Eight years of self-centred disposition, eight years of wayo, eight years of deception, eight years of creating a few rich people, eight years of anti-masses programmes, eight years of deliberate junketing all over the world, eight years of make-believe, eight years of dictatorship, eight years of lack of coherent policies, eight years of so much wealth coming to the hands of government out of which Nigerians received aggravated poverty and economic pain.

When Obasanjo first came to power in 1999, many Nigerians had high hopes that they would get rid of dictatorial tendencies which characterised military rule, but unfortunately, we had a tyrant in democratic toga. We expected that the provisions of the constitution vis-à-vis the welfare of the people and their security would be the focus of the government because Section 14, sub-section 2b of the Constitution says that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary focus of government. Alas! it was not to be under the government of Obasanjo. Take security for instance. He opened up the insecurity of this country in November 1999 when he gave orders to shoot on sight in Odi. And more than 2500 Nigerians were slaughtered because, unfortunately, 13 policemen were missing as a result of the protestation of the Odi people in Bayelsa State.
You saw the killing in Zaki Biam in Benue State. We saw him give an order in Lagos State to shoot the OPC on sight and we protested. And since he gave the signal that human life counted for nothing, police followed the queue, extra-judicial killings became the agenda of the government. Every respectable human rights organisation abroad rated Nigeria very low in terms of extra-judicial killing. Thousands of Nigerians were slaughtered without a recourse to the judicial process by the police and other security agencies, to the extent that it became the culture of Nigerians to ritualise human lives. Legs, hands and other parts of human bodies became a common commodity in markets and dead bodies were being picked here and there, headless. That was Obasanjo’s regime and what human dignity meant for that regime for eight years.
For welfare, Nigerians have never had it so bad in their millions. Instead of government to give employment, it became the stock in trade of this regime to send workers to the unemployment market by all sorts of epithet with ignoble description such as down-sizing, reducing the labour force and so on. Unemployment became unbelievably rampant to the extent that workers approached the doors of government offices with trepidation, thinking they would be sacked any moment. Security of employment became nil in government services. In the private sector, profit motive was taken to a most ungodly level. Sack became a culture of the private sector. Whenever the private sector wanted more profit, they resorted to showing workers out without adequate recompense and this was aggravated by the so-called economic reforms of General Obasanjo where the heritage of Nigeria was sold, not even to the highest bidders but to the favoured bidders, contrary to the Constitution of Nigeria.
The major sectors of our economy were placed on the building blocks of rapacious entrepreneurs, many of whom are in government, using proxies to purchase government properties, courtesy of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, and contrary in Section 16, sub-section 4 of the constitution which says that the major sectors of the economy shall be managed, operated and run by the Federal Government of Nigeria, solely and exclusively.
But today, the major sectors are being sold. The latest example is the refinery in Port Harcourt, one of the four refineries in Nigeria. For eight years, Obasanjo did not build a single refinery to ensure a total reduction in the costs of petroleum products. Instead, Obasanjo, contrary to the Constitution of Nigeria, sold and he is still in the process of selling even in the dying days of the regime, the major sectors of our economy crashing OBJ Is A Failure

Ebun Adegboruwa, a Lagos-based lawyer, in an interview with OLUSOLA OLAOSEBIKAN brands President Olusegun Obasanjo a failure

Could you briefly assess President Olusegun Obasanjo vis-à-vis his administration?
Normally, we would have started from 1976. But from 1999 till date, it is an administration that came to fritter the resources of Nigeria, an administration that came to squander the confidence of Nigerians, an administration that came to impose a culture of violence and lawlessness, a culture of official corruption. But I think on the other hand too, economically, it was a regime that came to empower its own friends, captains of industry whom he promoted to appropriate the collective wealth of the people in the name of commercialisation, privatisation and all the rest. So, economically, yes, he has assisted and upgraded the welfare of his supporters who have taken over.
In some other areas like the GSM, yes, he introduced the GSM. But unfortunately, he was unable to monitor the success of the GSM to the extent that it has become a liability on Nigerians, such that the phone is no longer affordable. So, if you want to assess General Olusegun Obasanjo, you’ll look at all the facets of Nigerian life. Talking about education, the universities are dead now. And there are close to 50 private universities in Nigeria now. Two of them owned by General Obasanjo and one by his Vice President, ABTI University in Yola. So that, in education, what the government has done is to kill public interest, so as to make it lucrative for private institutions which are milking individuals. What has happened is that the children of the rich are either attending London School of Economics and Political Science, Harvard University, London University, Cambridge, or they are attending Covenant University or Bells University or Igbinedion University or ABTI. So, the ones that the masses can afford, the Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ibadan, the University of Maiduguri, are dilapidated. It is no longer productive for you to think of taking your children there because a programme that is meant to take four years, by the time you calculate all manner of frustrating programmes that the government has installed in these institutions, it becomes difficult to graduate. Even at the secondary level, the system has been destroyed such that it becomes no longer advisable to patronise these schools, except you opt for the British-American International School, Lekki International School and others. So with this structure, poverty will certainly be on the rise. Because if your child cannot go to school, it automatically means that the best he can get is technical employment, whether as a manual labourer or an apprentice. He becomes like a slave to the children of the rich who are able to afford education and the rich will continue to dominate those who cannot afford education. In the area of aviation, just go to any airport in the country, you’ll experience what I am saying. I took an aircraft from Abuja or Lagos sometime ago and we almost died. We were hovering around in the air for close to 30 minutes, we could not land in Lagos until the pilot was almost crashi