Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has no moral authority or competence to sermonise on good governance and effective leadership, the Presidency said yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a reaction to what Obasanjo said at the weekend, Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga highlighted the misdeeds in Obasanjo\u2019s years as military leader and president, saying he has taken self-righteousness too far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivering a keynote address at the weekend at Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University, New Haven, in Connecticut, United States, the former president said the country\u2019s pervasive corruption and all other forms of iniquity confirmed Nigeria\u2019s failing state status under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence, and all other forms of iniquity,\u201d he said in his recorded lecture titled: \u2018Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Presidency said Obasanjo, who has a penchant for criticizing all his successors, got it all wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Onanuga described as ironic, that Obasanjo used the platform of a Chinua Achebe lecture to castigate the country and its government, whereas Achebe himself rejected the national honour bestowed on him in 2004 by the Obasanjo administration because \u201cNigeria\u2019s condition today under your watch is\u2026too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To buttress his claim that Obasanjo lacks the moral authority to give such sweeping remarks, Onanuga highlighted the flaws of Obasanjo and his government between 1999 and 2007 as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Onanuga advised Obasanjo who was military leader between 1976 and 1979 when he handed over to democratically elected President Shehu Shagari, to retrace his steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said:\u00a0 \u201cWhile the Tinubu administration diligently works to overcome the country\u2019s economic challenges, it would be better and more advisable for former President Obasanjo to temper his self-righteousness in his public discussions regarding our nation\u2019s temporary difficulties. Instead, his remaining years would be better spent reflecting on the missed opportunities during his own time in leadership, both as military head of state and civilian president.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Onanuga statement reads: \u201cIn a recent display of his characteristic self-importance, former President Olusegun Obasanjo once again took to the public stage to bestow his unsolicited wisdom on leadership and governance in Nigeria. From his lofty perch, he blamed those who served after his tenure for the nation\u2019s myriad of challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the former leader\u2019s habit of casting aspersions on every subsequent administration has devolved into a recurring pastime, overshadowing the expectation of an elder statesman to join a constructive dialogue on attaining national progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn his latest critique of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he pejoratively called \u2018Baba Go Slow\u2019 and President Bola Tinubu, who he tagged \u2018Emilokan\u2019, Chief Obasanjo used the platform provided by Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University to unfurl his latest treatise on leadership and public morality. He also used the forum to write off Nigeria as a failing country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe irony of Chief Obasanjo using the platform that celebrates Achebe to sermonise on the ideals of good governance, statecraft, economic management, and corruption should be apparent to discerning minds. When he was alive, Chinua Achebe was a universally acclaimed moral, cultural and literary icon with scant regard for Obasanjo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is on record that Professor Achebe rejected the third highest national honour bestowed on him by the Obasanjo-led administration in 2004 on the grounds of the prevalence of abuse of power, corruption, poor leadership, and, in particular, state-sponsored brigandage endorsed by Chief Obasanjo in Achebe\u2019s home state of Anambra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn Anambra, the former president actively supported the abduction of a sitting governor, Dr Chris Ngige, by non-state actors led by Chris Uba, a younger brother of Obasanjo\u2019s senior aide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn rejecting the 2004 national honour by the Obasanjo administration, Achebe declared: \u201cNigeria\u2019s condition today under your watch is\u2026too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBrazen illegality and assault on the Constitution of Nigeria reached a disturbing height under the leadership of Chief Obasanjo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDuring Obasanjo\u2019s era, there was the unconstitutional impeachment of four governors who belonged to his party occurred. The governors impeached by minority members of the Houses of Assembly were Joshua Dariye of Plateau, Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo, Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa. A man under whose watch all of these egregious infractions occurred should certainly not be the one to give any lecture on leadership and corruption. He should not be taken seriously as he reeks of profound hypocrisy of the worst form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFormer President Obasanjo has continuously pumped himself up as the economic wizard of Nigeria. But a reality check showed he was nothing of such. He left unresolved many, if not all, of the problems of Nigeria, which he itemised in his lecture. He even recently admitted that his government made a mistake by not focussing on gas development, as the Tinubu administration does today. All oil and gas players know that Nigeria has more gas than oil. The only positive of the Obasanjo era was fiscal and monetary policy management buoyed by a consistent rise in crude oil prices throughout his eight-year tenure. This rise in crude oil prices started in 2000 and peaked in 2013 when it reached over 100 dollars per barrel before a decline in 2014, which set the oil-dependent economy downward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe current economic crisis the All Progressives Congress administrations have been battling since 2015 is the product of the poor choices in economic management made by Obasanjo and the two successors from his party. Obasanjo prides his government on paying the $15 billion debt owed to the Paris Club. Still, it was not a wise decision as it was done when the country\u2019s critical economic infrastructure across sectors was in shambles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile oil receipts brought money into the country, Obasanjo failed to fix the deplorable federal roads or expand the national road network. He did not repair the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the Lagos-Abeokuta road leading to his hometown in Abeokuta, the Otta-Idiroko road, and many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHis administration also should have paid more serious attention to universities and polytechnics. In a joint vote of no confidence in our tertiary institutions, Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, sought to profit from their weaknesses by establishing their private universities. As a sitting President, Chief Obasanjo abused his office to advance personal interest against the spirit and letters of our constitution when he corralled leading businessmen, women and government contractors to donate billions of naira for his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library and Resorts in Abeokuta and his Bell University in Otta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfter wasting billions of naira on a failed third-term project in 2007, Chief Obasanjo hurriedly organised a sham electoral process that would go down in history as the most fraudulent election held in Nigeria since 1960. The beneficiary of the sham election, Umaru Yar\u2019adua, admitted that the election was seriously flawed and, as Justice Muhammed Uwais\u2019s panel recommended, worked towards electoral reforms. It is hypocrisy writ large when a man who presided over the worst election in Nigeria demands the sack of the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor eight years, the Obasanjo administration made no significant investment in security by modernising the Armed Forces. He did not redesign the national security architecture or change the military doctrine. The most critical investment in our armed forces, especially the military, since the administration of President Shehu Shagari in 1980, was made by the APC-led administration of President Buhari from 2015-2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen President Buhari assumed office in 2015, the Air Force had fewer than three serviceable fighter jets, and the Navy barely had one serviceable vessel. Within eight years, President Buhari acquired over 40 new fighter jets of different capabilities, including 12 Tucano jets. He also acquired naval ships to strengthen the Navy. The APC administration of Buhari developed the air wings of the Army and Navy and changed the entire Armed Forces into one of the most potent fighting forces in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPresident Tinubu has continued to sustain the same support and funding to the military and other security agencies. It is the reason the country is winning in the multi-pronged fight against Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and other perpetrators of violent crimes. In the last year, over 400 terror and bandit kingpins have been eliminated, and thousands of Nigerians have been freed from their abductors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe insecurity that engulfed Nigeria started under the Obasanjo administration with militancy and kidnapping of expatriate oil workers in the Niger Delta, which later became a festering wound from which the nation has not recovered. Boko Haram, which became a violent movement in 2009, began its build-up under Obasanjo\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn matters of integrity, honesty, and morality in public leadership, Chief Obasanjo is certainly not a paragon of virtue for anyone to model after. Nigerians can still remember the messy public spat between Chief Obasanjo and his then-vice president, Atiku Abubakar, over PTDF money that led to a Senate Public Hearing in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
:The sordid details of the public hearing included unsettling evidence of how Obasanjo instructed his Vice President to buy Sport Utility Vehicles for his mistresses with PTDF funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was also the Halliburton bribe scandal, which the US Congress probe revealed. Bribe payments were made to the highest political authorities at the Villa while Obasanjo was in charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNigerians will also remember how the Obasanjo administration invested $16 billion on electricity, which left the country in utter darkness. The colossal amount spent on power was so embarrassing that President Umaru Musa Yar\u2019Adua, Obasanjo\u2019s successor, ordered a probe. Similarly, Obasanjo\u2019s privatisation programme was scandalous. It did not deliver real value for the country. His administration cheaply sold national assets to cronies who stripped the assets of the state-owned enterprises. A case in point was the aluminium smelter company ALSCON in Ikot-Abasi, Akwa-Ibom State, built by the military government at the princely sum of $ 3.2 billion. It was sold for 130 million dollars. Obasanjo also sank money into Turn Around Maintenance of our refineries, which never worked, leading to the massive importation of refined petroleum products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSuch was the miasma of corruption under Obasanjo that the former governor of Abia, Orji Uzor Kalu, his party member, petitioned the EFCC, accusing Obasanjo of gross abuse of office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf Chief Obasanjo had addressed the many problems he critiqued in his poorly written Yale lecture when he ruled Nigeria for eight years, President Buhari and President Tinubu would have had a much lighter burden of fixing the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has no moral authority or competence to sermonise on good governance and effective leadership, the Presidency said yesterday. In a reaction to what Obasanjo said at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_rishi_post_view_count":247},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","rishi-post"],"rishi__cb_customizer_meta":"","comments_count":"0","yoast_head":"\n