[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

21 May 2006 - The Telegraph (UK newspaper)
[size=18pt]Obasanjo, leads Nigeria to despair[/size]

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.

Dway1: Eh eh!how does this affect the price of food in baba klaz canteen at tedder hall university of ibadan.....put reasonable thing jo..maybe picture of gbemisola osadua next su president

Are you looking for customers/patrons??

money-hungry :
before the evolution into ape....

LWKMD........o boy na die e

showbobo: So what precisely are we to gain or learn from this

dis way better dan shown us pics of dbanjs sister or ojukwus son!

showbobo: So what precisely are we to gain or learn from this

I wonder o!
Maybe we should take the pix to any SHOPRITE Outlet, and they'll allow us free shopping for three days!

[size=13pt]Its amazing how Baba still commands raw admiration. Even people who dont like him cant help but acknowledge that he deserves respect. Call him what you want, the man knows how to be in charge!!!

Up Baba! Nigeria Hails You!!![/size]

.....the chief parishoner of [b]the gang of self-seeking despots [/b]in Nigeria always ready to reduce Nigeria ad the ethnic nationalities to the extension of their private estate e.g.the oil subsidy scams, destroyed refineries, etc. arrogating to themselves the buying agencyship of the nations, of course already mercantilised.....Soon posterity must catch with them

BABA OOO!

showbobo: So what precisely are we to gain or learn from this

Haba na,common. I kinda opened the thread outa curiousity and seeing the picture made me smile but when I saw your comment,it broke my heart. U should learn this dear,lighten up and smile cos it irritates your enemies & those who wish to destroy you!

Worst president in the history of apes.

ebere1712: Worst president in the history of apes.

[size=18pt]16th September 2003 - BBC News
Obasanjo's shame: $15bn (N2,400bn ) feared stolen from Government Pension Fund[/size]
Nigerian authorities have uncovered a huge deficit in the state pension fund, confirming what many unpaid former state workers have feared for years.

Retired civil servants have long complained of non-payment of their pensions, with many forced to queue for days to claim what they are owed,

According to Nigerian government calculations, the shortfall in the state pension fund amounts to at least 2 trillion naira (£9.3bn; $14.8bn).

The revelation is likely to stir suspicions that some of the money may have been misappropriated.

Corruption was a major issue in Nigeria's recent election, which saw won by President Olusegun Obasanjo and his People's Democratic Party (PDP).

'Unfortunate activity'

Experts have not ruled out that some of the money may have been stolen, but there has also been criticism of the pay-as-you-go scheme the state uses to raise pension funds.

"We think there has been some unfortunate activity," Ahmed Mohammed of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund told the BBC's Network Africa.


"This pay-as-you-go scheme has been abandoned in many countries. Payments have not been made on time."

Pensioners regularly travel to Abuja, often camping outside government offices, in the hope of getting some of their money.

Many reacted to the news with dismay.

"I don't have a roof on my head, There is no sign that the government will be able to pay our pensions," said one pensioner.

"The government is fighting against corruption. If the government can't pay this money, then they cannot stop all these things," said another.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-693700.480.html

[size=18pt]Trailing Obasanjo's loot[/size]

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/saharareporters-discovers-trails-objuba-loot
Posted: June 25, 2007 - 01:00


Saharareporters discovers trails of OBJ/Uba loot…Andy Uba screened out of Yar'Adua's ministerial list.

Saharareporters has discovered highly irregular business schemes that beam a light on the methods used by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his former aide, Emmanuel Nnamdi (Andy) Uba to siphon public funds.
Saharareporters investigations have revealed that Obasanjo and Uba used front companies to open foreign accounts into which huge amounts of funds were deposited before they
were then moved out to the Cayman Islands, Jersey and parts of the Carribean.
The schemes involved a Nigerian born British citizen, Lillian Nwoko whose modus operandi was akin to that of Loretta Mabinton, the Portland, Oregon-based attorney who served as a money-laundering front for Andy Uba before she was caught by the US secret service.

Lillian Nwoko similarly helped Andy Uba to register companies in the UK which were then used to open foreign bank accounts for money laundering purposes. Each company was then voluntarily closed. Three of such companies were registered with the address as 259A Grays Inn Road in London, UK.

Lillian Nwoko was named as the secretary in the three companies. The first company, UNIC Securities Limited, was formed in September 2000. Its business was declared as “cargo
handling and business consultancy.” Lillian Nwoko was listed as the secretary. There were two other directors, Ibrahim Hauwa and Dr. Lame Ibrahim Yakubu, fronting for Andy Uba. The two directors gave their address as Plot 1503 Abidjan Street, Wuse Zone 3, Abuja-Nigeria.
The UK company house report indicated that the company did not file any financial reports before it was dissolved in July 2003.

The two other companies, SENTREX Ventures Limited and Fontana Ventures Limited, were incorporated on the same date and have Andy Uba and Lillian Nwoko as the main
directors. Andy Uba used Plot 772 Ibrahim Taiwo Road Asokoro, Abuja as his address. He gave his date of birth as December 14, 1958 and his citizenship as Canadian. Incidentally, Plot 772 Ibrahim Taiwo Road was the same address to which Loretta Mabinton (Andy Uba's lady accomplice in the Portland, Oregon money laundering scandal) shipped the Mercedes Benz she bought for Andy Uba with proceeds of laundered cash brought to the US on former President Obasanjo's presidential jet. The US Secret Service initially confiscated the Mercedes Benz, releasing it only after Uba paid a fine of $26,000.

SENTREX and FONTANA Ventures Limited merely gave the nature of their business as “other businesses.” The two companies, which didn't file any financial reports, were also dissolved in 2003.

A financial fraud expert who asked to remain anonymous told Saharareporters that the formation and dissolution of companies without filing financial statements was “highly suspicious.” The expert, who lives in England, said “such practices are used to avoid detection by the prying eyes of the public.” One source in Abuja told us that the method “is consistent with former president Obasanjo's style of corruption,” adding that the former president’s hidden assets were “in the billions of dollars.”

Meanwhile, Andy Uba appears unable to buy any reprieve from his political misfortunes. On June 14, the Supreme Court kicked Uba out of the governorship seat he usurped in Anambra, ruling that incumbent Governor Peter Obi has the constitutional mandate to remain in office till March 2010.

Following his judicial defeat, Uba reportedly hopped in his multi-million dollar Gulf Stream private jet and flew to see Obasanjo in Ota to bemoan his ordeal.
Obasanjo reportedly sent him to see Umar Musa Yar'adua to make a case for his inclusion in the yet-to-be formed cabinet.

If Andy Uba seriously expected to get a ministerial spot, he was in for a huge disappointment. Yar'adua refused to see him, instead directing that Secretary to the Government Baba Gana Kingibe meet with him to discuss his concerns. When Andy met with Kingibe the next day, he was confronted with the government’s concern that he bought a house within the premises of the Presidential Villa that houses some security gadgets meant to safeguard the Villa.

Broaching the issue of his ministerial appointment, Uba told Kingibe that he wished to withdraw the name of his brother and former Senator Ugochukwu Uba, one of two names he had nominated for ministerial appointment. Uba’s other nominee is Jerry Ugokwe. In place of his brother, he told Kingibe, he now wanted to put in his name.

According to our source, Senator Uba’s nomination was already troubled even before Andy Uba’s attempt to remove his brother’s name. Yar’Adua’s closest advisers had counseled against rewarding Ugochukwu Uba who was implicated in bribing two of the three judges of the Federal Court of Appeal assigned to determine whether he was the rightful winner of a senatorial seat in 2003. The bribery charges came to light after the two judges read a majority verdict that gave the contested seat to Senator Uba. The two judges were subsequently
dismissed from the bench.

As soon Andy Uba finished making a case for a ministerial position, Kingibe told him that he must head for the PDP secretariat to tell the press that he has accepted the judgment of the Supreme Court. The secretary to the government made it clear that Uba’s public acceptance of the verdict was a precondition for responding to his request. Kingibe also asked that Andy Uba give him time to consult with Umar Musa Yar'adua.

By the time Andy Uba returned from the Wadata Plaza headquarters of the PDP, Baba Gana Kingibe asked him to furnish his office with certified copies of his degree certificates. Our source said Uba was stunned by the demand, and seemed to realize that his ministerial dreams had been torpedoed. Investigations by Saharareporters had revealed that Uba, who claims
to hold a PhD in science, has lied about his academic qualifications. He does not have even a first degree.
When Kingibe insisted that hard copies of his degrees would be required to consider him for any ministerial appointment, Uba replied that an Abuja High court headed by Justice Babs Kewunmi had already ruled in his favor in a case inspired by his certificate scam. Unimpressed, Baba Gana Kingibe told Andy Uba that degrees are issued by universities, not courts.

A forlorn Uba was said to have explored the possibility of becoming the chairman of the ruling party since the position has been zoned to the southeast zone. Kingibe then made it clear that the government was unlikely to support his chairmanship bid, citing his unresolved controversies. After the meeting, Uba hurriedly left Abuja for the Southeast where he tried to rally his supporters with a pep talk. He also used the occasion to settle hotel bills and other debts incurred by his numerous hangers-on in various hotels and restaurants. Uba’s campaign had attracted many such hangers-on, many of them US-based “expatriates” and “consultants” who relocated to Awka in the hope of making quick money off of Andy Uba. Uba, who bragged that he was going to transform Anambra State, put his parasitic praise singers in hotels and encouraged to hang around until he settled in as “governor.”

With the Supreme Court kicking him out last week, he is reported to be anxious to cut his dependents loose.

[size=18pt]Obasanjo's massive corruption[/size]

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/corruption-jibe-et-tu-obasanjo/

The facts of Obasanjo’s corruption are difficult to hide. Indeed, the list is endless as the the nation’s treasury was looted with impunity, the Constitution violated without respect for the rule of law and due process. The following are a few instances:

Massive fraud involving over N3.5 trillion in the oil and gas sector, sale of Abuja houses, communications and the power sector of the economy.

Obasanjo was alleged to have illegally withdrawn as much as N231.4 billion from the Federation Account without due process or authorization from the National Assembly (Daily Sun of Thursday, February 5, 2009).

The Ad-Hoc Committee set up by the House of Representatives to probe the activities of the NNPC between 1999 and 2008, indicted Obasanjo and former MD of the Corporation, Mr. Funso Kupolokun, for violating the guidelines for the respective bid rounds, thereby finding them guilty of “preferential treatment of winners at the conclusion of the bid rounds”.

Obasanjo illegally approved the withdrawal of $68.8 million from the Bilateral Air Service Agreement, BASA, Fund into which a total sum of $86 million was paid.

A Senate Joint Committee, headed by Senator Abubakar Sodangi revealed that the plot of land originally belonging to the defunct National Primary Education Commission (allocated in December, 2005 to Inter-Projects Association Limited which immediately commenced development), was illegally allocated to Obasanjo Farms Limited, on May 28, 2007, a day before Obasanjo handed over power to the late President Yar’Adua.

Two Abuja lawyers sued Obasanjo and the Code of Conduct Bureau for mismanaging over N1.2 billion belonging to the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF.

Nuhu Ribadu, former EFCC Chairman, who fought his personal battles, was promoted by the former President without any recommendation from the Police Service Commission, thereby violating due process.

In the power sector alone, Obasanjo and his cronies bleached out a staggering $16 billion without anything to show for it. Also, N16 billion was paid to some 34 unregistered companies to execute projects under the National Integrated Power Project, NIPP.

In the oil sector, where Obasanjo was the Minister, the corruption stench was even more disturbing. He handed out oil blocks and other favours to whomever he pleased without recourse to laid down rules.

Obasanjo allegedly sold the country’s refineries at give-away prices. The Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries were both sold for $750 million, far below their actual worth.

Using the vantage position of his authoritarian presidency and awesome state power, Obasanjo organised the launching of a personal N7 billion Presidential Library Project in Abeokuta and coerced state governors and local government chairmen to make donations.

For his own pecuniary interest, Obasanjo coupled a so-called Transcorp conglomerate and sold Nigeria’s prime assets to this group where he kept a personal N200 million worth of shares in the blind.

During the Obasanjo years, there were fraudulent payments made on railway projects worth N8.3 billion, including the lines running from Lagos to Kano with tributaries.

He was mentioned in fraud and contract manipulations with Siemens, Wilbross and Hallibuton.

[size=18pt]Obasanjo’s Administration Most Corrupt – Aturu[/size]

This Day (Lagos)

INTERVIEW
5 December 2007

By Philip Ogunmade
Lagos

Despite the recurrent noise of anti-corruption campaign across the country, Nigeria’s involvement in corruption has continued to be on the hype, with consecutive outbreak of scandals involving Nigerian leaders on the global scene. In this interview with Philip Ogunmade, human rights crusader and Chairman of the Council of Industrial Lawyers, Mr. Bamidele Aturu spoke on why corruption persists and why the anti-graft war must be intensified

Recently, the United Nations (UN) appraised the anti-graft war in Nigeria and noted that the country’s image was now better. But ironically, in the last one month, there has been an outbreak of three scandals, namely: the Wilbros scandal in the United States, the Dan Etete scandal in France and Siemens scandal in Germany. What do you think this portends for Nigeria’s image?



I think we have not had enough of those scandals. And those scandals are nothing but the tip of the iceberg because our ruling class is a terribly backward and corrupt class. It is backward because it is a class that does not believe in developing the society. It does not believe in creating infrastructural basis for development. It is also backward because it has helped hook, line and sinker, developmental strategies and blueprints from the West in an uncritical fashion. Because it is also backward, it plays a very peripheral role in international capitalist system. So, what it means is that because it is not a productive class, it is a class that believes in speculation, a class that believes in idling away, a class that believes in making easy money.

When you have such a class, you then have this tendency. That tendency is that the class will then begin to engage in what you call primitive accumulation. The only way it can begin to enjoy a semblance that its counterparts in Europe and advanced societies enjoy is to steal money. That is what I call primitive accumulation. And that is why I said our ruling class is a very backward class. It is a lazy class and it is a class of looters.

So, you are just getting some of these revelations. You will still get more. The UN or whatever you said gave Nigeria a clean bill of health, didn’t understand that the code of capitalism which tries to pretend that people should not steal money has not been imbibed by our ruling class and they are probably looking at the force and the essence of capitalism development in Nigeria or maybe they were also trying to deceive our people to think that capitalism is a good way forward for our people. But I tell you that we have not even heard anything yet because don’t forget that particularly this Siemens scandal didn’t happen this year. This is a thing that happened maybe about three or four years ago. And then, you have had some trials in foreign courts. They are still many. As I am talking to you, people are stealing money. People are still collecting bribe because that is the only way this class can function in their own way of thinking.

It is a very lazy and backward class. They don’t produce anything. That is why all our production companies have almost collapsed. Many of them are operating at less than 30 per cent capacity. Yet you see them buying new cars, buying flashy cars, building new houses, buying new houses worth N100 million. These are people who have no means of livelihood. So that is the kind of class that you are dealing with. That is why many of them cannot but become politicians. Politics for them is another profession because they go to the place, steal money and they will collect estacode.

They will collect allowances. They will live the life of opulence that has no bearing with their contributions to our society.

So, the Wilbross scandal, the Siemens, Etete’s scandals are parts of the same sleaze that you find among our leaders. So, the only way you can deal with this is for us to do a comprehensive audit, comprehensive probe and to allow the (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) EFCC to do its work. For example, I’m beginning to now see justification to explain their lifestyles. If you see a boy of 18 years who is riding the best car in town, building the best houses in town, the onus should be on him to explain how he came about such stupendous wealth. So, I tell you, we need to take this as a critical matter.

And the fact that these things happened during the last regime that claimed that it was fighting corruption, is quite revealing. That tells you that no corruption was fought by (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo. In fact, his government is now going down in history as the most corrupt administration in Nigeria. So, that is the big problem and that tells you that people who tell you that they are fighting corruption; people who tell you that they are doing rule of law are doing practically the opposite. So, our people must then see that the responsibility is on them to insist that those who connected remotely or directly with these scandals are brought to justice; they are prosecuted and we allow the rule of law to take its course.

How do you think the prosecution of those involved in these scandals can be meaningfully achieved when the EFCC, perceived as the most vibrant anti-corruption agency, seems to have gone moribund especially since the Attorney General of the Federation has stripped the agency of its independence. The EFCC can no longer make decisions of its own, neither can it embark on any move to arrest suspects without going through rigorous protocol in the AGF’s office?

The war against corruption is a very serious war. And I think nobody should be under the illusion that it would be an easy war or that those people who are corrupt will not fight back one way or the other. And they will fight back in many ways. They will fight back in different perspectives, using different methods. So, what you are finding out is that those who looted our treasury, have by that reason, come in contact with enormous wealth and also by that reason, have become very powerful, mobilising people who out of poverty, or who out of nothing to do, or who out of just ignorance are supporting them to fight the war against the war against corruption. So, there are two wars.The war against corruption is going on and also the war against the war against corruption.

Now, which one will be victorious at the end of the day, will depend not on just the Attorney General or the EFCC alone, but on what the people of Nigeria themselves want; what the civil societies want and that is what the press wants. And that is why I said that I have come in conjunction in our history where everybody, particularly those people who have no stake in corruption, must stand up and say, ‘look, enough is enough, we are going to wage war against corruption in Nigeria’ and the way to do that is to, through our own organisations, issue statements, do protests as some people went to do protest in EFCC against General Obasanjo. I think this is the kind of thing that we want. We must make Nigeria ungovernable for those who want to steal. We must make Nigeria a hot place for those who stole and are trying to defend the basis of their crimes. Until this is done, I tell you, the war cannot be won.

So, I don’t think the EFCC has become moribund. I don’t think the EFCC has become powerless. What I will say rather, is that the EFCC has a lot of logistic problems. That is all. Look, to fight this war can also be very overwhelming in a way that it may also be right to say that ‘well, we need to enhance the capacity of the EFCC to do this battle in the sense that we are talking about 36 states of the federation. Almost all of them without exception, particularly the governors of the last regime – 2003 – 2007; almost all of them were accused of corruption. There are petitions against all of them. The EFCC itself said it had unearthed several of such allegations against some of these people and had evidence. Now the EFCC with the way it is today, does not have the logistic basis to prosecute all of them at once.

That is why, we must insist even in this budget, I am surprised, I didn’t see enough money budgeted for the EFCC. I expect that government should budget enough money because if you are going to fight corruption, the EFCC has proven to be the arrow head of the fight against corruption. There was also a time that I had my own quarrels with them, which was also publicised because I insisted then that we must follow the rule of law. But I think that today, everybody agrees that the EFCC is trying to do things according to the rule of law. Look at the example of the Delta case, the Ibori case, where the man went and got a very funny exparte order. But the EFCC did the right thing. They got lawyers to vacate that order. That is how it should be done and that means that the EFCC cannot be accused of not following the rule of law. Now, the EFCC is pursuing the path of rule of law and constitutionalism.

Every Nigerian must support the EFCC, must support that organisation, must support that position and government itself must support the organisation by making adequate budgetary allocation for it, by giving it moral support in the sense that I expect that the President of this country should make it known to everybody, his associates and those who sponsored his election and whoever, that ‘look, the EFCC has come to stay’ and that he will give the EFCC maximum co-operation because it is the only way we can rid Nigeria off corrupt elements.

To prosecute governors across the 36 states will involve a lot of money. It will involve you briefing lawyers from different parts of the country. It will involve you sending your security operatives and agents to almost all the states. It will involve analysis of documents and this is going to take time.

So, as a people, we must try to enhance the capacity of the EFCC to deliver more blows against the corrupt people. So, I said it before that there is no dilemma between the rule of law and the fight against corruption. Both of them can go on simultaneously.

In fact, both of them should be done simultaneously because I have always said this that it is only when you respect the rule of law that those who are eventually jailed will understand that they cannot go to people and say ‘it is because you don’t like my face.’ But the way Obasanjo was waging his own war, the man was doing selective justice and so, the stigma that will come from that process will not be there because the idea of sending somebody to jail is that when he comes out, people should say, ‘look at this man, he is an ex-prisoner.’ But in the case of somebody who says ‘he sent me to jail because he didn’t like my face,’ when he comes back, his people will organise civic reception for him as they did for (DSP) Alamieyeseigha because some thought whether they liked it or not, that the man was being victimised. That was why I kept saying that we must do things right.

So, I tell you that in this war, we must support (Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission) ICPC. We must support the EFCC. You can imagine. Many people are working honourably. Many people are sweating, earning their salaries, making ends meet, yet some bandits, some hoodlums, who claim they are governors will just go and dip their dirty hands in the collective tea of the nation. That is worse than armed robbery.

So, I insist that in the Wilbros’ and Siemens’ scandals, it is not just the National Assembly or the ICPC just inviting people for interrogation. I expected that by now, that the Attorney General of the Federation must be prosecuting people. Some people will say, ‘we need evidence, we need evidence.’ That is true. We need evidence. We have had how many days that this scandal broke now? There are reported judgments in foreign countries which can be a basis for us to act. If in the next one or two weeks, if they are not prosecuting them, something is wrong somewhere. It is not just for you to go and tell the ICPC, ‘this is what I did and that.’ No, no, no. These guys must be prosecuted. This is what has run this country down. The roads are bad today. Vehicles can’t pass through the roads. Hospitals have become worse than mortuaries that people don’t go there. Many people are now having all sorts of terminal diseases because they diagnose their diseases to be a result of buying fake drugs and all of that.

The truth is that not many people want to do fake businesses or sell fake drugs but because they don’t have jobs, and you trace this at the end of the day to somebody stealing money. So, we insist that these guys must be prosecuted. Let the court set them free or jail them. Whoever the court sets free, we agree. And even when the court sets them free, we expect appeals from the Attorney General. We need to sanitise our country. We need to make corruption very expensive.

I asked this question earlier. What do you think is the adverse effect of these scandals at the international scene on the image of Nigeria?

These people have rubbished our image. And it didn’t start yesterday. It started many years back when those who came to power started thinking that being in power also meant privatising the state, privatising the resources of the state. One, the governors even made a comment that if you find government’s money in Government House, it didn’t matter whether it got there through the procedure or not. What is important for them is that they think they have come to personalize the state and so they could do what they like and so the culture of impunity came in.

People did what they liked. So, the image of Nigeria has been battered by the activities of our leaders who steal our money and until we begin to deal with them, impose maximum punishment for these crimes, to dissuade others from doing that, to deter others from following their footsteps, our image will remain for so long battered. It is true that not many serious foreigners will want to take Nigerians as a honest person and you cannot blame them because if you hear about three scandals in one month, if you hear about a country that has oil, that God has blessed so much, yet we can’t have decent public primary schools, then of course, they must continue to be wary of Nigerians. So, it is true as far as people are concerned, that this is a thoroughly corrupt country, a society where almost everybody is greedy until he can prove otherwise.

[size=24pt]Obasanjo's destruction of Nigeria[/size]
These are the rulers of Nigeria up till date: Nnamdi Azikwe/Tafawa Balewa tandem, Aguiyi Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari, Mohamadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida,Ernest Shonekan, Sani Abacha, Abdusallam Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo and Musa Yar’Adua.

Of all these rulers, who has done the most to destroy Nigeria? The answer may vary and it may also depend on whom you ask. This piece has become necessary to answer some questions raised by my previous article “Obasanjo: A digbolugi in the House?” These are my answers to those questions raised as to why Obasanjo is a bonafide “digbolugi.”

I am in agreement with so many commentators on the Nigerian issues that no one man can be solely responsible for the destruction of a country like Nigeria. I also agree that no one can bear all the blame of what has been going wrong and what is presently wrong with Nigeria. But I am very convinced that it is very “establishable” that one man can play more roles than the others.

In my estimation, Olusegun Obasanjo has done more than any past or present rulers of Nigeria to destroy the country. It would be unfair to assume that Obasanjo did not achieve anything in his eight years during his second coming. But the way I see it is like a child who sat for a test and gets 18%. Obasanjo got some marks for his efforts, but he failed woefully.

Here are the kernels of my case not in order of importance or chronology:

It is a matter of public secret that during the trial of Major Buka Suka Dimka who led the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, it was Obasanjo who reportedly arm-twisted General Theophelus Yakubu Danjuma not to try Ibrahim Babangida for his treachery against the nation for allowing Major Dimka to escape from the Radio Station. How Major Dimka was able to do that without firing a single bullet when Babangida was commanding several mechanized armoured vehicles is anybody's imagination. Yet, Obasanjo overlooked such an act against the nation. This is TREASON.



In the days leading to the elections of the 2nd republic - Obasanjo told Nigerians that they should not vote for the best man who was qualified for the job in Obafemi Awolowo, though he did not mention the latter by name, but every Nigerian knew what he meant. Anyone would think that any patriotic Nigerian would want the best for his or her country, but not Obasanjo. He wanted the worst in Shehu Shagari, imposed him on Nigeria and Nigeria has never been the same since then. This is TREASON.



Murtala Mohammend initially did not believe in Nigeria. He became converted after serving with Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Gowon’s cabinet. Late Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia attested publicly to this saying that all the great achievements he had in then Bendel State as governor was because of the “guidance” of Awolowo. He said he was expression the “overwhelming view” of the Cabinet members who served during that span of time. Obasanjo had resented this for reasons I have been advised not to make public for now. Ebenezer Babatope had publicly challenged Olusegun Obasanjo to deny it if he did not try to convince Murtala Mohammed to do everything to prevent Obafemi Awolowo from becoming the elected President of Nigeria. It was reported that Murtala was skeptical of Obasanjo’s motive. Obasanjo has not had the gut to deny this allegation up till today. It is one of several pointers why Obasanjo has dragged Nigeria to this tragic state by his actions. If he has the guts, he can still come out to deny and we can go from there. Murtala may be dead, but other actors are still alive to bear testimonies.



The subversion of the Nigerian constitution and law is an act of TREASON. This is exactly what Obasanjo did in 1979 when he changed the rules in the middle of the game, without recourse to the people or any institution, removed a clause, in the middle of the night, from the constitution that prescribed ELECTORAL COLLEGE to determine a winner if none of the candidates meet the constitutional requirement in the first ballot.



e. When the issue was taken to Court based on the abracadabra mathematics of Richard Akinjide, Obasanjo violated another rule of impartiality. He removed the Chief Judge of the Federation, Justice Teslim Elias just days before the case was to be heard and installed one of his henchmen, Justice Fatai Williams who carried out the predetermined outcome of the case.



f. Obasanjo is the one who destroyed the Nigerian Tertiary Education by summarily taking over the University of Ife, Ile – Ife; University of Nigeria,Nsukka; University of Benin, Benin and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The objective is to help thwart the educational progress of the South in favour of the North. His henchman is retired Colonel Ahmadu Ali who later became his hatchet man to destroy the PDP as its national chairman.



Obasanjo was the first ruler in Nigerian history to borrow money when Nigeria did not need it from the roguish International Monetary Fund. At the time he did it in 1978, Nigeria had about 50 billion dollars in Foreign Account. One would like to ask the purpose of that borrowing if not to steal through the backdoor. It has been alleged that he diverted some of the IMF money to found his Otta Fams. His Operation Feed the Nation Policy was also alleged to be a cocoon of deceit preparatory to his returning to Otta as a farmer. Whatever the case was, it was evident that for him to accomplish borrowing of that IMF fund, he sacrificed Nigerian children's right to tertiary education, and instituted tuition fees in our universities. When the Nigerian students embarked on a peaceful demonstration to make their case, he asked his police to shoot them. That era was known in the Nigerian lexicon of infamy as "Ali Must Go" crisis. Thus by giving up Nigerian interest for that of the IMF and its foreign backers, Obasanjo committed TREASON.



h. As a result of the Obasanjo sell out of Nigeria to IMF, he became the first Nigeria ruler to devalue our currency which the Shehu Sahagari administration later worsened. Even during the Civil War, a crisis situation, the currency was steady. That devaluation to satisfy the IMF was never done with Nigeria’s interest as the motive.



i. Obasanjo is the one as Head of State who forcibly stole the land from the people of Nigeria with his 1978 Land Decree to pave the way for other crimes against Nigerian peasants and farmers. Others have alleged that this also has to do with his establishing his Ota Farms. This decision was the root of the Bakolori Massacre in the early 1980s in Sokoto. I use the words “forcibly stole” because this policy was not arrived at through democratic process but through Military fiat.



j. It was Olusegun Obasanjo and his hatchet man, Professor Aboyade that nailed the financial coffins of the Southern States prepared by Murtala Mohammed to assuage the Northern States. This was through the Aboyade Technical Commission, which recommended the removal of the remaining 20% of the rents and royalties enjoyed by the Niger Delta after Murtala Mohammed had initially slashed it from 45% in 1975.



It was Obasanjo who supervised the imposition of the first unelected Senate President Adolphus Wabara, in Nigerian history because of interests that has nothing to do with the Nigerian people. This is a subversion of electoral process, a subversion of our constitution and a TREASONABLE act against the nation.



If you lead or rule a people, supposedly, you look after their interests, preserve and protect them. Obasanjo has refused to do this for the people of the Niger Delta. He refused to meet them. He refused to listen to them. He refused to consider their pains. He sides with foreign interests represented by Shell, Chevron/Texaco and others against that of Nigerians in Niger Delta. When they complain, he sends soldiers to go and shoot them at sight. When he felt the soldiers were not killing them enough, he wanted to bring in the American marines. This is TREASON. And now, he will go down in History as the ruler of Nigeria after independence, under whose civilian armed struggle against injustice reared its head again after the “Agbekoya” revolution of the 1960s



By April 2004, Obasanjo has succeeded to be the first ruler in history of Nigeria to dole out Nigerian land and people in Bakassi to a foreign country. Sani Abacha, as deranged as he was would not have allowed that to happen. If this is not TREASON, I do not know what it is. I have not heard or read about any leader of any country in World History who would gleefully cede part of his country without any second thought.



n. Obasanjo is the Nigeria ruler who destroyed Nigeria’s secularism. He personally put Sharia in the 1979 Constitution (at least he said this much during his BBC interview, though not that this was unknown before then)without consultation and against the wish of the Constitution Drafting Committee which he himself put together under the chairmanship of Chief Rotimi Williams. The effects of this treachery is still a pain in the neck for Nigeria stability up till today.



Hear President Obasanjo on Sharia applications in September 2002 :



"The fact that people get worried about Sharia, I am not worried about
it, it affects investments into the country."



If I understand the former president very well what he is saying here is that Sharia worries a lot of people who hold back their investments because of it, and this not withstanding, Obasanjo is not worried about it! This is TREASON by NEGLIGENCE. Can any of Obasanjo's apologists convince me that this is a responsible statement from someone entrusted with the welfare of “our” nation? If Obasanjo could be so intellectually limited not to understand the meanings and implications of such statement, he deserves not just serious pity but profound rebuke.



n.
During his first six years in office, Obasanjo spent 512 days - a year and four

months - on hundreds of foreign trips. Obasanjo’s supporters argued that he was trying to convince the creditors to forgive some of our debts. In my opinion, he was not doing Nigeria any favour, he started the borrowing spree any way. Even then, the modalities for the accomplishment of the objective have been questioned for lack of integrity and clarity.



o.
The massacre of innocent citizens in Zaki Biam and Odi, without recourse to their legitimate feelings and grievances.

p.
The “give away” euphemized as “sale” of Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries to his cronnies. This has already been reversed by Umar Yar’Adua.

q.
Selective waiver on import duties to his friends and cronnies; (the Redeem leader Adeboye’s example). Also a policy already reversed by Yar’adua.

r.
Have a look at this incomplete list of victims of assassinations under Obasanjo out of which not a single one was solved in the entire 8 years of his tenure - Chief Bola Ige (Attorney General of the Federation); Dr. Marshall Harry (ANPP National Vice Chairman for South-South); Chief Ogbonnaya Uche (ANPP's Senatorial candidate for Orlu Imo State); Mr Theodore Agwatu (Principal Secretary to Imo State Governor); Hon. Odunayo Olagbaju (Member of Osun State House of Assembly);Hon. Uche Nwoke (ANPP Senatorial candidate in Imo State); Hon. Monday Ndor (Member of Rivers State House of Assembly); Dr. Ayodeji Daramola, gurbernatorial candidate in Ekiti State; Ahmed Ahman Pategi (State Chairman of Kwara PDP); Hon Schnapps Omuvwiebese (Councilor, Ughelli - North LG, Delta State); Mr. Funsho Williams, PDP governoship aspirant in Lagos; Mr. Barnabas Igwe (Anambra State Bar Association, Chairman) and his wife, Mrs. Abigail Igwe; Mr. Sunday Ugwu, Mrs. Janet Olapade among many others. Readers should remember that Tafa Balogun has impliedly alleged that he was subjected to Ribadu’s rage by OBJ because he refused to carry out the requested elimination of a former PDP chairman! Reliable sources have confirmed that the only reason Balogun had to spend 6 months in EFCC guest houses as opposed to long time imprisonment and deprivation of all the stolen billions was to prevent him from spilling his guts out.

s.
His refusal to give Lagos State its entitlement in financial allocation for several years and in violation of repeated court orders. If Lagos State did not have the means to survive as a rich State, it is better imagined the kind of sorrow and sadness that would have been brought to bear on the people of the State. Obasanjo did not care about decency, etiquette, decorum or self restraint required of a leader in position of responsibility. He was and still is unruly, a thug and above all a “digbolugi” ex-president. He gave Chief Bola Tinubu undeserved credibility and reasons to be forgiven his non-performance.

t.
He behaved like a thug and bandit through out his tenure and he is still behaving the same way out of the office. This is manifested in repeated violation of several Court orders. Cases involving Lagos State, Vice President Atiku and Anambra State are examples.

u.
Allowed Charles Taylor, the Liberian war criminal to stay in Nigeria in opulence.

v.
He subverted the will of Nigerian’s again by denying them the clamour for SNC to honestly and sincerely look at the structure of Nigeria, resource control, cultural and social issues and as an opportunity to self determine. He organized a kangaroo one instead.



w.
He arm-twisted officials of Nigerian state to raise 7 billion naira for his personal library. This is abuse of power.

x.
He is reportedly worth 25billion Naira in 2007 from his savings of about 20,000 naira in 1999. The issue of Transcorp LLC is still out there. He reportedly bought a farm settlement in Oyo State. He recently moved into a new house. I do not grudge him for this, since I have a couple of mansions myself. But I like to know how he came about this stupendous wealth in which he now revels. How much was his monthly salary for 8 years? Where did the billions come from?

y.
Finally, he organized the worst election in Nigeria’s history in 2003. One of the Governors rigged in then actually admitted this. The governor was upset with INEC’s Iwu for doing a “sloppy job” in this regard in not aligning his total number of votes to that of Obasanjo as President in his state in 2003. Obasanjo improved on this record of worst elections in Nigeria, in 2007.

z.
On top of all the above, add his uncouth public behaviors and pronouncements. Recall his insulting a Priest publicly (even though I am not a fan of Christianity and its adherents); his insult on the injury of the Lagos bomb explosion victims. Rather than showing understanding and sympathy with them he reportedly rebuked them saying "shut up. I took the opportunity of being here to see what could be done I don’t need to be here". (Vanguard, 29th January, 2002). Add to this his deliberate effort to create disharmony in Yorubaland through his revision of Yoruba History as related to Owu.


I like to state here that based on my understanding of the contemporary Nigerian history it is my view that without Obasanjo’s TREACHERY against the people of Nigeria, there would have been no President Shehu Shagari or General Mohammadu Buhari that followed him. Without the BETRAYAL of Nigeria by Olusegun Obasanjo there would have been no Military President Ibrahim Babangida and the Head of Government Ernest Shonekan that followed him. Without the TREASONABLE ACTS of Olusegun Obasanjo against the Nigeria State, there would not have been Head of State, Sani Abacha and Abdulsallami Abubakar that followed him. Yes, there would not have been Obasanjo’s second coming to finish the destruction he started.

I do not like Theophelus Yakubu Danjuma. He is the confessed murderer of Adekunle Fajuyi and Aguiyi Ironsi. He also gave the orders to the “Unknown Soldiers” under Olusegun Obasanjo whom he helped to install, to murder the foremost nationalist, Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, mother of Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, Dr. Bekololari Ransome Kuti and Baba Africa, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. But despite his criminal tendency to kill innocent peoples, he seemed to believe in fairness to a certain degree.

It was Danjuma who insisted that Obasanjo as Number 2 under Murtala Mohammed ought to be the one to take over after the later was assassinated. But to Danjuma’s dismay, Obasanjo allowed Ibrahim Babangida to go free after his (IBB’s) role in the assassination of Murtala. IBB’s act was his inability to explain the escape of Lt. Col. B. S. Dimka from Radio Nigeria without firing a single shot if he (IBB) was not in the know of the coup while he was commanding armoured vehicles that stormed the station when the coup failed. This is why Danjuma and IBB are not friends till today.

I had the temptation to equally blame Yakubu Danjuma too for the woes of Nigeria for helping Obasanjo to take reigns of power. But the fact that he never sat on that seat as a ruler of Nigeria gave him a lesser level of responsibility and culpability as Obasanjo had. The fact that they fell apart when Obasanjo became untamable wild animal in Aso Rock is evident that Obasanjo always did what he wanted without regard to what others think or what is desirable. One can be assisted to get a job, but he can not be assisted to do it.

If Obasanjo did not allow IBB who committed treason against Nigeria to live, Nigeria would have been saved the 8 agonizing years of his rule. Rather according to Ebenezer Babatope in his “NOT HIS WILL: The Awolowo-Obasanjo Wager” Obasanjo without remorse cast a deciding vote to kill an innocent man whose participation in the coup could not be conclusively proved.

But this is not the only reason Obasanjo is responsible for the locust years of IBB as Nigeria’s ruler. By forcibly imposing Shagari on Nigeria, he pre-planned the coming of Buhari and Babangida and as such he is responsible for the damages they have all collectively done to Nigeria. Shagari created the condition to invite Buhari’s iron rule and bias that led to the advent of smiling self proclaimed “Evil - Genius” in IBB.

Apart from being responsible for the havoc Babangida has inflicted on Nigeria, I also believe that he is responsible for the inflictions of Sani Abacha on Nigeria. These are my reasons:

If Obasanjo, knowing fully that IBB is a traitor to the Nigerian State, had allowed the law to take its course, there would be no IBB today and the course of Nigeria’s history would have been different. But he subverted the law to preserve IBB who in the course of his continued treachery against Nigeria promised fake elections until he was cornered during the June 12 imbroglio.

While the crisis of June 12 was on, he (OBJ) went to Nairobi where he declared that M.K.O. Abiola was “not the Messiah Nigeria is looking for.” Then shortly after his return, a meeting was held at his Ota Farm. At this meeting in his house attended by General Mohamadu Buhari, General Tunde Idiagbon, General Alani Akinrinade, Mrs. Titi Ajanaku and many others. My then Editor-In –Chief, Mr. Bayo Onanuga also received invitation to this meeting. They were there to see how the problem of Abiola’s mandate should be resolved. In the course of his contribution, General Buhari had reportedly referred to Abiola as “my president.” He would be the second person during the meeting to do so, the first person being General Idiagbon. Obasanjo had flared up over this saying that Abiola was not his president and that no one should call him “president” in his (Obasanjo’s) house. He had gone ahead to add that he was “not prepared to fight another civil war.”

This last statement was said to have infuriated General Akinrinade who said that if there has to be another Civil War “so be it.” He was said to have rebuked Obasanjo for his cowardice and for supporting injustice because of his spinelessness. Obasanjo did not take kindly to this, so he went ahead to conspire with IBB to install Shonekan, thus preparing the way for the coming of General Sani Abacha.

It has been reported in some quarters that one of the reasons why Abacha roped in Obasanjo for the phantom coup was because he (Abacha) blamed him(Obasanjo) for not allowing IBB to hand over to him. He believed that Shonekan was recommended by Obasanjo as opposed to him.

With Ernest Shonekan, who was generally seen as a traitor across the board, the nation’s crisis deepened. For the 82 days of his inaction, the context was ripe for an ambitious General Sani Abacha who promptly removed General Dongoyaro on assumption of power. Dongoyaro had initially refused to cooperate with him (Abacha) in removing IBB from power shortly before the installation of Shonekan as Interim Head of State.

In order not to lose focus of the point under consideration, readers should look at the chain of events from Obasanjo to making possible the coming of IBB, through the imposition of Shagari and its corollary in Buhari dictatorship. OBJ’s open collaboration to deliberately frustrate the June 12 mandate (this is not to suggest he is the only culprit in this treachery), and creating the conducive atmosphere for Abacha to step in, make him(OBJ) responsible for the sins of Abacha.

Though, he eventually survived the punishment Abacha planned for him, which in retrospect would have served him (OBJ) well, his second coming is a litany of woes for the Nigerian nation. Some of them are included in the list above and the rest are too current to warrant regurgitation here.

In conclusion out of 47 years of Nigeria’s Statehood, Obasanjo’s acts of omission and commission have negatively ricocheted and haunted for 22 years (1975 -2007) and will definitely do so for several years to come, except if there is a miracle. The evidence of this is the imposition of the Umar Yar’Adua as the president, just like he did Shehu Shagari. Nigerians will regret for a very long time that first day that Obasanjo stepped on the national stage, because the consequences of Yar’Adua Presidency which he once again imposed is going to be dire for the tottering country. I know you have heard about Ribadu’s exit. Illegitimacy can not bring forth any legitimacy. This is the way events are indicating. This is the way History is pointing. This is what can only be. Three plus three has to equal six. If you get any other result, then jibiti or 419 is involved. This is because you can not plant onions and reap tomatoes.

From the foregoing, I can not but submit that Matthew Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo-Onyejekwe has done more than anyone to bring Nigeria to the present tragic state.

As a bonafide son of Oodua myself, I cannot point to anything of note or of pride that Obasanjo has done for the Yoruba. If I miss it, I will like to be educated. Rather he has brought ruinous ignominy to our heritage. He has worked consciously to destroy the legacy of integrity and accountability. He has manifested noxious rapacity, crude uncouthness, chronic lack of etiquette, unrestrained odious loquacity, unalloyed wickedness, conspicuous cruelty and brutish banditry in his manners and utterances in and out of power. Though, he claimed to be one of us, I refused to believe so. Then, the controversy about his paternity surfaced only to reinforce my initial belief. But since it is established that his mother was from Owu Quarters in Abeokuta, he can still legitimately claim to be a Yoruba. But this ought not to stop him from bearing his father’s name as in Onyejekwe. Nevertheless, with his behaviors so far, I am still insisting that “Ai kuku bi san se radarada” meaning “Barrenness is far better than an unworthy child.”



Like me, Obasanjo’s fans are all entitled to their own views, but neither I nor they are entitled to our own facts. I can only work with what is in the public domain and what my profession as a journalist has privileged me to know, some of which have been published and some of which can not necessarily be published for reasons that are more than obvious. Or still might be published at an auspicious time. It is my contention that if your child comes back from the school with failed grades as is obvious to overwhelming majority of Nigerians in this case of Obasanjo, I do not think the next thing is to indulge him or praise him, especially when he has shown himself to be unduly stubborn and incorrigible. This is why I agree totally with my own “Albert Einstein,” Wale Adebanwi that “…an Afenifere in which General Olusegun Obasanjo, for instance, sits cannot continue to bear such a name.” There is no other reason other than the fact that Obasanjo is an undesirable and wicked element.

Thus if stating this view and calling Olusegun Obasanjo, who has found it impossible to go quietly after messing up the country, a “digbolugi” is considered “irresponsible,” then I will bear the tag with all the honour and pride I can muster without any iota of remorse.

Here, I rest my case.

remi@oyeyemi.net
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/remi-oyeyemi/the-nigerian-tragedy-how-guilty-is-obasanjo.html

[size=18pt]The Last Days of Obasanjo's Evil Kelptomaniac Rule[/size]

The Last Days of Obasanjo

By Muhammad Al-Ghazali
culled from THISDAY, March 7, 2006

If you happened to be an ordinary Nigerian battling with disease, crime, crippling effects of unemployment, or the virtual paralysis of governance, I will advise that you tarry a while before thumping the air in celebration. This piece may have been so titled, and the president, Mathew Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo may have expressed a death wish penultimate week, but he is very much alive as I write and certainly, no right-thinking Nigerian, including yours truly, wants him to die in office.


Our desire to see the president see out his days in office is not down to any special love for the man, or the normal deference to African culture, which abhors the celebration of death. Far from it; from the Niger Delta to Nguru, and on to Badagry and Sokoto, if the public mood could be relied upon, the greater majority of Nigerians want to see him safely back in Ota at the conclusion of his presidency, so that a thorough post-mortem of his tenure could commence in earnest, and while he is still alive to digest our prognosis of his legacy. To someone whom I gathered relished the trashing of Abacha’s legacy with a vengeance so soon after death had played a fatal trick on the dark-goggled General, Obasanjo would no doubt brace himself to digest what Nigerians, in their droves, thought of his presidency, and the early signs are that what they think would not be music to his ears or even pleasant to read.


When Abacha expired, the naira had been stable for several years and exchanged for 80 naira to a dollar. The PTF had ensured that drugs were available at designated hospitals and at affordable prices too. Our highways and township roads were being meticulously rehabilitated. High schools and tertiary institutions were also being renovated. Armed bandits, who operate wantonly and with gusto these days, gave our homes and major highways a miss. What was more, the middle-class eventually resurfaced even as inflation remained at tolerable levels. But the greater significance of Abacha’s performance or legacy was that throughout his tenure, his government had to battle the effects of crippling cocktail of sanctions imposed by mostly Western nations.
In addition, unlike now that crude oil sold in excess of 60 dollars per barrel, under the diminutive General, it never rose above 17 dollars per barrel! So how did the nation come to this sorry pass to the extent that the nation even in a supposed democracy, is today, not better than a banana republic? How did we arrive at a situation where a single individual could seemingly hold the nation to ransom, or treat its citizens with so much callous disrespect and insensitivity? How did we come to be under the clutches of a de-facto emperor under whose watch no fewer than 5,000 Nigerians were consumed by ethno-religious crises in less than seven years in supposed peace time? What did Abacha do right that Obasanjo is now doing wrong? Without waiting for the man to expire or leave office, here is my story:


As things stand today, it must be clear to all except perhaps the blind that Obasanjo is not only the most incompetent, but surely the most over-rated president in our history. Before he was thrown into jail after his conviction for coup-plotting, the only thing he had going for him was that he handed over power willingly to the civilian administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. General Abusalami Abubakar had since proved that that in itself was not an unusual occurrence altogether. Besides, in 1979, what choices were actually before him? The job, which by his own accounts he accepted soon after coming out of hiding came with its special risks as the demise of General Murtala Muhammed sadly proved. Across the oceans, Margaret Thatcher had just assumed office, and in tandem with Ronald Reagan, soon chorused the yarn about a new international world order, free of dictators, including Olusegun Obsanjo. Definitely, if you happened to be Olusegun Obasanjo at the time; having secured the vast Ota farms, and all that was within it, the lure of tending to chickens more than stopping an assassin’s bullet, was not simply a matter of choice, but actually the only choice.


Not much is known about his service records either beyond the fact that he received the surrender of Biafran forces at the end of the war. Being an army engineer by training, he is unlikely to have been bloodied in the art of combat warfare beyond the construction of Bailey bridges too. But quite typical of the man, up he came to steal the glory from General Adekunle when the latter fell out with authorities and was relegated to the background. As a former head of state and statesman, he spent lengthy periods lampooning the administration of General Babangida for crimes he has since surpassed. These days, the president loves to attribute his reforms, and the tenacity he exhibits in their execution, to his civil war record and high sense of patriotism. But the results clearly suggest otherwise, and nowhere was that truism more telling than in the speech delivered by the publisher of the influential Forbes magazine, Steve Forbes, during the recent THISDAY Newspaper Annual Awards. Predictably, the speech, or rather his message, was given short-shrift by the mainstream media, no doubt on the prompting of agents of the Presidency who were well represented at the event.
Forbes said among other things that the solution to poverty in Nigeria and the rest of Africa did not rest with the World Bank or the IMF because their medicine often tended to do more harm than good. Devaluation of the currency, he equally emphasised, was harmful to developing economies. He also condemned higher taxes, which tended to push more people into the informal economy, and the unequal application of laws. The man was being kind here; otherwise, he would easily have said unbridled corruption at the highest level and the escalating rate of crime we are witnessing presently. He went further to hinge our rapid economic development on five principles, which included a simple and affordable system of taxation, stable currency, the rule of law, and of course, the predictable removal of trade barriers. Perhaps not surprisingly, Obasanjo’s economic reforms appear marooned on the high seas for those simple reasons:


First, as we have seen in Anambra and Oyo states, the rule of law is clearly not visible on these shores. Otherwise, the president would not have allowed his cronies to get away with barefaced treason and murder not to talk of arson in those two theatres. As for equality before the law; well, perhaps we should also ask why Tafa Balogun was gaoled while Makunjuola escaped jail. Why did the president sit idly by and watch the OPC perpetrate genocide especially in his first term? Why did he contemplate the Electoral Bill fraud? Why were the felons who attempted to smuggle a forged draft constitution into the last confab never apprehended or punished? Why have the police so far failed to solve the murders of Asari Dikibo, Marshal Harry or Bola Ige? How did his accused murderer, Iyiola Omisore win an election from within the confines of a high security jail?

As for the economy, well even an idiot should know that the naira drifted and depreciated by nearly sixty per cent soon after Obasanjo assumed office. Unparalleled inflation was never too far behind either. If you bought your 50 KG bag of rice for under three thousand naira in 1999, the same product now sells for twice that amount and still rising. The economic team continues to deceive itself that its blue print is home-grown, but the seeds were clearly sown in Washington, Paris and London. A greater percentage of Nigerians have descended below the poverty line as a result. The middle-class has vanished without a trace, and a new class of bandits with university degrees has emerged to replace them; the obvious result is unemployment and frustration. The only people who cannot stop rejoicing are the multinationals who have acquired much of our progeny for peanuts. They pay the locals slave wages, transport them like sardines, and repatriate their profits in full!

Not surprisingly, with a legacy such as recounted above, the president appears in fear of his won shadow. With 2007 around the corner, and as we contemplate his last days in office, he appears in morbid fear of quitting office and wishes to die in it. But that, God willing, will ultimately be an exercise in futility. He wants to be remembered as Nigeria’s version of Lee Kuan Yew or Mahathir Mohammed, but the images of him that spring readily to mind in all seriousness, include those of Ghengis Khan and Josef Stalin. Even now that the greater majority of his subject are prostrate before him in abject poverty, and with destitution in the midst of plenty, he still plots against them. The third term express has arrived Port Harcourt, home to one of his staunchest loyalists, Peter Odili. As they hatch their endless intrigues against us and revel in obscene greed and lust for power, our collective misery and hopelessness would be the last thing on their minds. All these have naturally led many to rue what would have been had Abacha signed that death warrant in 1995!

http://www.dawodu.com/alghazali1.htm

Ewu

Na real ewu ooh!!

money-hungry :
before the evolution into ape....

lol gatdayum!!

GenBuhari: Na real ewu ooh!!

www.nairaland.com/attachments/907074_Obasanjo_speaks_gif0fe9b8e8a7dc5a40552e62d9356a0fec

NEROSKY: [size=20pt]wetin concern us naw? Abi wetin concern bicycle with filling station [/size]

lol now i know where jamos get our feistiness from.