[size=18pt]Between Obasanjo and the Financial Times By Sonala Olumhense[/size]
Posted: May 25, 2012 - 17:51

Columnist: Sonala Olumhense

I’ll be the first to admit it: journalism in Nigeria is a lover, not a fighter. Journalists may not be happy with the state of affairs but they do not necessarily address the most pertinent stories.

For some reason, reporters do not get their bad stories hurled back at them. They do not get tossed back to the streets or to the phone or to the library to in an effort to fill the holes in their stories. That would suggest a newsroom that does not recognize burnt offerings disguised as a king’s buffet, or even that the editors are responsible for each culinary catastrophe.

But the most dangerous ailment which can afflict a journalist is not lack of capacity, because training can cure that. The ailment which surpasses all—and is incurable— is amnesia, and that is what currently hounds most of Nigeria’s press. Send a story to the press and that is the end of the matter. Everyone treads carefully, avoiding the betrayal of a sneeze that could blow the leaves off the rotting corpse.

Perhaps this is why such an esteemed journalist as Mr. Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times who undertook a “personal” tour of West Africa recently, made Nigeria his first stop.

Once in Abuja, he picked on a larger-than-life first subject: Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), two times Nigeria’s ruler, who came in for undeserved recognition. Mr. Barber could have welcomed to his interview no bigger traitor of the Nigerian cause.

To begin with, OBJ is not “the father of modern Nigeria;” he is the modern Nigeria menace. The Nigeria of Mr. Lionel Barber’s time is worse than the Nigeria of his father’s largely because of OBJ.

Indeed, if one must link OBJ with the paternity of “modern Nigeria” in any but a pejorative sense, it is that—especially when confronted by a tiptoeing and ignorant journalist, foreign or domestic—he struts and poses as a significant piece. OBJ is a significant piece of Nigerian history, but it is an intensely criminal one. If Nigeria has failed to gain any development traction in this millennium, OBJ is the sole reason, and his gamble is that history, with the connivance of blindsided journalists, will not recognize this fact.

This is why it is strange to learn from Mr. Barber that OBJ has a “Nigeria First” slogan. I have written for Nigerian newspapers since 1973, when I left secondary school, and it is the first time I am hearing of this claim, obviously because it was manufactured for Mr. Barber’s benefit. For OBJ, it has always been OBJ first, and always.

And he is “Baba” only to those who sadly have no father, or who have some seedy relationship him. He had no compunctions leaving anyone without a father. And apart from the contradictions of his public life, the shameful stories of his personal life, as published by some of his closest relatives, have not endeared the man to anyone.

But let me acknowledge the highlights of his political career, or what some people call his achievements:
• In 1979, after three years as military head of state, he supervised the transfer of power to an elected government.

• 20 years later, upon a fortuitous return to office, he set up a couple of anti-corruption bodies, after laboriously identifying corruption as Nigeria’s biggest hurdle to development.

• He spearheaded the settlement of Nigeria’s so-called debt to the Paris Club
• He tracked down federal funds looted by Sani Abacha, the general who sent him to prison.
• He made an avalanche of speeches.

But scratch a little, and you discover that there was nothing OBJ did that was not for OBJ.
Anyone paying attention ought to know by now that his anti-corruption claims were a ruse. OBJ’s objectives in setting up his anti-corruption bodies were two-fold: to have a tool for intimidating his enemies; and to give the international community the impression that he was an anti-corruption champion. In the end, his true achievement on this file was to nourish the Nigeria corruption menace from a mouse to a lion.

Even Nuhu Ribadu, whom OBJ put in charge of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003, has publicly confessed that OBJ was far more corrupt than Abacha!

Speaking of Abacha, between $2.5 and $5 billion was recovered of the funds the former general stole. Curiously, almost nothing was recovered from anyone else. In other words, OBJ’s war against corruption was no more than vengeance against his jailor.

What is even more striking about the Abacha file, however, is that all—ALL—of the so-called “Abacha loot” vanished even before OBJ left office in 2007. Today, there is no trace of those funds or what was done with them.

Beyond Abacha, it is curious to consider that during his eight years as President, OBJ personally ran the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, and corruption stank from here to London and back. In the past few years, every probe report in the oil sector has yielded the most scandalous of stories, each of them traceable to OBJ’s eight year tenure and control.

Beyond oil, probes by the legislature into such areas of the Nigerian economy as the privatization programme, the power sector, and roads, have revealed astonishing levels of corruption and manipulation that legislators of OBJ’s own party have traced directly to him.

OBJ has also been heavily implicated in at least one international corruption scheme: Halliburton. Investigations in the United States and Nigeria have reached the same conclusion, that OBJ accepted huge Halliburton bribes, and President Goodluck Jonathan has the reports.

Let me turn to economic reform. The Nigerian Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), was launched by OBJ in 2004 with tremendous fanfare. He swore NEEDS would resolve fundamental problems of unemployment, electricity and inflation. But within months, NEEDS was abandoned, unraveling as the biggest single swindle in the history of economic reform in a country with a long history of economic “reforms.”

A word about infrastructure: The entire world knows that, next to corruption, the areas of transportation and electricity are among Nigeria’s biggest failures. So did OBJ, and he dragged with him Nigeria’s yearning in each field.

By the time he was done, on the electricity file, somewhere between $10 and $16 billion dollars had vanished. Indeed, the House of Representatives found that OBJ often paid money to companies that had not even broken ground for the project for which he had paid them. The funds had disappeared into the hands of his friends and cronies.

Roads? OBJ’s government repeatedly voted funds for roads, at least N300 billion in his first term, and close to N1 trillion by the end of his tenure, according to numbers in a column I wrote on December 4, 2006.
How full of hot air was OBJ? Perpetually, but here is one example: On November 21, 2002 when he paid an official visit to Lagos State ahead of the 2003 elections, he swore he would end the city’s traffic jams by building new highways and “ring roads.”

It was exciting, but also credible: The day before, BusinessDay reported that his government was negotiating a N20 billion World Bank loan to improve “transport infrastructure” in Lagos. The host governor, Bola Tinubu of the opposing Alliance for Democracy party, was so happy he told OBJ, “We, the five million registered voters in Lagos declare our support for your re-election.”

OBJ won Lagos easily, and the promptly turned his back on the state. Not only did he never build one road or one bridge, he sent his Minister of Works into infantile combat with the government of Lagos.

And did Mr. Barber know what great irony it was that that he interviewed OBJ in Abuja’s Transcorp Hilton Hotel? OBJ’s digs, when he sweeps in, are reported to be the half-a-million Naira per night King Presidential suite, as he is virtually the landlord. That is because he owns 200 million shares of Transcorp, bought with neither shame nor embarrassment when he was the President, in a “national” project he had just launched.

Speaking of shame, a former chairman of his PDP party, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, who is more credible than OBJ by several hundred miles, alleged in 2006 that a top member of the OBJ government walked away with a N60 billion personal “fee” during the Paris Club debt settlement. Mr. Ogbeh actually went to the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, which is now famous for its indolence and lack of character, to make the complaint. OBJ has never denied the allegation, and the commission, typically, never investigated it.

In addition, OBJ was, throughout his presidency, involved in a variety of lot of dubious deals, including the Nigeria Ports Authority, the Presidential Library, and the Petroleum Trust Development Fund.

Despite all of this—indeed, on top of all of this and more—OBJ poses as something special, dropping such notable names as Nelson Mandela and Jim Callaghan and Helmut Schmidt. It is significant, for instance, that OBJ thought that Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade was wrong [“I’ll deal with him in the morning,” he told Mr. Barber] in not yielding the Senegalese presidency when he appeared to have lost last month’s election.

[Mr. Barber, as programmed, went on to sign OBJ’s political credit-worthiness certificate: “Sure enough,” the Financial Times editor wrote, “he did. Wade stood down within minutes of the general’s démarche.”]

But only six years earlier, the same OBJ spent at least N23.45bntrying to bribe members of the National Assembly—at N50m per person—in an effort to gain an illegal third term in office. Several members of the legislature have confirmed these payments. I must note that these numbers do not include what he spent on other “influential” figures, such as traditional rulers.

But perhaps the greatest damage OBJ has inflicted on his country is what he did in 2006 when he found no support to continue in office. He imposed Umaru Yar’Adua, who was dying, and Goodluck Jonathan who—apart from a singular record of lack of performance anywhere—had been indicted that same year by a top-level OBJ anti-corruption panel. Jonathan’s wife, Patience, was also alleged by the EFCC to have been involved in two money-laundering incidents within the space of just one month.

OBJ is currently trying to have all of these re-written in his favour, of course. He has a campaign which says that he never tried to obtain a third term in office. And just this week, he loudly lamented the absence of “integrity” in Nigeria’s politics, lambasting the national and State legislatures as being peopled by “rogues and armed robbers,” and the judiciary as “corrupt.”

This is at first serious, then it is hilarious: Many of the people to whom he refers are his own friends, so you know he knows them well. One of them, remember, was the one who used OBJ’s presidential jet to launder funds in the United States, and turned around to use about $40,000 of it to buy stuff for OBJ’s Otta farm.

And yes, Mr. Barber acknowledges OBJ as Nigeria’s “biggest chicken farmer.” Truly impressive, when you consider that by 1997, the farm was stinking so badly that the Ado-Odo Ota Local Government Authority issued a public notice about the overwhelming pollution. When OBJ returned from prison, the following year, he was down to his last N20, 000, and owing the banks at least N200 million. Within a couple of years of his presidency—abracadabra!--Obasanjo announced that the farm was making about N30 million per month.

It is this same two-faced creature that Mr. Barber, lacking the decency to report that OBJ twice rigged his way to Nigeria’s presidency, also described as having “won two elections marred by fraud.”

You do not win by fraud. The truth is that OBJ routinely and repeatedly used the police, the electoral commission and the police to ensure that his party rigged elections. When the notorious Ibadan chieftain, Lamidi Adedibu, was caught with ballot boxes in his home, ready for stuffing, OBJ urged critics to leave the man alone. And it is well known that OBJ institutionalized the PDP’s “do or die” policy, repeatedly stating that his part will rule for “100 years.”

So far, OBJ has been right: he has maintained the PDP mission, using men and women who are incapacitated physically, intellectually or ethically, while playing the international community like a piano in a rock concert.

Anywhere else in the world, OBJ would have been in a maximum security jail, with no possibility of parole and no conjugal visits; and only undercooked beans for his three meals. But this is Nigeria, where the political elite enforce the policy of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). That is why, no matter how much OBJ insults President Jonathan, for instance [“It is not enough to talk about leadership”], or the rest of the PDP [“rogues and armed robbers,”], he will get away with. In the end, despite all the mayhem and menace OBJ has committed, they are—one and all--deathly scared of a mud-wrestling match with the old man with the fat watch.

Hopefully, journalism in Nigeria will understand that the most important response to these issues is to report them fully, firmly and fervently. It is difficult to see that happening any time soon, however, given the ownership pattern in the business, and the natural desire of professionals to protect themselves and their families from readily-available harm.

But until something of that shift occurs, the media will continue to appear to the world as if it is a part of the mess rather than a reporter or fighter of it. And Nollywood-watching tourist- journalists will visit the country and report the counterfeits and charlatans who, having robbed the bank, return in police uniforms to investigate the crime.
sonala.olumhense@gmail.com


http://saharareporters.com/column/between-obasanjo-and-financial-times-sonala-olumhense

This article is a rocket up obj's butt!

Obasanjo ruined Nigeria, he was a wicked, immoral, crafty demon. The reporter forgot to cite how OBJ increased the price of fuel during the eve of his tenure, out of malice towards the nigerian public for rejecting his third term bid. The incessant strikes, political assassinations, grandiose corruption and immorality, reckless comments like "inside my agbada, there is khaki", asphyxiation of the economy, presidential hypocrisy and unnecessary witchhunting. Obasanjo was evil!
I would never had believed that Nigerians will put OBJ on a pedestal like they're doing currently. It is absolutely disgusting and heart-wrenching to watch nigerians congratulate a man who almost destroyed our national lives.
When I see nigerians insulting GEJ, i laugh at them because they celebrate and congratulate him later, like they did to obasanjo and yar'adua.
Of course you won't find the anti GEJ homos here. If this was about GEJ, they'll all show their clowny noses.

This is why Nigeria will never ever progress!

A pity I didn't see this topic earlier. Mr. Oluhmense has done a yeoman's job in stating the awful truth about the OBJ years as well as holding the press to account for its failure to speak truth to power.

Kudos to Mr. Oluhmense for this detailed piece on the evil that was the Obasanjo administration. Despite the wicked attempts at revisionism by some twisted hack writers on this board, that administration will always be remembered for its failure to leave a positive legacy in any shape or form. Not surprising though - it was led by a thoroughly corrupt individual with no redeeming features.

OBJ is nothing but a deceitful old fraud. Some of us can remember his opposition to the FOI bill - a bill he obstinately refused to support till he left the stage.

History will not be kind to him, no matter what his hagiographers try to conjure.

VolvoS60:
A pity I didn't see this topic earlier. Mr. Oluhmense has done a yeoman's job in stating the awful truth about the OBJ years as well as holding the press to account for its failure to speak truth to power.

Kudos to Mr. Oluhmense for this detailed piece on the evil that was the Obasanjo administration. Despite the wicked attempts at revisionism by some twisted hack writers on this board, that administration will always be remembered for its failure to leave a positive legacy in any shape or form. Not surprising though - it was led by a thoroughly corrupt individual with no redeeming features.

OBJ is nothing but a deceitful old fraud. Some of us can remember his opposition to the FOI bill - a bill he obstinately refused to support till he left the stage.

History will not be kind to him, no matter what his hagiographers try to conjure.

Nigerian leaders are not concerned with being on the positive side of history anyway. They have the money and power, who cares about your antecedents?

Great points!!

The author also omitted to mention the massacre of civilian in Odi and in Benue state

The 500% devaluation of Naira

The mismanagement and closure of Nigeria Airways under his watch

The looting of the countries pension fund


The list is virtually endless.

J12: Obasanjo ruined Nigeria, he was a wicked, immoral, crafty demon. The reporter forgot to cite how OBJ increased the price of fuel during the eve of his tenure, out of malice towards the nigerian public for rejecting his third term bid. The incessant strikes, political assassinations, grandiose corruption and immorality, reckless comments like "inside my agbada, there is khaki", asphyxiation of the economy, presidential hypocrisy and unnecessary witchhunting. Obasanjo was evil!
I would never had believed that Nigerians will put OBJ on a pedestal like they're doing currently. It is absolutely disgusting and heart-wrenching to watch nigerians congratulate a man who almost destroyed our national lives.
When I see nigerians insulting GEJ, i laugh at them because they celebrate and congratulate him later, like they did to obasanjo and yar'adua.
Of course you won't find the anti GEJ homos here. If this was about GEJ, they'll all show their clowny noses.

This is why Nigeria will never ever progress!

VolvoS60:
A pity I didn't see this topic earlier. Mr. Oluhmense has done a yeoman's job in stating the awful truth about the OBJ years as well as holding the press to account for its failure to speak truth to power.

Kudos to Mr. Oluhmense for this detailed piece on the evil that was the Obasanjo administration. Despite the wicked attempts at revisionism by some twisted hack writers on this board, that administration will always be remembered for its failure to leave a positive legacy in any shape or form. Not surprising though - it was led by a thoroughly corrupt individual with no redeeming features.

OBJ is nothing but a deceitful old fraud. Some of us can remember his opposition to the FOI bill - a bill he obstinately refused to support till he left the stage.

History will not be kind to him, no matter what his hagiographers try to conjure.

[size=18pt]Your govt, most corrupt, CNPP tells Obasanjo[/size]

Posted on Friday, May 25th, 2012

Former President looking for relevance – Reps

By Rotimi Akinwumi (Abuja) and Akinwunmi King (Lagos)

Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has challenged former President Olusegun Obasanjo to render “account of his rogue regime” while he was at the helm of the nation’s affairs.

CNPP in a statement on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu, explained, however, that it agreed with Obasanjo that “integrity is necessary for systems and institutions to be strong.”

The group was reacting to a statement credited to Obasanjo at the fourth Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies, Nigeria, Annual National Conference in Lagos on Tuesday where he described both the federal and state lawmakers as lacking in integrity.

He had remarked that, “Today, rogues, armed robbers are in the state Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly. What sort of laws will they make?”

Obasanjo did not spare the judiciary either, as he said the sector “is also corrupt.”

But CNPP said while it was not holding brief for either the National Assembly, the state Assemblies or the judiciary, “However, now that Chief Obasanjo has cast the first stone, we challenge him to render account of his rogue regime.

“A regime that harvested unprecedented oil revenue without commensurate project performance, a regime that bastardised our democracy and a regime which simulated the fault lines hence Boko Haram and other insurgencies.

“Those who live in glass house, the saying goes, should not throw stones, for we recall with pain how Chief Obasanjo, who came out of prison as poor as a church rat, paradoxically has become one of the richest Africans after eight years of looting in power.

“We recall with trepidation, how late Chief Gani Fawehnmi went to Federal High Court challenging the billions of naira which Chief Obasanjo extorted from government contractors to build his Presidential library, contrary to Code of Conduct and ICPC Acts.

“He pleaded immunity and when immunity elapsed he resorted to manipulation of the judiciary,” the statement said.

CNPP alleged that Obasanjo’s corrupt practices are monumental and legendary.

It added that “the stench and foul odour of corruption, which oozed out from the Presidency, when he was in power was one of the factors which made him to lose the MO Ibrahim Annual Award for Good Governance when he left office in 2007.”

CNPP added: “We cannot forget in a hurry how Chief Obasanjo doctored the 2002 Electoral Act, declared the 2007 election as do-or-die election and other uncountable breaches, which debased the integrity of the electoral process and produced 2003 and 2007 sham elections.

“It can be said factually that Obasanjo’s manipulation and subversion of the electoral process denied Nigerians the right to elect people of their choice, hence entry of rogues into the legislature.

“We challenge Chief Obasanjo to explain why all the probes and audit of his regime by the National Assembly, ranging from power to privatisation probes found him culpable.

“Or can it be said that he is antagonising the National Assembly for the probes? Or for stopping his third term inordinate ambition?

“Chief Obasanjo blatantly looted the treasury of the nation, withdrew billions from the treasury without appropriation, corrupted the privatisation process, and serially obstructed justice, which made CNPP to file a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on December 24, 2007, when his immunity elapsed.

“Regrettably, it has become the trade mark of Chief Obasanjo to paint Nigeria black each time he is out of power, a deceptive strategy he designed long time ago to curry the favour and recognition of the international community,” CNPP stated.

Also reacting to Obasanjo’s remarks for the second day running, the House of Representatives on Thursday described him as a man who wants to be noticed at all cost, having lost relevance since he quit power in 2007.

Deputy spokesman of the House, Victor Ogene, at his weekly news briefing noted that the comment by Obasanjo did not surprise the House, as such had been his trademark.

According to Ogene, there is no regime in history of Nigeria that has attempted to stain the image of the legislature with corrupt overtures than that of Obasanjo.

Ogene made reference to how foreign currencies found their way into the hands of past lawmakers in a bid to buy them into Obasanjo’s third term agenda.

He said though there was no need to engage the ex-President in verbal jabs, it was appropriate to liken him (Obasanjo) to an elder who had out of ignorance decided to pee inside his own house thereby expressing concerns over his quality of “eldership”.

He also noted that Obasanjo may have made his statement following frustration he suffered after Aminu Waziri Tambuwal emerged Speaker of the House against his own favoured candidate on June 6, 2011.

“Ordinarily, we should not join issues with the man. We know where he is coming from. If he has issues with one or two people that does not mean he should attack all of us,” Ogene said.

http://dailyindependentnig.com/2012/05/your-govt-most-corrupt-cnpp-tells-obasanjo/

[size=28pt]The last king (of corruption) of Nigeria[/size]



Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

New York, USA



rudolfokonkwo@aol.com





Wednesday, April 4, 2007



Should Obasanjo die today, here is a befitting epitaph for him: Here lies a man who admired the trappings of Western civilization but was ignorant of its tenets.



I deduced this epitaph from an obituary written by an Australian newspaper following the death of Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin Dada, "the Last King of Scotland." In the editorial, The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that “Amin’s tragedy, like that of so many Africans, was to have admired a civilization whose external trappings he strongly desired, but of whose internal workings he had no idea, while at the same time he was partly enclosed in the mental world of a primitive tribalist… he was a product of multiculturalism, African style, and able to use relatively advanced methods to achieve brutal, primitive end. Like every African dictator, he was confusion’s masterpiece.”



Obasanjo is confusion’s masterpiece. He is supposedly an architect of transparency in governance. Yet he owned over two hundred million shares in Transcorp, a multinational corporation that is mopping up at giveaway prices Nigeria’s public enterprises. Obasanjo’s share in Transcorp is worth billions of naira today. And will worth more tomorrow.



Obasanjo is confusion’s masterpiece. He is supposedly an epitome of ethical public servant. Yet he launched a presidential library while in office and allowed contractors, cronies, and numerous beneficiaries of his administration to funnel ill-gotten billions of naira to his presidential library, a library that will house a litany of lies, volumes of girlie vengeance, and microfilms of squandered hopes.



Obasanjo is confusion’s masterpiece. He is supposedly a born-again democrat. Yet he will not let the people of Nigeria decide who to elect into office. He will tele-guide the so-called Independent National Electorate Commission, INEC, dictating who should run for office and who should be barred. He is so shameless that he will ignore court orders just to bar everyone who might pose a challenge to the likes of Andy Uba and his other favored candidates.



For just one reason, I am not worried about Obasanjo anymore. I am not worried because I am sure that Obasanjo will be the last king of Nigeria. The brutality he and his fellow scoundrels have achieved, physically, in places like Odi and Zaki-Biam; psychologically, in the final destruction of Nigeria’s collective sense of decency; and spiritually, in his use of God as Nigeria’s shrink, has guaranteed that Nigeria, as it is presently constituted, will never have the misfortune of seeing the likes of him again.



Obasanjo and his fellow cohorts have taken Nigeria to the end of primitivity. There is nowhere else to go but a crawl out of the valley of decadence and rot. Running abroad to cure malaria is not the same as convalescence. Eight years and $200 billion dollars down the drain, pound for pound, Obasanjo will be leaving Nigerians in worst shape than they were before he came.



The really good thing is that whatever happens next month, the Obasanjo nightmare will be over on May 29th 2007. It is either that or…



If this Republic fails, let no one forget that Obasanjo sowed the seed for its failure. When kleptomaniac politicians are hauled into jail, let it be televised. Let Obasanjo, with his inflated sense of importance, be the first to take his place in infamy. And may his place be in that hottest corner where other murders of dreams languish.



If this Republic succeeds to transit into a second stanza, let it be known that it happened in spite of Obasanjo’s best effort to squash it. And may the wind of our collective tufiakwa wrap Obasanjo up and drag him across the rough roads of Edo all the way to the most remote part of his chicken farm where the songs of mating hens will serenade him through his twilight’s days.



As for his obituary, no need wasting thoughts on it - the same Idi Amin’s piece will suffice

Thief Obasanjo!

Life under Obasanjo was 2million times better tjan Buharis first and second tenures.

Will you prefer hardship, cluelessness, nepotism, wickedness to good life and progress？