billions of naira had also not been accounted for by the Mantu led Committee of the Senate.

On Friday the 17 February, 2006, the presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party in the 2003 elections, General Muhammadu Buhari, alerted the nation to the effect that 29 state governors had signed a document endorsing the third term agenda. He said in a statement entitled, ”Respect Term Limits,” that many of the pro-third term governors had embarked on strategies aimed at stampeding and intimidating the members of their state houses of assemblies into backing the project. Buhari warned that the entire project is a precursor to the emergence of despotism and life presidency.

Senator Uche Chukwumerije had warned earlier that coercive force, intimidation, harassment, manipulation, threat, and the use of state resources to blackmail, were the methods being adopted by powerful pro-third term lobbyists, to make elected public officers at all levels buy into the satanic project. The ‘Unity Forum,’ a pro-third term lobbying group, buying signatures of members of the House of Representatives with one million naira per signature to support the lobby, claimed to have already collected 100 signatures by the first week of February 2006. Billions of naira was reported to have been set aside for the third term project.

Chief Festus Odimegwu, the Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries, and a member of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc. (Transcorp), a private Nigerian mega company with government backing to cut offshore deals, strongly supported Obasanjo’s third term bid with corporate raw cash. Other members of Transcorp sympathetic to Obasanjo’s tenure elongation ambition included Mr. Femi Otedola, owner of a major oil conglomerate and Alhaji Aliko Dangote, a leading player in private enterprise and a frontline financier of Obasanjo in politics. Mrs. Ndidi Okereke-Onyuike, Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and chairperson of the board of Transcorp, privately supported third term. It appeared Transcorp was a front, Obasanjo needed to further nurture and consolidate in the four years after May 2007, to retire into as Chairman?

We were waiting and watching when on August 14, 2006, the ACD (a new political party), confirmed our worst fears that Obasanjo owned US$200m (i.e. some N27 billion) worth of shares in Transcorp. For someone who claimed to have only N20,000 to his name in bank account when he returned to power in 1999, he has some explaining to do about how he amassed the N27 billion he invested in Transcorp within four years in office. Transcorp was allocated four oil blocs (i.e. OPL 218, 219, 209 and 220), at its launching on 21st July, 2005, by Obasanjo, and has since bought out other significant government facilities in not very transparent manner, including the Nicon-Hilton on which it paid US$105m in October 2005. Rules were bent also for Transcorp to acquire 75% interest in the government’s telecommunications agency, NITEL, valued in total at US$1.73billion. The US$1billion offer by International Investments Limited (IIL), for the 75% or US$1.3billion NITEL deal, was denied on account of delayed payment, for Transcorp’s US$750m offer, trapped in an endless payment delay roulette, from 3rd July 2006, to end of August 2006, to mid October 2006, followed by another six weeks…………

Dr. Usman Bugaje, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives said in an interview published in the Guardian on March 2, 2006, that people canvassing at the National Assembly for ‘third term’ for Obasanjo promised supporters in the National Assembly: “guaranteed return ticket to the National Assembly, regardless of party affiliation of the person.” A clear indication of the intention to rig the 2007 elections by the Presidency. Obasanjo’s third term lobbyist also promised each supporter: “a choice plot of land in Abuja with N100 million thrown in to use to build personal villa on the plot, and if the supporter chooses not to go back to his constituency, he could stay in Abuja and enjoy the rest of his life there,” with guaranteed plum contracts from the government, of course. Bugaje added: “It is important that the wider Nigerian public appreciate that if they allow ‘third term’ to happen, they are condemned forever. Graduates have come out of schools without jobs, government hospitals have no drugs, and you cannot pay school fees for your children. It is not a small matter. Nigerians should be prepared to rise up against these dictators, these hawks who are out to condemn them to a life of slavery.” Well, the recall system by electorates was not working. For example, the recall due process in the case of Senator Mantu by his constituency in late 2005, was blocked by the powers that be. However, when the pathway of a stream is blocked, the stream finds another level at a price of incalculable consequences, of course.

Hon. Wale Okediran of the House of Representatives and a member of the ‘2007 Movement’ in the National Assembly against third term agenda, said at the time: “The third term issue is an unnecessary diversion to the real work of the House. From what is happening, it is not likely that much quality work will be done in the National Assembly until the much-vexed issue of third term is resolved. What some Governors have done is to open registers for their members of the National Assembly to sign in support of the third term project in return for automatic election in 2007.”

All the governors supporting the third-term plan had poor record in governance and saw the third term agenda as an opportunity to stay longer in office to steal some more from their state coffers. The Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Alhaji Usman Alhassan Jikantoro, said in February 2006, that some governors in the North had been forced against their wish to support third term. “We have problem with our governors. Some of them, because they have something to hide, are forced against their wish to support the president on the third term issue,” he said.

South-East governors, including Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State, who hosted the Conference of the ‘Southern Forum’ in December 2005, that demanded in strong terms, that the presidency should either go to the South-East or South-South in 2007, chickened out of their resolve and joined Obasanjo’s third term train. Dr. Nnamani, who was fond of the phrase, ‘To God be the glory” to buttress his achievement in office was one of the most corrupt governors cited in the EFCC report to the Senate in September 2006.

D. S. P. Alamieyeseigha, the Governor of Bayelsa State, while defending himself against accusation of money laundering offences offered the following imbecilic logic to the media. ‘Even if it was true that he stole, he was a native born Bayelsan, therefore, the money stolen would eventually return to Bayelsa unlike if a non-native had stolen it.’ Apart from the obvious display of mental imbalance, the billions of naira he stole was either nestling in European bank accounts or used in buying porch estates in Europe, while millions of pounds in cash and a large box full of jewelry belonging to his wife were found tucked away in his London flat bedrooms. Following after Alamieyeseigha’s impeachment by his State Assembly for stealing from his state coffers, other governors from the South-South states, who were members of the ‘Southern Forum,’ became jittery. They all threw their crooked weights behind Obasanjo’s third term project.

Peter Odili, the Governor of Rivers State who was one of the political leaders of the Southern Forum, was cited by the EFCC as being under investigation for fraud in September 2006. He defended this at the time with the argument that investigation does not mean he was guilty. But we all know that the EFCC as a rule, did not investigate flippant accusations. There was evidence already that an unnamed aspiring South South presidential candidate diverted some N150billion out of his state’s coffers to fight the elections and there are not more than three states so buoyant in Nigeria. Lagos is one such states, but it is not in the South South and its governor cannot be President in 2007, because his Yoruba tribe slot has been usurped by Obasanjo.

Odili controlled the other state and he declared late last year that the presidency must come to the South-East or South-South in 2007, and offered himself for the position. In the heat of the third term debate in 2006, Odili lost interest in becoming President in 2007. He said on the USA Cable network news on the 11th February 2006, that he took the position to support extension of tenure “because President Obasanjo has laid the foundation for a stable polity and has taken several measures aimed at repositioning the polity. If there is a legitimate constitutional amendment that permits him to contest, I will be one of the people that would beg him to run.” After the failure of the third term gamble, Odili was back without shame campaigning to be president. Apart from lack of principles and healthy gumption, he is obviously not a democrat.

The third richest state is the Delta in the South South where Governor James Ibori holds sway. Ibori and Governor Igbinedion were declared wanted at the time by the London police on money laundering charges. They along with their counterpart, Obong Victor Attah, the Governor of Akwa-Ibom State, were listed as corrupt by the EFCC report to the Senate in September 2006, became unenthusiastic about being Vice Presidents to Northern Presidential candidates in 2007, during the third term debate between February and May 2006. Victor Attah, for instance, who read the communiqué of the Southern Forum in Enugu in December 2005, that insisted on power shift to the South-South or South-East in 2007, started singing a different tune in mid February 2006 when he said he would consider going for a third term as governor if the constitution allowed it.

Hear him: “The people waiting have a very good reason to wait because they know that it will be good that this person has been able to start the reform that we never had. How many years have we had since independence? We could not dream about these reforms, we could not get debt relief; we could not get the kind of respectability we are now getting in the international community. We could not accumulate the kind of foreign reserve that we are accumulating now. So it is even good for him to continue, let us learn a bit more from him before we take over. May be, that is why nobody is jumping to say I want to contest the presidency for the simple reason that if you know something, please continue for a bit longer.”

In other words, if Obasanjo had suddenly died in power, Nigeria would have died too? The same argument was used for the prolongation of Abacha the messiah’s tenure in office by his supporters. Then he died and Nigeria did not die, rather she got another messiah in Obasanjo. If Obasanjo was so good as they were saying, did that make all the governors so good as to deserve collectively the third term too? There lied the dishonesty in the whole matter. If Obasanjo really loved Nigeria, he would not have tried to return all the rogue governors and National Assembly members his EFCC had built hefty negative dossiers on or who had been exposed and openly maligned, to power for another term of four years? Obasanjo hated Nigeria and wanted our disintegration and he was heartless in the way he went about it so, patriotic Nigerians had to choose between him and our poor hapless country.

An elder statesman and a leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-economic group, Senator Ayo Fasanmi, said in an interview published on February 19, 2006, that the: “people who are championing the third term agenda are insulting the Nigerian people. They insult the people when they say, he has done well, that he has done this and that. The high rate of insecurity everywhere in the country is there, the economy is still nightmarish to the ordinary man in the street, our respect for the rule of law under Obasanjo’s government is a disaster. He does not believe in the rule of law. The local government fund of Lagos State is one of the many testimonials hanging on his neck for disdain for the rule of law. What can we say for a man who is championing the complete militarization of his political party?”

In a February 2006 interview with the BBC, Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, declared that he would not allow the allure of office and filthy lucre to push him to what is unlawful, immoral, and indefensible, by extending his stay in office. He said although his party controls more than two-thirds, the requirement to change the constitution, to stay in power, he would not allow it. Mbeki also said: “By the end of 2009, I will have been in a senior position in government for 15 years and I think that is too long. After 15 years I think I should really step aside.” He was hoping to infuse new blood and ideas into the body politics of South Africa. Obasanjo, who ought to have taken a cue from Mbeki to start preparing the grounds for the takeover of power from him in 2007, was equivocating. At one point, I thought Obasanjo’s fear of handing over was because of the huge foreign reserve (over US $30b), he had built up. The wrong leaders could siphon all of that into their private accounts abroad over night. But was there any time that such a possibility was impossible? Was by prolonging Obasanjo’s tenure the guaranteed way of preventing rogues from coming to power? Is he himself clean?

The clearest statement on Obasanjo’s ambition to extend his tenure in office came in an interview with the Washington Post on April 3, 2006, when he said he remained undecided whether to seek a third term in office or not and that he had left the issue of a third term in office to God.



He emphasized in the interview he granted to the paper at his Ota farm in Ogun State, that God would decide whether to extend his tenure in office or not. He also said he “believed God is not a God of abandoned projects. If God has a project, he will not abandon it.” Obasanjo said that additional term in office if allowed by lawmakers and voters, would allow the reforms he had initiated in the past seven years to be ”anchored” and added, “the reforms we are putting in place have to be anchored, anchored in legislation, anchored in institution.” He would decide whether to run again or not after the National Assembly had voted on a proposal to revise the constitution, he concluded.

Obasanjo’s foot soldiers or arrow-heads on the third term campaign included: the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih; the Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Bode George; the Deputy President of the Senate, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu; the Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Mrs. Florence Ita-Giwa; the leader of the Senate, Dansalu Maida; a Special Assistant at the Villa, Mr. Andy Uba, and the Governor of Jigawa State, Saminu Turaki. The President’s strategists on the term elongation issue had six plans of action.

Obasanjo’s political reform conference was Plan A1. Plan A2, required the use of every means possible including blackmail, assassination or threats of it; threats of dismissal from the party for not towing party line; intimidation, bribery in cash and by awards of oil blocs and lucrative government contracts etc, and outright banditry to push the ‘third term’ agenda through the National Assembly (NASS), and eventually the state assemblies. Plan A3, involved pressurizing NASS leaders to jettison due process while voting on the constitution amendment bill, and to use instead, secret or voice vote to arrive at decisions to overcome the two-thirds obstacle for amending the constitution.

Plan A4, was to replace the three terms of four years each, with five or six years single tenure clause, allowing the President and Governors, extra one or two years each in power, if the third term plan appeared to be heading for failure. Plan A5, was the damage control strategy. The President would come out with the statement that he was not part of the plot all along, and that he abstained from taking sides over the third term issue throughout the debate. He was neutral and now that NASS had decided, he believed democracy had won and it was time for us to work together and heal the wounds of national unity.

Plan B, required that if third term bid failed, confusion and mayhem should be created in the polity before or during the 2007 elections, to encourage the opportunity to declare a state of emergency or the annulment of election results. That way, Obasanjo’s tenure in office could be elongated by between six months and two years, to give the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), ample time to prepare for credible elections. INEC betrayed the plan when in May 2006, it announced April 7 to 28 2007 election timetable, that allowed barely 30 days, as against the statutory 60 days, considered long enough, to sort out litigations etc, before the handover date on May 29, 2007.

Over 99% of Nigerians, including all private institutions, agencies, NGOs, human rights groups, professional groups, the Nigerian Labour Congress as a body, religious groups, ethnic militias, the Nigerian Union of Journalists and the media excepting those controlled by the government, were solidly against the president’s plan to prolong his tenure in office. The private media in particular was largely in support of Nigeria’s survival and the strengthening of democracy through editorials and by providing space for dissents against the president and his cohorts determined to force tenure elongation on the nation by hook or crook.

In March 2006, the Editor of the New Nigerian newspaper, Mallam Mahmud Jaga, was sacked over the cover page story of his newspaper’s March 10, 2006 edition, which criticized the tenure elongation plot. Soon after this, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) pounced on the privately owned Freedom Radio station in Kano. The NBC accused the station of failing to handle phone-in programmes professionally and barred it from broadcasting between the hours of 5pm and 10pm daily for two weeks, a prime time belt when the station airs political and people-oriented programmes. The station was also asked to pay a penalty of N200,000.00 within 48 hours, failing which its license would be revoked. The station could not meet the demand so the federal government shot it down. A few days later, the police visited the Lagos offices of ‘The Insider’ magazine to harass the staff over a publication that was against the third term agenda of the government.

The Senate had five sessions on the constitution amendment exercise beginning on Wednesday the 3rd of May, 2006. To kick off the debate on the first day, the Senate President assured the Senators that all passages on the constitution amendment debate would be by voting, because division (by voting), was the only way to determine two-thirds of members. He urged the legislators to speak their mind and assured them that the entire exercise would be open, just, and transparent. And as a measure of the transparency, the entire constitution amendment exercise was allowed to be beamed live by Television, and attended by the media.

It was obvious from that first day of debate on the constitution amendment bill, that the third term agenda was going to be the main issue and that it was going to have a rough ride in the Senate. Out of the 13 Senators that spoke on the issue that day, eight were against tenure extension, two were undecided and only three were in support of the idea. On the second day of debate, which was Thursday the 4th of May 2006, six opposed tenure elongation while five were in favour and five were evasive or non-committal.

On Monday the 8th May 2006, Chief Tony Anenih, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, and Governor Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa State, visited the House Speaker, Alhaji Masari, and the Senate President, Ken Nnamani, at the National Assembly (NASS), to direct them to subvert the rules of both chambers in the ongoing debate on constitution amendments. They asked Nnamani and Masari to adopt secret balloting during the amendment exercise because the PDP believed that that was the only way the third term agenda could succeed.

Masari and Nnamani declined their requests and this prompted the Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC), to beam its searchlight on the two leaders of the National Assembly from the following day. It is curious that the ICPC, rather than investigate the sources of funds used in bribing pro-third term legislators, decided to witch-hunt, intimidate, and harass, the leadership of the National Assembly at the time because they refused to adopt secret or voice vote, and prevent the media from covering the constitution amendment debate.

On the 3rd day of debate in the Senate, which was Tuesday May 9, 2006, twelve Senators spoke in support of the third term, two were against and two were undecided. The debate in the 360 members’ House of Representatives began on Wednesday 10th of May, 2006. Of the thirty-one members who spoke on that first day, eighteen were against the third term, twelve were in support and a member was undecided. The debate continued the following day, Thursday, with more members shooting down the third term agenda than were in support.

On the night of Wednesday 10th May, 2006, Obasanjo’s men visited the Apo legislative quarters’ residence of the Senate President to lobby him. The team included two governors, one from the South-South, the other from the North Central, and an aide to the president who along with his younger brother had been key players in the third term campaign.

The Senate President had been wary honouring invitations to Aso Rock (the seat of the Presidency) since the constitution amendment debate in the Senate. The team tried to persuade Nnamani to use secret voting instead of open voting or division, to determine two-thirds majority, to facilitate the easy passage of the constitution amendment in favour of third term. The problem for the Senate President and the Speaker of the House was that they were, in fact, helpless in the matter of what voting method to use, and knew that it was only by playing by the rules that they could hope to successfully and peacefully pilot the constitution amendment exercise in the National Assembly. Section 9 (2) of the 1999 Constitution required two-thirds of members, both in the Senate and House, for passage, after which concurrence of two-thirds of the 36 State Assemblies (i.e. 24 states), would be required.

On Thursday May 11, 2006, which was the fourth day of debate in the Senate, eleven members were against tenure elongation, eight were in support and five were undecided. A total of 42 Senators were already against third term by the end of that fourth day of debate, five members more than the 37 Senators needed to defeat the idea. There were 37 Senators in favour, a far cry from the 73 members needed for the tenure extension to sail through the Senate of 109 members. Sixteen Senators were evasive or undecided.

During the second day of debate in the House of Representatives, which was Thursday May 11, 2006, more members continued to speak against the third term agenda of the president than in support. In a fit of panic, the president delayed his jetting out in his new Boeing 737- 800 to the D8 meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, to give NASS leaders the warning to do everything possible to deliver the third term. Obasanjo repeatedly called the Speaker, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari on the telephone, while the debate on constitution amendment was going on, and eventually prevailed on the Speaker to come to an urgent meeting at the presidential villa. Obasanjo’s invitation to Masari came when the House was still in session and this compelled Masari to adjourn sitting abruptly, despite the earlier schedule by the House to end sitting by 5pm that day to enable more Representatives to contribute to the debate.

The Senate President, Ken Nnamani and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, led other principal officers of the National Assembly, including the Senate Deputy President, Ibrahim Mantu, the Deputy Speaker, Austin Opara, the Senate leader Dalhatu Tafida, the leader of the House of Representatives Abdul Ningi and others to answer Obasanjo’s imperial summons at the presidential villa. The urgent meeting, which lasted for two hours, was a platform for Mr. President to exact pressure on the House Speaker and the President of the Senate, for the purpose of manipulating the voting process in the National Assembly in favour of tenure elongation. Also at the meeting were the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Anenih, and the Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, who insisted at the meeting that those opposed to the third term agenda should quit the party. After Chief Austin Opara, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Rep. had narrated at the meeting, the difficulty in getting the third term clause passed in the National Assembly due to the stiff opposition it was facing, Obasanjo gave a marching order to the leadership of the National Assembly to do everything humanly possible to make the third term agenda succeed.

He told the NASS leaders that he would not entertain any excuse from them and reminded them that by his military background, soldiers don’t retreat from battle. “You know that I am a soldier, soldiers do not retreat from battle. I have started a fight and, therefore, I will not retreat, I will not surrender,” Obasanjo said and added that the ‘third term’ was a policy of the PDP. He warned that voting the third term out, on the floor of the National Assembly, would amount to defeating the policy of the party that controls the National Assembly, and added that it would be “totally unacceptable to me, and I would not accept such a defeat. The party has to be saved from the disgrace of the National Assembly voting out third term,” he warned.

He was unhappy “with the tone, texture, and depth of the debate in both chambers of the NASS. The legislators are taking advantage of live coverage of the proceedings to repudiate both third term and his government.” He specifically referred to the House of Representatives where he claimed they were making issues personal and using uncivilized and unbecoming expressions to attack the person of the President. Obasanjo asked Nnamani and Masari to ensure that secret balloting was adopted to overcome the two-thirds requirement spelt out in the constitution. In the alternative, Obasanjo said the leadership should “use voice vote or simple majority to decide the third term issue.” Members of the 2007 Movement in the House of Representatives opposed to the third term agenda, on Friday 12 May, 2007, protested publicly against Obasanjo’s disruption of debate in the House of Representatives the previous day.

The major problem for the sponsors of the third term agenda was that receipts are not issued for bribes, and bribe takers faced with public glare that television broadcast of proceedings facilitates, are likely to pander to the dictates of popular public opinion and vote accordingly, than be influenced by the volume of money in their pockets. After all, their first constituencies are the people they represent and not the government or their political parties. So, Obasanjo’s government stopped the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), both government outfits, from live broadcast after the first day of debate in the Senate.

The National Assembly leadership, could not jettison the broadcast exercise by the private media, because of the ‘third term or nothing’ attitude of the President. That would destroy the credibility of the entire exercise. It was a delicate balancing act for the Senate President and the Speaker of the House. Live television coverage exposed the unpopularity of the third term proposal and enhanced the credibility of the constitution amendment proceedings at the National Assembly.

Africa Independent Television (AIT), a privately owned television station continued airing the constitution amendment debate despite endless harassment, intimidation, and assassination threats to the personnel of the station through the mail, physically and otherwise. AIT’s transmission equipment in the vicinity of the National Assembly was destroyed second day into broadcasting the proceedings at the National Assembly of the constitution amendment debate. On the 14th of May, 2006, the country home in Agenebode, Edo State, of the Executive Chairman of AIT, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, was razed by fire in the wee hours of the morning followed by the invasion of the premises of AIT in the Asokoro district of Abuja, in the day, by SSS operatives from the presidency, to cart away tapes.

The SSS men seized tapes, including the master tape of an anti-third term advertorial, which the station had been broadcasting from the night of Friday May 13, 2006. The advertorial normally ran for one hour and the last insertion was to have gone on air on the evening of Monday May 15, 2006. The advertorial traced past failed attempts by military rulers from General Yakubu Gowon to General Sani Abacha to extend their stay in power and the ignoble roles played in the failed attempts, particularly in the Abacha one, by many of the arrowheads of the Obasanjo tenure elongation campaign. The SSS men ordered the station to stop broadcasting the tape even if the advertiser brought a new copy.

The President’s security men also confiscated tapes of the ongoing National Assembly debate on the constitution amendment bill and ordered the station to stop further transmission of the debate. The station rebuffed this order, at the risk of putting lives and property at the station in peril. The AIT premises had to be hurriedly evacuated on Monday 15, May 2006, due to a bomb scare, but its live transmission of the debate on the constitution amendment at the National Assembly was stubbornly continued.

Before the bomb scare, the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, had a face-off with a chieftain of the PDP, when she was informed that a pro-third term advertorial, which had been running on the National Television (NTA) for a while, was being scheduled to run on AIT. She phoned AIT to protest against the airing of the tape. When the station tried to find out what to do from the PDP bigwig who authorized the airing in the first place, he insisted that the advertorial should be aired and that the protesting Minister could resign if she was uncomfortable with it. It took the intervention of the Presidency to bring the matter under control.

Despite the relentless pressure on AIT from pro-third term sponsors and security agents of the government to discontinue relaying live signals of the debate on the constitution amendment bill at the National Assembly, the AIT pushed on undeterred, and weathered the storms to the end to provide Nigerians with the details of what happened at the National Assembly in their name. Without the courage and steadfastness of the AIT, the fate of the third term in the National Assembly would almost certainly have been different.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s periodic statement of accounts released in the second week of May, 2006, showed massive and curious withdrawals in the seven months preceding the constitution amendment debate at the National Assembly thereby fueling speculation that the government had been withdrawing funds from the (Nigerian Excess Crude Oil Account, managed by the Ministry of Finance, through the Central Bank), to finance the campaign for tenure extension.

Between October 2005, and April 2006, US $14,264 billion (about N1, 857 trillion), was withdrawn from the account called the ‘Federation Account,’ without the constitutionally required legislative authority. While two withdrawals were listed as payments to the Paris Club, including 1% commission on each payment, another payment that was not of public knowledge was listed, making three sets of payments to the Paris Club. There were various withdrawals listed as payments for Niger Delta Power Com plants between October 4, 2005, and April 5, 2006, amounting to US $2.4b. The other very disturbing withdrawals were made without giving reasons or explanation as follows: 12/12/05 ($170,549,006.00); 15/03/06 ($471,143.17); 20/03/06 ($442,947.50); 22/03/06 ($144,063,485.00); 27/03/06 ($17,290,067.04) and on 30/03/06 ($630,115.85) making a total of ($333,446,764.56) or over US $333 million. (Courtesy Punch, May 9, 2006).

The Senate decided on May 2, 2006, to investigate the withdrawals, which if they had been necessary, should have been made from the Consolidated Revenue Account after due legislative approved. While we were waiting for explanations for the withdrawals, Obasanjo claimed that the $17,290,067.04 he withdrew illegally on 27/03/06, was for the two extra days he arbitrarily imposed for census enumeration.

In the five days before the constitution amendment bill was thrown out in the Senate (i.e. between Friday 12 May, and Tuesday 16 May, 2006), more than ten billion naira in cash was alleged to have been moved around to bribe legislators. This was besides the billions of naira lavished in the months before the debate in the National Assembly to compromise legislators, strategic individuals, opinion molders, leaders of tribal groups, traditional rulers, religious leaders, trade union leaders, NGOs, student union leaders, the military hierarchy, etc. The cash bribe to corrupt the system kept rising in the ‘count-me-in’ competition between the Federal government and well known and identified facilitators, including State governments, governors, political zone leaders, Companies including the Nigerian Breweries, the new Transcorp sponsors, select banks angling to manage our foreign reserves and retired military Generals. The assumption was that since Nigerian politicians are largely corrupt by nature and our people are very poor generally, everyone could be bought, so the sponsors of the third term project were ready to empty the volts of the Central Bank of Nigeria on it, rather than be disgraced with failure.

It is estimated that over N250 billion in cash, (apart from other inducements like allocations of oil blocs and sumptuous government contracts), was used all around, to corrupt those for and against tenure elongation and civil society. Some civil society unions and NGO’s were given land and cash for their secretariats or largesse for other urgent projects while their leaders each got on the average N20m bribe. A long overdue request to equate the HND with Universities’ first degrees was given the impression of being approved at the time to pacify a large segment of the students’ population. Some stubborn, impossible to compromise frontline human rights activists (including Chima Ubani and others) lost their lives in sudden and suspicious circumstances early in the struggle. Beko Ransome-Kuti’s death was difficult to dismiss as purely natural, especially coming at the height of the third term imbroglio.

NLC leadership had to be prodded by the popular lawyer and human rights activists, Gani Fawehinmi, to make a categorical statement on the third term agenda of Obasanjo during its May Day ceremonies on May 1, 2006. A rather ambiguous statement, weak on positive engagement and activism came from the leader of the NLC’s May Day message on the principles and preoccupations of trade unionism and civil matters generally rather than on the ‘third term,’ which was the great debate of the day. The NLC leader was eyeing the position of governorship of a state in the follow-up election at the time. As far as the leadership of the TUC was concerned, there was no sentiment, no ambiguity, no pretence. After all, Obasanjo gave them their union on a platter. He had earned the right to rule us for life and should be allowed to do so.

The Military leadership too was rubbished by the filthy lucre soaked third term agenda of the president. The Guardian newspaper of May 5, 2006, reported a meeting between a Nigerian senior military officer and a select group of reporters on the issues of ‘third term’ and the ‘Niger Delta.’ At the meeting, which was secret with its date undisclosed, the military boss revealed to the few reporters invited, on the condition of anonymity, and probably wearing a mask too, that the Military High Command viewed the ‘third term’ controversy as, “just democracy in action and does not pose any threat to peace and security of the nation.” He expressed surprise about the hue and cry over the issue that had not yet been fully debated by the National Assembly (NASS) and advised citizens to wait for the verdict of the NASS and accept it. He cited the dictum that, “the minority would have their say while the majority would have their way,” and added this vintage ‘third term’ script, “you have to know we are coming out of albatross. Somebody has to lead this country and we have started the journey with a great promise. We need to reach there. We don’t like the public concentration on the third term. We have to make this Nigeria project work. We have wasted over 40 years as a nation. It is only now that we are seeing the height to go.”

On Friday 12th May, 2006, the media was agog with reports that some members of the National Assembly were each collecting N50 million cash bride from two banks, one a new generation bank and the other, an old one, to support the third term agenda of the president. The EFCC Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Osita Nwaja, when asked what they were doing about the scandal, said (see Saturday Punch of May 13, 2006), that although the Commission had a wind of the bribery allegations through media reports, they were not investigating it. Later in the week, the Chairman of the Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, sounding unusually look warm in such matters, said tongue-in-cheek, that they would investigate, thus suggesting lack of serious commitment to the unraveling of the scam.

A House of Representatives member, Alhaji Nasiru Dantiye of the ANPP, alleged in an interview published in the Punch of Monday 15, 2006, that he was offered $1 million to support the third term project. Speaking against the background of reports that lawmakers opposed to the project were freshly offered N150 million each to induce their support, Dantiye was offered $1 million on Thursday 11 May, 2006 night, in cash at a hotel in Abuja. He said, “My price shot up like crude oil about three days ago, it increased from fifty million naira to one million dollars.” He was made an additional offer of allocation of unspecified products from the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC). He rejected the offers because he was guided by his conscience and commitment to his constituents. In rejecting the bribe, he set a condition, which the bribe presenter could not meet. He said he asked the bribe presenter if he could guarantee that “I (Dantiye) will live long enough to enjoy the money, we have a deal. He (the bribe presenter) could not give the guarantee because he doesn’t have the power to prolong my life for a single second.”

In a report in the Punch of May 13, 2006, the presidency threatened to withdraw and eventually actually withdrew 50% of the area covered by the Oil Prospecting Lease 246 awarded to South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd, an oil firm owned by the former Minister of Defense, Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma. Danjuma’s opposition to the extension of President Obasanjo’s tenure and Danjuma’s alleged romance with General Babangida, who was interested in contesting the 2007 presidential election, appeared to be the problem. Danjuma in an interview with a national newspaper condemned the tenure elongation plan of the President as an “evil that must be buried.” Danjuma’s wife, Senator Daisy, was non-committal during her contribution to the debate on the third term project in the Senate. Danjuma immediately went to court to fight for his rights over the oil bloc issue but he did not stand much chance against the government in such matters.

In an open letter on the tenure elongation issue published in the press in mid May 2006, Rev. Father George Ehusani said, “The one whom the gods want to destroy, they first made mad.” That same week, it was reported in the press that the convoy of the President was attacked by a mob wielding amongst other objects, stones, sticks, pure water sachets, when the President visited Kano on his way to Dutse, in Jigawa State. The attack was against the President’s maneuvers to elongate his tenure in office. An earlier attack over the same issue took place in Lagos, when demonstrators loyal to the President, barricaded the entrance to the Ikoyi, Lagos, home of the Vice president, Ajhaji Atiku Abubakar, because of his open disagreement with the President, over the tenure extension issue. The protesters followed the Vice President to the presidential wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport to continue booing him while the police looked on as if helpless.

In another report in the Punch of Saturday May 13, 2006, Obasanjo’s first wife, Mrs. Remi Obasanjo, begged third term campaigners to let Obasanjo return home in 2007. She said, “Eight years is enough…, people s

[size=18pt]How Obasanjo and his inner circle Stole Nigeria's Billions of Dollars [/size]
Friday, 09 September 2011 17:09 [elombah.com]

Corruption pervades the entire levels of the private and public sector under the administration of Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, so said a US Diplomatic cables revealed by wikileaks. The report said that "the arrests in London of the Bayelsa and Plateau State governors have barely scratched the surface of the endemic corruption at the federal, state, and local level. The diplomatic cables noted that in a
widely-circulated August 22 letter to President Obasanjo, Abia State Governor Orji Uzor Kalu accused Obasanjo of corruption, listing a number of
dubious deals, including:

--Cancellation of the contract for the construction of the national stadium in Abuja, only to re-award the contract to a different vendor at a higher price.

--Use of public funds for capital improvements at two private schools secretly owned by Obasanjo.

Obasanjo's response was to agree to be "investigated by the EFCC, which reports to the President. When the EFCC invited Kalu to provide evidence to support his accusations, Kalu refused, pointing out that the EFCC was not an independent investigative body and had no authority to prosecute the President, and the investigation died out.

The President's chicken farm in Otta is one of the largest in Nigeria. A Presidential spokesman said in November 2004, in order to explain Obasanjo's personal wealth, that the farm generated about $250,000 per month in income, though it was nearly bankrupt in the late 1990s (ref
A). Regardless of whether the current income figure is accurate, at least some Nigerians think it is unlikely that Obasanjo's military pension and benefits were the sole source of investment for establishing this huge enterprise, valued by a construction engineer involved in the construction at
more than $250 million.

It is also widely believed that the President's inner circle also reaps hefty rewards with impunity. Some frequently cited examples are:

--Edmund Daukoro, recently named Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, was charged in 1994 for embezzling some $47 million as a managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The charges were abandoned, and Daukoro's political career soared when Obasanjo took office in 1999.

--Senator Florence Ita Giwa, indicted for misappropriation of funds by the Idris Kuta Panel in 2000, was pardoned along with other indicted senators, and she was named a special advisor to Obasanjo when she left office.

--The head of the National Airport Management Authority (NAMA), Rochas Okorocha, was caught and dismissed for embezzling about $1 million through an inflated contract; Obasanjo then appointed him as a senior aide, without requiring Okorocha to repay the stolen funds. Okorocha was
eventually fired on July 13 in a cabinet reshuffle, but went on to start a political party for his renewed presidential ambitions.

--The recent auction of oil blocks included some firms bidding,, sometimes with no prior ties to the oil industry, that were linked to Obasanjo associates, including Daukoro, Rivers State governor Peter Odili, Ogun State governor Gbenga Daniel, presidential advisor Andy Uba, presidential
chief of staff Abdullahi Mohammed, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Nasir al-Rufai and PDP Board of Trustees Chairman Tony Anenih.

--Anenih was indicted by the National Assembly for the sum of 300 billion Naira (approximately $2.4 billion) missing from Ministry of Works and Housing while he was the minister. The missing money is widely believed to have paid off 2003 elections "expenses," including to Balogun, in addition to
lining his own pockets.

--Minister of Finance Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala is said to have steered contracts to her brother (JonJon) with the help of el-Rufai. The contracts, said to amount to about $50 million, have been paid for consulting work for the Ministry.

--Al-Rufai is at the center of the corruption allegations. Well-known to PolCouns eight year ago, when he was homeless and seeking a loan to import a taxi from the UK, al-Rufai is said to have recently purchased seven upscale properties in a posh Abuja neighborhood. His demolitions of commercial and residential buildings in the capital have reportedly provided an opportunity for himself and several of his friends. After demolishing residential properties in Kubwa, the land was reallocated to several of his friends and to an investment company he allegedly owns. The community of Chika, where about two square miles of development was demolished in December, has allegedly been allocated to the same group of people.

--Chief Olabode George, current PDP National Chairman (Southwest) is a close friend of President Obasanjo and a leading proponent of the Third Term Agenda. He is one of the people accused of financial recklessness in the affairs of the National Port Authority, where he was chairman when the financial scandals were allegedly committed. He was retired from the Navy in the 1990s by the Babangida Administration after serving as military governor of Ondo State from 1987 to 1990 in addition to other military postings.

--Chris Uba, recently appointed to the PDP Board of Trustees, admitted rigging during the 2003 elections and attempted to kidnap the governor of Anambra state to try to collect payments for his efforts. Linked closely to several vigilante groups in the state, he is widely believed to be
responsible for the burning of many state government buildings in Awka, crimes that have yet to be solved.

[size=18pt]Obasanjos used Privatisation Policy to Steal Billions of Dollars[/size]

Privitisation: Another multi- billion naira drawback from Obasanjo

Written by Nuruddeen M. Abdallah, Turaki A. Hassan and Abdul-Rahman Abubakar Sunday, 14 August 2011 00:00

Revelations coming out of the Senate hearing on the privatization exercise indicated that almost all the 120 public enterprises sold to private firms since 1999 are either completely dead, or are currently operating at capacities worse than before they were privatized. As the committee sits, it also comes forward with a harvest of fraud, racketeering and official corruption. It also further dimmed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration’s dwindling image. Not only that, people who were believed to be business geniuses were exposed as mere opportunists who fed on carcasses.
The probe has definitely changed the public perception of the privatization implemented by Obasanjo’s administration from 1999 to 2007. At its inception, the government came up with the policy of “government has no business doing business.” The policy sought to handover all Federal Government-owned companies to private operators either through privatization or commercialization. This resulted in the establishment of the Privatization and Commercialization Act of 1999. Consequently, in November 1999, Malam Nasir el-Rufa’i was appointed Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), the agency saddled with the sole responsibility of selling off the companies. Available rrecords indicate that the Federal Government spent over $100 billion from 1973 to 1995 to establish public enterprises.



Government’s reasons for privatization

So many reasons were put forward by the federal government for the sale of virtually all its enterprises. Some of the cogent ones included that they had become completely inefficient and unable to deliver the much needed services to Nigerians, become conduit pipes for siphoning public funds as well as huge burdens on the government’s revenue.

The motive behind the policy introduced by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration was to ease government of the burden of running moribund firms by transferring them to private hands, believed to be more efficient in steering the wheels of business and economic growth. The policy was to ensure that the declining government companies are revamped through the injection of technical expertise, experience and funds by the private entities. The private firms were to ensure growth of the companies thereby creating jobs and opportunities for the people.

Also, it argued that since the late 1970s, public enterprises were not working. Instead, they were not only a drain on the economy as they were not providing services, but “were captured by the elites for their own benefits.” “In the BPE then we crafted a phrase which we called ‘the reverse Robin hood.’ They were stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. This is because only the rich and the connected get the services,” el-Rufa’i said.

In 1998, public enterprises were costing the country N265 billion; which is more than a billion naira per day to support the enterprises. The money came from subsidies on foreign exchange, import duty and tax exemptions. Also, they were not paying VAT to revenues they don’t remit.

El-Rufa’i also gave an insight into the state of the companies then when he said that, “as at 1998 during the military regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), the budget of the federal government was N300 billion but the government spent N265 billion supporting inefficient, corrupt and epileptic public enterprises. That was the philosophy behind privatisation and commercialisation of the companies.”

[size=18pt]Obasanjo used Privatisation Policy to Steal Billions of Dollars (continued):[/size]

How privatization policy was derailed
The privatization initiated by the General Ibrahim Babangida administration was derailed by Obasanjo’s administration, former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Managing Director of Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB), Alhaji Abubakar Abdulkadir, had said in an earlier interview with Sunday Trust.

“Worse of them all is what Obasanjo’s administration had led us into. That is privatization. I think that was the worst thing that ever happened to this country. During Babangida’s time, we were the people who drew up the privatization programme. We categorized it into three groups: those that will be kept under the finances and control of the government; those to be commercialized; and those that would be outrightly privatized,” Abdulkadir said.

He explained that, “we just did not do it because we wanted to privatize any project established by government. We did not do it that way. Obasanjo made it that way. It was on that basis that he privatized everything. With no focus, no parameter, he just privatized.”

Abdulkadir explained that “in the privatization process, there was no idea whatsoever what would happen to the projects after the privatization exercise. When we drew up that programme during the Babangida era, we also drew up programme of how the projects would work after the privatization exercise. You remember the PCPC under the late Hamza Zayyad? Those were the projects we gave to him to privatize because it did not make any sense for them to be held by the government. We went to the second sector so that they can be adequately financed and managed so that they can really contribute to the economy.”

“At that time, even the breweries were being financed by the federal government. Can you imagine brewery? Textiles, they should not be run by government. Those were those we grouped and said, ok, Alhaji Hamza, sell these. And even the banking sector, we categorized in the second group for commercialization. Then the third group we said government should hold like broadcasting, communication and the rest of them. When Obasanjo administration came, this categorization was thrown overboard. And everything was privatized,” the former permanent secretary, said.

Nigerians have always done well outside their country. Well done Obj. u are a true Nigerian.

[size=18pt]Obasanjo used Privatisation Policy to Steal Billions of Dollars (continued):[/size]

Senate’s intervention

However, 13 years down the line, in spite of the much talked about expected benefits from the exercise, most of the companies have not just failed to improve on what’s they used to be under government ownership. Rather, the companies have completely folded up and gone into extinction, thereby leading to the loss of hundreds and thousands of jobs. Worried by this sorry state, Senator Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan (ANPP, Yobe North) and 25 other senators sponsored a motion on the floor of the senate which was unanimously adopted leading to the setting up of an ad-hoc committee to probe the activities of the BPE on the privatisation and commercialization of federal government owned public enterprises in Nigeria from 1999 to date.

The senate’s intervention was occasioned by the fact that the privatized companies have failed to achieve anything after they were privatized. This is despite the policy’s grace of period of up to five years for the privatized companies to take-off. In the life of the sixth National Assembly, several lawmakers made efforts to bring off the issue of endemic rot inherent in the privatized companies. That session was however, burdened by several other probes including the power probe, aviation sector probe, FCT probe, transport sector probe and the food crisis probe. The last assembly also concentrated more on the constitution amendment to achieve reforms in the electoral process. Though most of the privatized companies already showed signs of decay characterized by apparent fraud in the bidding process, the last National Assembly could not directly probe the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) on the matter.

In the same vein, after the 2011 elections and the post-election violence that followed, some lawmakers began to ponder the remote causes of violence across the country. To many of them, unemployment has become the major source of concern to stakeholders in the polity as violent acts by youths are becoming more rampant in the country. It is no longer a secret that in virtually all corners of the nation, youths are seen in their thousands roaming the streets with no jobs or any source of seeking a living. The situation is easily linked to failure of the privatization programme which was perceived as a means of increasing employment opportunities.

Most importantly, the issue had also become a prominent topic of discourse soon after the Daily Trust newspaper, in an analysis, exposed the rot in some of the prominent privatized companies. The BPE caused several rejoinders to be published on the matter and at the end of the day, made the matter a subject of discourse in corridors of power. It culminated in the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, who is also the Chairman of the National Council on Privatization (NCP), disclosing that 80 percent of the privatized companies have failed.

Consequently, Senator Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan (ANPP, Yobe North) who had also been lamenting the failure of the privatization and commercialization policy, decided to bring the matter before the senate for deliberation. Lawan expressed concern over the failure of the policy, insisting that there are possibilities of fraudulent activities in the bidding process as well as poor post privatization evaluation on the part of the BPE. The senator who was chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts in the Sixth Senate, was curious to find out the factors militating against efficient running of the privatized companies and the reasons for their failure to meet the expectations of growing the economy.

In his motion, Lawan told the Senate that, “due to the collapse of the privatized companies, there are massive loss of jobs and colossal loss of economic returns to the Nigerian economy. For example, the privatized companies in the steel sector that used to employ up to 20,000 workers, now have less than 4000 after the exercise. The Electricity Meter Company of Nigeria, Zaria, that was privatized in December 2002, recently fired about 90 percent of its workforce.”

As the probe continues, there have been startling revelations made before the Lawan -led seven-man senate panel. There have been allegations of how some of the individuals who acquired the public companies did not meet the basic requirements for the privatization process. The major requirements for taking over a public company were technical expertise, experience in running similar firms as well as the financial muscles. The panel has been told that several firms were denied the opportunities to acquire public companies even after winning the bids. Some businessmen also fraudulently used the companies as collateral to secure huge loans from banks. In some instances, investors were only interested in the assets of the companies. In the days ahead and as the panel visits some of the companies, there are bound to be more revelations.

Obasanjo used Privatisation Policy to Steal Billions of Dollars (continued):

The Jimoh Ibrahim saga

Business mogul, Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, also allegedly forged documents and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which he used to acquire 70 percent majority shares in National Insurance Company of Nigeria (NICON). According to presentations and documents made available to the committee by Dr Dickson I. Osuala, representing Assurance Acquisition Limited (AAL), the preferred bidder in the privatisation of NICON; alleged that Ibrahim presented a fake MOU between his company, Global Fleet Oil and Gas Ltd to BPE before acquiring the insurance giant when he claimed to be a director of Oceanic Bank and offered to assist AAL to get the funding through the bank.

“One Jimoh Ibrahim of Global Fleet Oil and Gas Ltd has by use of false representation, name dropping, multitudinous false claims of representing a highly placed individual taken over NICON with diverse illegal acts and has been running it aground,” a letter written to BPE’s Director General on March 9, 2006, which was presented to the panel said. It charged that Ibrahim presented a fake MOU to the BPE dated 27th October, 2005 with a forged signature of N-Glory Development Nigeria Limited’s Managing Director Dr Obiora Okonkwo. It said the Deputy Inspector General of Police, ‘D’ department, had conducted a forensic analysis on it and confirmed that it was forged. A letter confirming the forging of signatures and falsification of the said MOU following a forensic examination by the Commissioner of Police, Forensic Science Laboratory (FORCE CID), Ikoyi, Lagos, signed by one DSP E. Kolawole, was also presented to the lawmakers.

The letter stated, “I refer to your letter dated 15th June, 2006 and have to report that the questioned signature in the column of Director/Chief Executive officer of N-Glory Development Nigeria Ltd on the document viz: “Memorandum of Understanding”, dated 27th day of October, 2005, has been carefully examined and compared with the accompanied specimen signature on N-Glory Dev. Ltd letter head paper dated 8th June, 2006. Examination of the questioned signature in the relevant portion of the document mentioned above carried out with the aid of video spectral comparator (VSC) and other apparatus, revealed evidence of free-hand execution but on comparison with the submitted specimen signature aforementioned, I found features of non-identity between them.”

Similarly, the BPE itself in a letter signed by its General Counsel, Paul Obo Idornigio, addressed to AAL, dated March 23, 2006, acknowledged that AAL was the preferred bidder. “The Bureau discovered that the members in the MOU were different from those evaluated, leading to the pre-qualification for the financial bid of Tuesday, 11th October, 2005.” On the alleged “diverse illegal acts of Jimoh Ibrahim,” the BPE wrote thus: “There is a process of monitoring core investors by the Bureau. This is being used to investigate the illegal acts noted in your letter.”

Also, a financial review of NICON undertaken by KPMG accusing Ibrahim of asset stripping of NICON, which was also tendered, stated, “the total assets taken out of the company either directly or through companies wholly owned and controlled by Jimoh Ibrahim and not properly accounted for amounts to N6.37 billion. He failed to discharge his duties as director as required by sections 279,288 and 282 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, of 1990 as amended.” The report also detailed how Ibrahim allegedly withdrew 20 million pounds from NICON’s foreign account in London. It said, “the implication of this is that Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim has stripped the company of funds that should have been used to run the company and pay claims to policy holders and pensioners who continue to suffer.”

[size=18pt]Obasanjo used Privatisation Policy to Steal Billions of Dollars (continued):[/size]

Infamous roles of Obasanjo

If there is anybody who can tell much about former President Olusegun Obasanjo, it is his former close associate, el-Rufa’i, former FCT minister and BPE boss. However, el-Rufa’i told the lawmakers that his former boss made nonsense of the privatisation plan because he kept interfering in the activities of the agency.

“The government of the day decided they were not going to appoint anybody from inside the BPE. They went and brought someone who literarily was fired from the BPE and that was the beginning of discarding rules, doing things capriciously the promoting people from one level to three levels and the institution has suffered from it since then,” el-Rufa’i said.

The former FCT minister also accused Obasanjo of blocking the privatisation of Nigeria Airways “practically because Kema Chikwe (former Aviation minister) will go and tell him stories and what is the result today? The company is dead. The 2000 jobs have been lost,” he said.

El-Rufa’i lamented that while he held sway at the BPE, he never investigated anyone for corruption except in his last three months. And the only person they investigated ended up succeeding him as the DG in spite of the fact that he recommended that his successor should be appointed from within the system and had recommended three directors and three deputy directors to the former president.

In the same vein, in his separate testimony, former BPE boss, Dr Chris Anyanwu, collaborated what el-Rufa’i told the committee when he said certain interest stalled the privatisation of the comatose Nigeria Telecommunications Ltd (NITEL). But when asked to expatiate on what he meant by the probe committee chairman, Senator Lawan; Dr Anyanwu said, “Officials from the presidency at the highest level. Whoever seats at the BPE is under serious pressure from even quarters you do not expect.”

Again, Obasanjo was accused of usurping the powers of the BPE when the presidency, together with the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel, in 2006 did concession the Ajaokuta Steel Company in Kogi State to Global Infrastructure, according to Ms Bolanle. She said, contrary to provisions of the Privatisation and Commercialisation Act of 1998, the presidency under Obasanjo did not involve the Bureau in the concession exercise.

Minister of State for Steel Development, Alhaji Musa Sada also accused Global Infrastructures, which also bought Delta Steel Company, of asset stripping in Ajaokuta. He said that “they were moving out equipments from Ajaokuta to Delta Steel. They cannibalized spare parts at the company and only wanted to use the place as a warehouse for DSC.”

[size=18pt]Obasanjo, Beachland Estate And Unbridled Corruption[/size]
By Jide Ayobolu November 1, 2006

President Olusegun Obasanjo since 1999 has said severally that his government will work relentlessly to curb the menace of corruption that has systematically led to the development of underdevelopment. In his maiden speech, president Obasanjo said nothing will be spared in the war against corruption, and that there will be no untouchables. But in the fight against corruption, the president that has presided over the affairs of NNPC since 1999, but has not explained the missing N311billion that should have been paid into the revenue account, and Nigerians are eagerly waiting to know what actually happened to the said amount. Secondly, it was reported that N84billion was missing in NPA, involving a bigwig of the ruling PDP, hence, the EFCC has been lily-livered to make public its findings since, the main dramatis personae is an alter-ego of the president, again, Nigerians want to know what really happened in NPA. Also, where is the N6.4billion that was collected for the controversial presidential library that is adjudged to be illegal?

Also, Chief Dan Etete, who recently came to the country to do some hatchet jobs for the president to smear the integrity and credibility of vice president Atiku Abubakar, in 2002, in some foreign newspapers published a very interesting rapacious and graft story about president Obasanjo, according to Etete, “Obasanjo must not hold the view that Nigeria have very short memory or that they do not care. How does he explain his attempts to dispossess his erstwhile friend, Chief Egunjobi, of the Beach Land Estate? In his first coming as Head of State, he claims he built the estate and on leaving office he took his former friend Chief Egunjobi to court and shamelessly proclaimed that he used the latter as a front. He did not tell the court, as Nigerians wanted to know, how he came by the money to build the estate. The court saw through him and struck out his law suit. Two issues immediately arose from the outcome of this escapade. The first is the serial nature of the activities which we believe reflect Obasanjo’s corruption. Having claimed before a Nigerian law court the Estate belonged to him; he must answer the question as to where he got the resources to build it? His salary and allowances, while in office, are known to Nigerians. The court refused to be deceived and with him unwilling to declare the sources of the finance for the Beach Land Estate, the court made it clear he did not prove he owned the Estate. The other matter arising from this episode is the character of General Obasanjo is a covetous person. He must own what he sees and he sees and likes even if it means illegally dispossessing the rightful owner. It could have been he saw Chief Egunjobi’s beach land estate; he liked it and therefore, wanted it. In his characteristic style, coveted it and Bingo, it had to be his. The only limitation at the time is that he forgot he was no longer Head of State. When it dawned on him, he wondered what to do, he chose the option of litigation, half forgetting there were judges who guard their integrity jealously in Nigeria.” However, Obasanjo has since taken over the ownership of the contentious estate, but the fact remains, where did he get the money to build that massive estate?

In a similar development, a group called Nigeria Anti-corruption Collective has asked the president some very salient questions that bother on his crude acquisitive proclivities of the collective patrimony of the Nigerian people. The posers go thus, who owns Ajaokuta Steel Mills, Delta Steel Complex, Jos Steel Rolling Mills, Oshogbo Machine Tools and Itakpe Iron Ore Company? Who is deceiving whom? Who is the largest shareholder in UBA? Who bought out the shares of Akeem Bello-Osagie and threatened him with arrest and imprisonment? Who was the largest shareholder in First Interstate Bank Ltd, before the merger into Unity Bank? Who owns the majority shares in Virgin Nigeria? Who gave the airline special facilities at the international wings of our airports at the cost of N400million? Why does Virgin Nigeria not pay parking and landing fees and purchase aviation fuel at a discount, while at the same time competing in the same market with other local airlines? Why should one man set up Transcorp, devalue our national assets, obstruct free and fair competition and sell everything to himself and family? If not, why did Transcorp purchase almost the entire NITEL for $750million, when Globacom bidded $1.2billion for the same property? Not too long earlier, Vmobile sold a fraction of its shares for $1.2billion. How could all of NITEL with a vast net worth of digital exchanges, armoured cables, three international gateways, among others, sell for only $750million? This one man operates six farms in six states of the federation. What is the source of the funds for these massive investments? What is the deal between this one man with the owner of Mittal of India? Why the hurry in granting Block 246 to the Indian conglomerate? Is Nigeria for sale?

Apart from the numerous unanswered questions posed by the group above, the following questions have asked Mr. President, who is the real owner of Obajana cement factory? Who is the owner of Eleme Petrochemicals? Who has the largest shares in Arik Air? Why did the government sell the Nigeria Airway Hanger to this airline not through bidding, negotiation? Why did government allocate lucrative international routes to Arik Air even before it bought planes for operation, when other existing airlines doing very in the country were denied such a priviledge? Who are the people that import fuel into the country since 1999? Who has the largest shares in Transcorp? How was NICON HILTON HOTEL Abuja acquired by Transcorp? What is EFCC doing about the Israeli arms deal where some government official made about $100million for themselves? What is EFCC doing about the tokunbo presidential planes that were bought as new? Where is the report into the probe of COJA? Where is the report on Mantu, about he mismanaged the haji N400million funds?

The fact of the matter is that, until this questions are vividly answered we cannot claim to be fighting corruption, this is because, this are cases that concern the president directly and Nigeria wants categorical answers on them. It is also very important to point out that, the EFCC is the creation of the president, he appoints the chairman of the anti-graft body, he approves its funding, also, when cases are to be investigated it gets the nod of the president, in the same token, after investigations are completed, the findings and conclusions are submitted to the president for his perusal, in this type of situation, it becomes very difficult for the EFCC to do a very thorough job, it can not be in any way independent, it does what the president wants it to do, and what the president does not want, it will never do. It is in this regard that, EFCC has been aptly described as a tool in the hands of the president to deal with perceived political enemies in a dirty game of political intrigue and vendetta. And, without missing words, this is what has played out in the last few months with regards to EFCC investigation on the PTDF account, this is because, not only is the report lopsided, it is illogical, incoherent and does not add up. Therefore, it can be said that, the fight against corruption as been politized, which has made nonsense of all the attempts to rid the polity of the deadly scourge.

It is, however, very important that the president answer in full details all the questions asked and in the full glare of the public, in addition to this both public and private investigators should be asked to dig deep into the numerous disturbing and worrisome allegations against the president. The president has always carried on as if he is a saint, but in reality, he is no more than a sanctimonious wog, a lot of lip and eye services have been paid to the issue of corruption in Nigeria. Those who claim to be fighting corruption are more corrupt than those they claim are corrupt, and than this the bane of the country today.

http://www.dawodu.com/ayobolu13.htm

[size=18pt]Obasanjo institutionalised corruption in Nigeria - Yakassai[/size]
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Tanko Yakassai

It was in the evening after his routine, that Alhaji Tanko Yakassai—first Commissioner for Information in Kano State and Special Adviser to former President Shehu Shagari on National Assembly Matters—spoke in his serene residence in Kano to KEHINDE OYETIMI and KOLA OYELERE about the state of the nation, the Northern alliance ahead of 2011, among other issues. Excerpts:


If you are to look at the role of money, violence and thuggery in this nation, do you agree that Nigerian elections have never been the reflection of the wish of the electorate?
In most cases, yes. But I believe that the 1979 election was to a large extent, a true reflection of the expectation of the Nigerian electorate. To a larger degree, the 1983 election was. I can cite the example of Kano when in 1979, PRP under the leadership of the late Aminu Kano, won the election in Kano hands down. They won state Assembly elections, National Assembly elections among others. In 1983, three months after the demise of Aminu Kano, the PRP repeated the same performance. They won the gubernatorial election against an incumbent governor. They won almost the same majority in the state Assembly and also in the National Assembly. Take the 1993 election where Chief M.K.O. Abiola was also elected. That election also reflected the true wishes of the Nigerian electorate. There are instances where some elections in Nigeria reflected the true wishes of the electorate.

Definitely as we progress, the situation continues deteriorating. This is largely brought about by money-politics. Money-politics, whether we like it or not, is the legacy of military rule. The massive corruption that we witness in the governance of this country today is the bye-products of the military. For the simple reason that the period of 1979 and 1983, there was much talk about corruption and so on. But if you look at the people who were in government in those days, you cannot pinpoint the wealth that they accumulated as you can now pinpoint the amount of wealth that military rulers in this country were able to accumulate to themselves. It was easy for them because before then others did it and nothing happened to them.

From 1975 to 1979, that was the beginning of the corruption by the military rulers. Gowon was in power for nine years. You know who the principal actors were during Gowon’s regime. The civilian took over in 1979; they ran for four years and two months. The military took over; enquiries were set up all over the country. As we go by the findings of Justice Ayo Irikefe who investigated the regime under Shagari, what he said of the Vice President—Alex Ekwueme—was that he joined government as a rich man and he left government poorer. The same thing with Shagari. They investigated him; he was in detention for almost two years. By the time he came out, even the common generator which he had was out of service. It took the sympathy of some friends of his to repair the generator. When he came out of detention, he had no business. He had to concentrate on his farm. But that generator was helping his borehole to provide water for his livestock and farm. It was because of his pitiful situation and that of General Gowon that General Sanni Abacha decided that former Heads of State should be given pension and gratuity. He went to the extent of visiting Shagari’s house and saw how substandard it was compared to the position of Shagari. Shagari was even better than Gowon. Shagari had a house no matter how modest it was but Gowon hadn’t got any. Out of pity, the government of Plateau State built a house for him. When Obasanjo came to power, they confiscated that house which was built for him. So he was unable to own a house until Abacha directed that they should indicate the spots that they wanted personal houses to be built for them free-of-charge. It was then Gowon and Shagari were able to get houses that you could say are befitting former heads of state.

The maniac for corruption in government in a massive scale started from Murtala/Obasanjo’s regime.

Fortunately or unfortunately for this country, it has never witnessed massive stealing of the highest magnitude as we have witnessed during the second coming of Obasanjo. I’m talking of 1999 to 2007. If you listen to the revelation of colossal amount of money that was wasted or stolen as was revealed in the power probe of the House of Representatives and also the stealing in the Education Trust Fund that nobody would ever dream that people can commit such crimes and go away with it. Come down to the state governors, you would hear that a governor misappropriated billions of naira from the state. Look at the case of Igbinedion. How much he admitted in court through plea bargaining that he stole. But he was convicted for a short period of time.

Also and unfortunately, the judiciary is not helping matters. There are corruption cases now that are pending for over five years. The people accused are going about freely. If people can steal billions of Nigeria and hire 5 to 10 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, then get the court to set them free to go about their business, are we not supporting it? Only a man who has the fear of God will fail to steal when he gets to that kind of position. Punishing people is to serve as deterrent to others. But if people will commit an offence and go about their business freely, it would be an encouragement for others. It is true that Obasanjo created ICPC and EFCC but what happened later created doubts in the minds of many people whether he was generally sincere in creating those institutions to fight corruption; whether he did it to use them to fight his political enemies. It was because of that example of tolerance to stealing by government that the issue of corruption became a serious cancer in the body polity. No individual can tell you how we can overcome this even if he is a prophet. Of course, the thing is everywhere. The big people are doing it. The man who is handling fuel pump is doing it. Everybody now is a thief.

Are you saying that between 1999 and 2007, corruption was given the greatest boost?
Corruption was institutionalized in Nigeria. Go and get the reports and surprisingly nobody was arrested. Only a few. Look at the Halliburton incidence.

There are five key players in the North as we approach the 2011 elections—IBB, Atiku, Buhari, Gusau and Bukola Saraki. Do you believe that a Northern consensus candidate will work at this time?
A consensus candidate in the PDP, not in the entire North. Talking about a contest between Goodluck Jonathan and other contestants in the PDP. What people are saying is that if the northerners insist that this is their turn to get a northerner nominated by the PDP and that right is being usurped by Jonathan and if they are serious in trying to rescue the right of the their people, then it would not augur well for four people to be fighting for it. They agreed, they signed a document, they appointed a committee. Once it is decided, they said they would abide by it. They said they would collapse their campaign mobilization to help that person to succeed. We are not talking of a consensus candidate for the North. We are talking about a consensus candidate in the PDP to contest against Jonathan. Any other northerner can come out because it is everyone’s right. What we are saying is that in the PDP which is the party that promised northerners that if they vote for Obasanjo after eight years, the power would shift back to the north for another eight years, which is why we are saying there must be a consensus candidate in the PDP.

The North has held power for over 30 years out of a nation’s life of 50 with almost nothing to show for it in terms of development in the North. Does the North deserve to continue again?
There are two answers. Number one, Southerners are saying power stayed in the North for a long period. They are deliberately ignoring the fact that this period was under military rule which everybody believed was an aberration. It was not through elections. Why did the power stay longer in the North during the military era? By the time the 1966 military coup took place, northerners in the military of significant ranks constituted about 75 to 80 per cent of all the men in the military uniform in Nigeria. When Ironsi was overthrown, those who staged the coup decided that Brigadier Ogundipe should be the head of state. They called him to take over power in 1966. Ogundipe declined. He said they should give it to Gowon because the majority of the people in the armed forces were northerners. So, he felt they would be more loyal if a northerner was given the leadership.

Number two: there is a saying in Hausa that a bird that calls for rain will end up being soaked by it when it comes. Anybody who calls for trouble should be the one to suffer the consequence. It was not the northerners who staged the coup in the first place; it was the southerners who introduced coup into Nigeria’s political system—Nzeogwu, Njokwu, Ifejuana and the rest. If southerners could stage a coup, then they should be prepared to suffer the consequence. They should not blame the northerners. If they were in the majority, they would have kept the power for a long time.

The number of Almajiris is becoming quite disturbing in the North. What is being done to help these children seeing that they are beginning to constitute a menace?
When the British came, they found the North to be predominantly Muslim. We had our educational system linked to the Islamic education. Instead of integrating this and because of their hatred for Islam, they decided to leave the question of education in the hands of the Christian missionaries. When they came they said the Christian missionaries would establish schools to educate the children. Our forefathers said no. How can a Muslim surrender his children to Christian missionaries? Today, we have seen the havoc it has created to the Muslims in the west. People like Akinloye, Akinjide, Adeniran Ogunsanya—all were from Muslim families but for going to missionary schools, they turned Christians, they bade goodbye to Islam. This was the beginning of this problem.

After our people took over power, there was no deliberate policy to address this issue. They hold the system of Madrasa in Pakistan. There they modified. The children don’t have to go round the town begging. They put it in manner that parents have to pay minimum to maintain the schools because the schools created vocational activities to generate some income to maintain the school. Originally the parents were paying token money; we call it laraba; as time went on the money was not enough to care for the teachers and the children. The children then had to go out to find the means of sustaining themselves. But to do away with this problem, we need combined efforts involving the federal, state and local governments, in fact, as well as philanthropists.

Let the statistics of the children be taken; once this is taken then their place of origin can be identified. Then we work out how much would be needed to maintain them. Then part of the money for education in Nigeria should be pumped into that system. But the curriculum in the school can be modified to include western education so that they would be running their Quranic education side by side western education. In a matter of a limited period of time, you will see that the problem would vanish. Bu there is no political will to do this by all our leaders. Nobody bothers.

Zoning has moved from the PDP to a national debate. Do you believe that zoning the presidency is democratic and that the nation needs it at this point of our democracy?
I think it is democratic. Although, in Nigeria, NPN introduced zoning and rotation in 1979, it copied from the zoning system in Switzerland which has been going on for hundreds of years and no trouble…

…Why the trouble here?
Selfishness and shortsightedness on the part of those who introduced the idea in the PDP. A lot of them are my friends but they are responsible for this dilemma that we are in today. When NPN decided to do zoning, they put it in the constitution not only as matter of principle but they spelled out where the president should come from, where the vice president should come from, where the party leader should come from, where the senate leader should come from, where the speaker and the majority leader should come and all that, including the rotation. Everything was put in black and white. At least, members of the PDP are experienced and they know what happened in the NPN, most of them were participants at the 1994/95 Constitution Conference where zoning and rotation were institutionalized into our constitution, where the six geo-political zones idea was conceived and adopted. Sanni Abacha agreed with it; I was a member. It was there that we felt that there should be three vice presidents; there was to be the president, one vice president from the North, the other from the south, and an additional vice president from wherever the president comes from.

This was to be so that in the event that the president is unable to continue as the president just like what happened to Yar’ Adua, the vice president from his zone would take over. It was put at that constitution. In fact, Sanni Abacha, in his wisdom, went as far as wanting to create the position of prime minister and deputy prime minister and insisting that they must come from the same region.

Won’t this have been complex to operate?
It was not complex. In Niger, Ivory Coast, France, all operate similar structures. The three vice presidents issue was a special case for us. In a democracy, you adopt a style of governance that reflects the peculiarity of the circumstance. That is why democracy in America is different from that of England. Even in Europe, democracy in France is different from that of Italy. The one in Germany is different from Italy even though they are similar. A Chancellor in Germany is equivalent to prime minister in Italy.

Are you saying that if we’ve had three vice presidents, the Yar’ Adua problem would have easily been solved?
Yes.

But zoning is not in the constitution which gives Jonathan the right to go for another term.
Why was it introduced in the first place? They are hypocrites. Why didn’t they say so when NPN introduced it 1979? Why didn’t they say it when Obasanjo said it when he was president for eight years? In our constitution we agreed on the issue of federal character. Zoning is an extension of the federal character.

People believe that the issue of zoning and the federal character have the tendency of whipping up mediocrity.
In Nigeria, every village has a graduate. Today, it is nonsense for anybody to talk of that. There are unemployed graduates everywhere. We have people who can run this country.

It is believed that the INEC Chair will serve as stooge to some “interests” come 2011. Do you foresee any fairness in the elections?
I believe in the integrity of the INEC chairman. I believe in the goodwill created for him by the members of the National Assembly by changing the Electoral Act to make it possible for free and fair primaries. If the products of the primaries are not produced through transparent arrangements, forget about democracy.

So you are insisting that a free and fair playground would work against Jonathan’s ambition?
Free and fair elections won’t be in Jonathan’s interest. Free and fair elections will produce a government that will try to look into the misbehaviours of Obasanjo’s regime.

When Obasanjo was in power, he allocated plots to himself in the choice area near the CBN quarters. I did not count. My calculation is that they are about 20 blocks of flat. They may be more. He started building them and the project was halted for almost 20 years since he left office. When he became president, he completed them. Obasanjo raised N7 billion to build Obasanjo Library which Federal Government establishments like Port Authorities, Maritime Authorities contributed money including big government contractors and businessmen like Dangote, Otedola contributed billions. Who has ever done that in the whole world? Obasanjo today has a palatial house at the minister’s quarters. It is a new, gigantic building. Obasanjo has farms all over Nigeria. He went as far as to perhaps Uganda to buy land to farm. This man is 75 and I’m 84 but I believe if you give me the CBN today, I can’t eat more than what I am eating; I can’t sleep in the kind of bed that I am sleeping. Why should a man at 75 be amassing such wealth like a madman? Obasanjo will not like a transparent government because it would probe him. No credible person will emerge through fair election that would leave Obasanjo untouched.

[size=20pt]BBC disgraces Obj about his corruption[/size]

[flash]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9sLfCeKC-E?version=3&feature=player_embedded[/flash]

[size=18pt]Obasanjo, hailed as a saviour by Blair, leads Nigeria to despair[/size]
President Olusegun Obasanjo
By Stephen Bevan in Lagos

12:01AM BST 21 May 2006

Once, Marcus Chegbene was one of the privileged in Nigeria. He had a much sought-after civil service job in Awka, 600 miles from Lagos. His salary, 2,000 naira a month - then equivalent to £15 - was reasonable, although because of corruption he received only 570 naira. "I was told the difference was for improvements like road construction. Usually you don't ask about it," he says.

Then, five years ago, he lost his job, a victim of the rationalisation of the civil service that was one of the first significant acts of reform by President Olusegun Obasanjo when he took office in 1999.

Now he lives in Maryland, a teeming, traffic-choked and down-at-heel suburb of Africa's largest city, Lagos. Home for Mr Chegbene, 40, his wife and their four children is a single room, just 12 feet square. They live on his wife's salary from a dry cleaner's: 3,000 naira a month, now worth £11. There is not enough room for more than one bed, so his children sleep on the floor. The building has just two lavatories between 40 families.

A proud, educated man, he says he has tried but failed to find another job. "It's very difficult because of the corruption," he says. "Employment is not based on qualifications but on whom you know."
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Mr Chegbene is one of an estimated 90 million people - two-thirds of the population - who live on less than a dollar a day in Africa's most populous nation. It is a shocking statistic in a nation that is the world's eighth largest oil producer.

Nigeria should be relatively wealthy but a succession of corrupt and incompetent military rulers has made it one of the world's biggest debtors.

Mr Obasanjo was supposed to be different. This, after all, was the man whose opposition to the country's most notorious military dictator, Gen Sani Abacha, saw him hounded and imprisoned. To Tony Blair he was one of the "new generation" of African leaders who would help to drag the continent out of its dependency on foreign aid.

Others in the West have praised his efforts to crack down on corruption and the ambitious economic reform programme embarked upon by the small team of former World Bank technocrats he has brought into government. Even allegations that his re-election in 2003 was marred by vote-rigging in some states failed to dent his image.

Yet today, while the West still lauds him, many Nigerians have become disillusioned, blaming his government for a worsening standard of living and complaining that his anti-corruption drive is a tool of political intimidation. Some claim he is using his office for his own enrichment.

"Nigerians are suffering: there are no jobs and there is no security," says Layyanu Abubakar, 22, a student of business administration at the University of Abuja. John Ojamiren, 32, a trainee accountant, adds: "Everything is more expensive and often there are shortages… I think even under the military life was better than this."

But it is Mr Obasanjo's record on corruption that has taken the biggest battering. To Chief Gani Fawehinmi, a veteran human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate, Mr Obasanjo is the "Janus-faced president" who shows "one face to the international community - his much vaunted accountability and transparency - and another in his own country."

He is taking Mr Obasanjo to court over a eight billion naira (£33 million) presidential lib-rary to be built at Abeokuta in the president's home state of Ogun, claiming that the money raised to build it was essentially a payback from government contractors and foreign investors, some of whom have benefited from Mr Obasanjo's administration.

At his bunker-like chambers off a dusty Lagos backstreet, Mr Fawehinmi's voice rises with indignation as he runs through a list of donors. They include several who have been awarded lucrative oil concessions - as Mr Fawehinmi points out, Mr Obasanjo has kept the job of petroleum minister for himself - while others are beneficiaries of government privatisations.

However, Femi Fani-Kayode, the president's spokesman, said: "There is nothing in our laws that denies the right of a private individual to donate money to any cause they deem fit. This was seen by many as a noble cause... President Obasanjo would be the last one to abuse his office or enrich himself."

Yet the library is not the only one of Mr Obasanjo's business interests over which Mr Fawehinmi and others have raised questions.

Two years ago, in his role as the chairman of the Federal Executive Council, Mr Obasanjo approved a licence for Bells University of Technology in Badagry in Lagos state, run by a company in which he has a stake. His spokesman said that it was not an abuse of office and neither was the venture intended to make money.

Then there are persistent rumours about Mr Obasanjo's farm at Otta, in Ogun, said to be the biggest chicken farm in Nigeria, if not west Africa, with 3,000 employees and a monthly income of 30 million naira (£124,000).

Yet, according to a journalist who visited the 150-acre farm when Mr Obasanjo was released from prison in 1998, at that time it was only "a small place for the poultry". How, ask Mr Obasanjo's critics, did a man who earned an army salary find the capital to turn it into such a money-spinner?

Mr Fani-Kayode has an answer. "Every penny he made from it, he invested back into the farm... Not one penny of government money has gone into that farm since he became president."

Such allegations might seem far-fetched, were it not for the criticism generated by Mr Obasanjo's failed attempt to amend the constitution to allow him a third term in office.

For months it has dominated the news, achieving the rare feat of uniting a nation of 250 ethnic groups and several former heads of state, the current vice-president and a clutch of governors - all in opposition.

Its defeat in the Senate last week was greeted with the jubilation normally reserved for sporting triumphs. "Everybody was so happy. People borrowed money to go on a drinking spree," says Marcus Chegbene. "It is time he left."

Even in the febrile atmosphere of Nigerian politics it was an unsavoury campaign. Meetings of "anti-third term" politicians have been broken up by police.

Francis Amadiegwu, an anti-third termer in the House of Representatives, described how was pushed to the ground by police, putting him in hospital for eight days.

The paradox, say Mr Obasanjo's critics, is that all this was being done for the man who in 1979 became the first military ruler voluntarily to hand over to a civilian administration. Although on Thursday the president claimed he had never even wanted a third term, his allies fear the attempt will now overshadow the anti-corruption campaign.

Even in a country grown used to greed, the allegations of bribes of up to 50 million naira (£207,000) being offered to those who would back a third term have caused outrage.

Several politicians confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that they were offered inducements to change their stance. Uche Onyeagucha, a member of the House of Representatives, revealed that supporters of a third term had offered him and nine other members a holiday anywhere in the world.

Ben Obi, a senate veteran not given to hyperbole, says the allegations need to be thoroughly investigated. "The world is talking about the fight against corruption by the Nigerian government.

''If you come up with allegations as strong as these and you refuse to do something about it, certainly people are going to think something is wrong."

Critics say that the very anti-corruption drive on which the government has staked so much - and in particular the powerful Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, led by a former policeman, Nuhu Ribadu - is being used as a tool of intimidation.

While few would disagree that the EFCC has done some excellent work - it claims to have secured the convictions of 56 people including Mr Ribadu's former boss, the inspector-general of police, and recovered more than £2.7 billion - many believe that it has targeted the president's political opponents while his supporters have been left alone.

It is a line of attack Mr Ribadu is used to hearing. Referring to those claiming to be victims of political persecution, he says: "These are all crooks, thieves, who stole public money and are just going under the protection of politics so that they can never be bought to justice."

Mr Ribadu disclosed that he was "almost ready to go to court" against 20 of the country's powerful state governors.

Promising to publish the report on their findings soon, Mr Ribadu conceded that Mr Obasanjo should not have started fund-raising for a presidential library while still in office. "If you ask me I would have said Obasanjo should not do this thing until he is out of office... but I don't think it has reached the stage of a criminal act".

With what promises to be a rough election battle coming up next year, claims that the anti-corruption fight has become politicised are unlikely to go away. As Mr Ribadu admits: "We do use our head; we do things to survive."

Whether Nigeria's reputation survives remains to be seen.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/1519014/Obasanjo-hailed-as-a-saviour-by-Blair-leads-Nigeria-to-despair.html

[size=18pt]Nigeria's Obasanjo and the $16 Billion Power Scam[/size]

Frontline Catholic cleric and social critic, Rev. Fr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, perhaps, spoke the minds of millions of Nigerians when he said recently that former President Olusegun Obasanjo deserved to be formally tried for his alleged role in the squandering about $16 billion voted for resuscitating the near-dead power sector during his administration between 1999 and 2007. Kukah, a close family friend of the Obasanjos, was the Secretary to the National Political Reforms Conference (NPRC) initiated by the Obasanjo government in 2005.

This call, which is a challenge to the Goodluck Jonathan administration, could not have come at a more appropriate time, especially considering the President's recent assurance that his administration would go after those who looted the national treasury, no matter how highly placed they may be. But many Nigerians doubt if Dr. Jonathan will summon the will to bring his political benefactor to book.

Dr. Kukah, who also chided critics and civil society groups for not doing enough to ensure that Obasanjo is arraigned, said: "Obasanjo probably will never be the President of Nigeria again, but we should be concerned if Obasanjo deserves to go to prison. Vilifying him doesn't give us (electric) power; it also doesn't get us the criminals that have taken our money, wherever they are. I would have loved to have Obasanjo brought to trial, because then we would know the truth." Besides the scandal ravaging the power sector, which the former President directly supervised, the double standards of the Presidency, under him, in the many established cases of corrupt self-enrichment by key government functionaries during his tenure were mind-boggling.

After the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) unearthed a N56 billion fraud by the former Board of Directors of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), for example, Obasanjo failed to institute any process towards recovering the stolen amount and/or prosecuting the culprits, who were said to be his close political allies. Rather, some of those who served on that board were appointed to other boards subsequently. Before that scandal came to light, back in July 2002, Nigerians had been shocked when the then Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Godwin Kanu Agabi, filed a nolle prosequi (discontinuance of prosecution) on the day an Abuja High Court was scheduled to deliver judgment in a case of alleged embezzlement of N420 million by Dr. Julius Makanjuola, Obasanjo's relation and a Director at the Ministry of Defence.

And in 2006, Nigerians were similarly shell-shocked over the revelation of massive pillaging at the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) allegedly involving Obasanjo and his Deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. This was to be followed by allegations of Obasanjo's involvements in the Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), which bought over Abuja's NICON Hilton Hotel, the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), and also acquired some oil blocks.

Fr. Kukah's recent call is timely. Nigerians continue till today to endure perennial darkness, with no real clue to the cause of the apparent intractability of the power sector's woes. It is disheartening, in this regard, that like the late President Umaru Yar'Adua, Dr. Jonathan has surrounded himself with some of the key figures that helped ex-President Obasanjo fail so dismally in service delivery. While we commend Jonathan over his appointment of Professor Bath Nnaji as Special Adviser on Power, it must be noted that Mr. Joseph Makoju, a seasoned professional, had held that same position under the Yar'Adua administration and also under the Obasanjo government. In addition, he was PHCN Managing Director for the better part of the latter administration. He ought to be facing intense interrogation over what happened to the alleged misappropriated $16 billion.

And, with discredited functionaries and contractors of the Obasanjo era still hovering around The Presidency and the PHCN, poised to snatch whatever fresh allocations go to the power sector, where is the guarantee that Nigeria will ever have improved electricity supply in the foreseeable future? While we urge the Federal Government to seek out individuals and organizations, locally and abroad, with proven track records in performance and integrity to revive the ailing sector, the issue of the mismanaged billions should not be treated as a 'family affair' of the ruling party. Nigeria's public funds must be accounted for.

Since the National Assembly Probe Committee on the Power scam was itself to be later dragged into the corruption quagmire, we call for a thorough investigation, by the EFCC, into the whereabouts of the vanished power allocations.

The former President, on his part, should cooperate fully with the investigators, in order to clear his name of the strong suspicions surrounding his administration's wasteful disbursement of the $16 billion power sector allocations. There should be no sacred cows, as he used to say while in office. Any preferential treatment of individuals will create the impression that the Nigerian government's commitment to the anti-corruption crusade, economic reform and transparent governance is cosmetic and insincere.

While sleaze in high places thrives, the ordinary citizens' quality of life has remained dismal, infrastructural facilities are decrepit, mass unemployment ravages the land, and poverty sentences the vast majority to a life of unrelieved misery.

benz33: I am sorry for the way every one of you that have abused and insulted this aged man like this. I try to imagine the way some of you have lived their lives and you are here condemning somebody, some of you are rapist, yahoo yahoo boy, thief, fraudster, ritualist, bloody liers, backbiters, and you all comment as if you or your fathers are saint. If your fathers should tell you how he got the money to train most of you, you will all shut up and bury your head in the Pit.

Obasanjo is human like you and bound to make mistakes like anybody, do you think its easy to be a leader without having conflicting policies. You lay so much emphases on his mistakes, looting and so many other things he did not even do...We better appreciate what we have because OBASANJO IS A NIGERIAN AND NOT A BRITISH. Nature of LIFE has given us Leaders like him and we have no choice other than to patch and manage people we have as leaders and also pray for them, so of us here our fathers are not better than this man. Thank You.

SHUT UP. OBJ is scum. Sucking on bush's devil d.ck and killing the poor children of metu with his looting and incompetence.

Very useless man.

Take it or leave it, this man is an icon and the most respected leader Nigeria has ever produced. if in doubt, compare the ratings of nigeria on the continent during OBJ with either Yaradua or Jona.