GenBuhari:

The Nigerian Disaster Called Obasanjo
Posted: October 17, 2010 - 18:22

Olusegun obasanjo
By Naiwu Osahon

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.

GenBuhari: [size=18pt]Obasanjo's corruption and looting lead to his liquidation of Nigeria Airways[/size]
FOR many years, very few people knew the reason for the liquidation of Nigeria Airways. Many were oblivious of intrigues that led to the death of the airline. Many had read the story on the internet and in documented articles.

Last week presented the opportunity for many to know the exact reasons the carrier met its untimely death. The occasion was at a book launch of Oba Olufemi Ogunleye. His book highlights the ills of the aviation industry and efforts made to rescue it. The forum was an occasion to extol the leadership quality of the Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Olusegun Demuren; how he was able, together with all NCAA personnel to give Nigeria a virile aviation industry that had engendered safety.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo whose administration liquidated the airline was in attendance. Also was a former Managing Director of the carrier, Gen. Olu Bajowa (rtd). It was fireworks the as the duo differed on the action that led to the eventual demise of the airline.

Obasanjo held the capacity hall spellbound. He defended his action. He argued that he left 32 aircraft in the fleet of the airline when he left public office in 1979; noting that when he came back as civilian President he was shocked to see only one serviceable aircraft.

He branded many of the chief executives of the airlines as corrupt, explaining that some of them exploited and stole massively from the airline.

According to him, “You will be an irresponsible leader if you have a situation like that and you don’t do anything about it and I did something about it. What I owed Nigeria was for them to be able to move from point A to B.

But Bajowa faulted Obasanjo for his action, stressing that he could not understand the wisdom or decipher the rationale behind the liquidation and eventual sale of Nigeria Airways, adding that as a former chief executive, the airline had enough assets in Nigeria, across the West African sub region, Central and East Africa, the United State and Europe, particularly the United Kingdom to offset whatever volume of liabilities it purportedly incurred.

He posited that the huge resources generated in hard currency from Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) could have been used as subvention from the Ministry of Aviation to help bail out the Nigeria Airways from its indebtedness, or at worst could have entered into business and operational partnership with a mega airline like the British Airways or any other credible world class airline.

To many who listened to Obasanjo, the former President they opined was only trying to play to the gallery to justify one of the worst decisions ever taken by any leader. While it is very true that the airline was oozing with corruption, there would have been better ways to resuscitate the airline.
If Obasanjo claimed that the officials were corrupt, what did he do to prosecute them and to make them pay for their crime? Why was the Justice Obiorah Nwazota panel report not implemented? Why was the white paper on the report not released?

The Nwazota panel heavily indicted top government officials, some of whom were alleged to be financiers of the ruling party in 1999 and 2003. The release of the white paper would have caused confusion in the camp of the party at that time. No wonder a very powerful former Minister of Information once told reporters that those indicted were, ‘role models”. He disclosed that it would be suicidal for government to publish their names or prosecute them.

Obasanjo had all the machinery of the state to bring the corrupt officials to book. Why did he suddenly develop cold feet in a matter that was proven beyond all reasonable doubt that these officials indeed engaged in one of the biggest corruption exercises that saw to the sorry state of the airline? Where were EFCC and ICPC? They obviously looked the other way.

To many right thinking person, the problem of Nigeria Airways was not beyond redemption. Kenya Airways went through the same problem as Airway. What did the Kenyan government do? The government, poised to revive the airline agreed to take over responsibility for the airlines external debt arrears and in October converted $33 million in debt owed it into equity. As a result, long term debt was reduced from $177 million to $49 million and net worth increased to $33million.The privatization of Kenya Airways was the first-ever privatization of an African airline.

The ownership of the East African airline is as follows: Airline partner 20 per cent; Kenya institutions 20 per cent; Kenya Airways staff 10 per cent; Kenya Government 20 per cent and Kenya public 30 per cent. This is a very perfect arrangement for a serious government and people of Kenya.
I have listened to many who said that Nigeria should not be bothered with a national carrier. They based their arguments on the fact that the country has flag carriers that can fit in well to offer same services that a national airline would offer.

I look around my shoulders and I am yet to see any one airline that has that potential to really offer that service. Many of them are just masquerading and pretending to be airlines; the reason Nigeria will always be shortchanged in the global aviation politics.

I advocate for a privatized national airline devoid of total control of government, but one owned by the public. This way, it becomes very difficult for corruption to thrive.

The benefits from privatization depend significantly on how it is carried out. To effectively implement a privatization, policy makers must analyze the macro-economic context; consider appropriate policy sequencing; examine the potential for and attractiveness of different types of investors; estimate the value of the company; establish an effective administrative process.

While there is no universal formula for successful privatization, well-thought out policy is important for ensuring that privatization produces widespread public benefits.

http://5vestartravel..co.uk/2012/03/how-not-to-liquidate-airline-nigeria.html

GenBuhari: [size=28pt]New poll added please participate [/size]

GenBuhari: [size=18pt]Obasanjo looted Treasury to start his Farms[/size]

On Dec. 5th, 2005, the European Union (EU) denied giving Pres. Obasanjo a clean bill of health concerning his anti-corruption credentials. This has dented the saintly image the President has cultivated in the past few years.



Elendureports.com can now reveal, according to documents in our possession, that on August 18, 1973, Brigadier Olusegun Obasanjo, the then Commandant of Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers, registered Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. On October 1979, Gen. Obasanjo retired from the Nigerian Army after ruling the country for three years, following the assassination of Gen. Murtala Mohammed. By 1979, Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. started commercial operations with fifty million naira (N50,000,000.00). Given the exchange rate in 1979, the Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. commenced operations with more than fifty million dollars ($50,000,000.00).



Until 1979, Olusegun Obasanjo had spent his entire professional life in the Nigerian military. The natural question is how did this man who is reputed to have been an honest soldier float a multi-million dollar company without partners? Who bankrolled Obasanjo Farms, Ltd.? What collateral was provided for loans, if financing was raised through a bank?



Under duress from the public, following allegations of corruption against Pres. Obasanjo, his spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode, declared that Obasanjo Farms, Limited, headquartered at the Agbeloba House on Quarry Road, Ibara Abeokuta, Ogun State generates a monthly income of about thirty million Naira (N30,000,000.00)



Obasanjo Farms Ltd. is a success story. Yet, it is not an ordinary success story in the sense that it does not follow the normal patterns of rags to riches; the staple from which typical success stories are made. Elendureports.com was reliably informed that Gen. Obasanjo's pet project as Head of State, "Operation Feed the Nation," was set up as a front to divert resources for the funding of Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. Obasanjo Farms, Ltd., is listed as being engaged in poultry and pig farming, which employees about 3,000 people.



The allegation is that money, heavy-duty machinery, and other materials meant for Operation Feed the Nation were diverted to Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. right from its inception. Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. has a huge abattoir at the back of General Hospital in Otta, Ogun State.



In direct contravention to the Nigerian Constitution, Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo still retains the title of Chairman, Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. This allegation is supported by documents in the possession of Elendureports.com. Other members of the top executive of Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. are Elder Daniel W. Atsu, who is the Managing Director, and Bolarinwa Atilade, who is the Financial Controller. WEMA Bank is the company's major account provider, while it maintains accounts in several other local banks.



Ironically, some elected Nigerian public officials have been dragged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal for operating their businesses while in public service. Recently, the President also warned civil servants to desist from engaging in private businesses.



Soon after the Abacha junta imprisoned Obasanjo on trumped up coup charges, Obasanjo Farms, with operational bases in Owiwi, Igboora, Lanlate and Ibadan, started experiencing a down-turn in fortunes. There is speculation that the Abacha regime discouraged people from patronizing the farm. However, after Obasanjo was released from prison and his subsequent drafting to run for president, the farm saw a resurgence of income. Since 1999, Obasanjo Farms, Ltd. has acquired more assets. For example, the President showed off a huge teak farm to one of his close friends some years ago.



Elendureports.com was authoritatively informed that Obasanjo deposited checks worth millions of Naira meant for his Presidential campaign into various company accounts. There are claims that he did not make this money available to his campaign. As at the time of filing this story no audit of his 1999 campaign organization account has been conducted. A source very close to Pres. Obasanjo said, "Money just flowed in and Baba was just using it as he wanted."



Just recently the former Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Audu Ogbeh, revealed that Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo and his bosom friend, Anthony Anenih, have yet to account for forty billion naira (N40 billion) raised for his 1999 Presidential campaign. Ogbeh insisted that the President, through his Legacy Campaign headquarters, was responsible for appropriating the campaign funds.



Also, Lagos lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi, in recent Court submissions regarding the seven billion naira raised for the Obasanjo Presidential Library, presented evidence linking the President to Bells University and Bells Educational Services, a multi-million dollar institution, wholly owned by Obasanjo Holdings, Ltd.



Contrary to popular belief, President Olusegun Obasanjo has yet to publicly declare his assets. In addition, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has yet to publish its findings regarding allegations of corruption made against the President by Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu. While Nigerians may disagree on almost everything else, it is reasonable to expect that the unanswered question on the minds of the citizenry is: Is the President's anti-corruption war for real or a charade designed to attack opponents, deceive Nigerians and the international community?


The Joint Development Zone (JDZ) is currently the proverbial money tree for the President. The JDZ is a joint venture owned by Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe. This venture is supposed to manage the large deposits of oil in the Gulf of Guinea. The company managing the mapping of the JDZ is PGS, a company whose Nigerian subsidiary is managed by the father-in-law of Obasanjo's second son. Obasanjo's cronies, Emeka Offor and Wahab Folawiyo, also has business interests in the region.

GenBuhari: [size=18pt]Obasanjo has taken Nigeria to lowest level - Chinua Achebe[/size]

WITH less than two months to the end of the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo, world acclaimed author, Professor Chinua Achebe, says the president has taken Nigeria as low as she has ever gone.

Professor Achebe in a statement, The clouds are gathering, from his base, Annandale-on-Houston, New York, said all the talk about the administrations fight against corruption was nothing short of a myth.

Also, Nigerians living in the United Kingdom have sent a letter to President Obasanjo asking him to allow free and fair elections this month.

In Achebe's words: President Olusegun Obasanjo has taken Nigeria as low as she has ever gone. This will surprise foreign friends of Nigeria who may believe the myth that Obasanjo has been fighting to end corruption in the country and to bring democracy to its citizens. Nigerians know better.President Obasanjo has had the opportunity to rule Nigeria for three years (1976-79) as an unelected military dictator and later for two terms of eight years as a retired general/civilian (1999-2007). People dont exactly remember what Obasanjo did in his first civilian incarnation. His second coming, however, was a different matter. He unfolded a gigantic scheme for staying in power beyond his tenure.

He set up agencies with long titles like the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent National Electoral Commission. It soon became clear, however, that these devices were not intended to curb the crimes they enumerated but to go after people who disagree with the President, especially on his desire to extend his tenure.

Perhaps the strangest of these events took place in my own state, Anambra, where a governor was kidnapped by a criminal gang who claimed that they had fixed the election and earned the right to receive the state budgetary allocation.

Whatever the merit of this bizarre story the governor refused to turn over the allocation to these thieves and began to spend it on building roads and bridges which nobody had done in decades. He began to pay pension to retired civil servants who had not been paid in years.

Anambra State was transformed overnight. No where else in Nigeria had such a change happened. Governor Ngige became the peoples governor.
One would have thought that our anti-corruption president, Chief Obasanjo, would have embraced Governor Ngige as a fellow fighter against corruption. But no.

The fellows demanding the state revenue were Obasanjos friends who in anger set about burning down and destroying state property while the Police stood at a distance, watching.
I have told this story again although we all know it. I am retelling it because as it goes with Anambra, so will it go with Nigeria.

As Nigeria gets ready for the election of Governors, Anambra State is in a quandary. President Obasanjo's hatchet man for elections is determined that only one candidate will be allowed to run in the state and has gone ahead to disqualify everybody else so that the President's favourite man will be alone in the field. If this plan goes through, it would amount to nothing less than the disenfranchisement of the people of Anambra State.

I must congratulate the Judiciary on the tough battle many of its members are waging for the soul of Nigeria. The Senate came ever so close to snatching Nigeria out of the fire, and then That was a historic moment lost. What a pity.

Nigerians in UK demand free polls

In their letter entitled: Nigeria and the Dream Of Democracy: Let There Be Free and Fair Elections in Nigeria delivered through the Nigerian High Commissioner in London during a demonstration at the commission yesterday, Nigerians living in the UK wrote: We feel compelled as patriotic Nigerians living in the United Kingdom to write you this letter to express our deep concerns over the situation in our beloved country.

We believe that we have a stake in the Nigerian project and we also believe that Nigerians as a people have already paid a very high price since the time of our independence to the present time in their desire to build a prosperous country where no one is oppressed, as a result of the actions or inactions of our political leaders.

We are mindful that these were views that you shared; looking back at your past comments especially in the time you began organising events of the African Leadership Forum in the 80s and in your various publications, especially in your book, This Animal Called Man. We have no doubt at all that you accepted the call to service this second time around because of your conviction to faithfully serve our fatherland.

We are, however, concerned that your historical comments, statements and expressions of love for the rule of law and advancement of democratic values in Nigeria, nay Africa, have not been evident in the manifest activities of your government since you returned to power in 1999.

Like several other patriotic Nigerians, we longed for the correction of the anomalies in the elections of 1999, an election that was widely acknowledged as lacking transparency and not representing the true will of the people.

It was thought then that this was a military arrangement to finally ease out of power, after the disgraceful events of June 12, 1993 elections and the after shocks of its annulment, the military governments of Generals Ibrahim Babaginda and Sani Abacha. Indeed your comments on these matters led to your being roped into the phantom coup saga, events that we believe have defined your memory of the true meaning of a dictatorial government.

As stated above, post-1999, 2003 was therefore a year of great expectations by all Nigerians who yearned for true democracy untainted by electoral fraud (characterised by vote rigging, intimidation and violence). It has however become accepted history that the 2003 elections were again not a representation of the peoples will as they were marred by political intimidation, violence and most of all, the gross violation of the rights of the Nigerian people to choose their leaders through free and fair elections."