Why Obasanjo Must Be Probed

Richard Odusanya, Chairman, Leadership Rescue Initiative, who claimed to have served as an aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, tells OLUOKUN AYORINDE why the tenure of the former president requires scrutiny

Why are you just demanding a probe of Obasanjo?

For me, the issue goes beyond either now, or future, or then. Sometime ago, I flew into America through Boston and on the day I arrived, there was a bombing and the whole city was shut down. I was lucky enough to have moved to New York. While we were in New York with my colleague, who is the Director-General of Leadership Rescue Initiative, we saw how the whole state machinery was moved into Boston to arrest the two young men that carried out the bombing. In retrospect, we were asking ourselves why can’t we have a similar situation in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, that also encouraged and emboldened us so that when people asked ‘why now’, we say to ourselves that even if it is 20, 30 years, the burden that one has shouldered is something that will be carried forever. So, for me, it is not an issue of somebody sent me, 2015 or 2013.

How well do you know President Olusegun Obasanjo?

Fairly well. I was actually working with the government of General Abdusalami Abubakar. I worked with the son in-law and we had a very important responsibility. As a matter of fact, by December 1998, I was excited to the point of joining the PDP train. My excitement knew no bounds when I realised that a man who, in my opinion then, was wrongly jailed and narrowly escaped the hangman, was on the ticket. I thought this was a man that must have met God, and this is the man who promised to fix Nigeria. I got to meet him by the first or second week of February 1999, which was a few days to the Jos convention. A friend of mine, Femi Falana (not the popular lawyer) introduced me to him.

Some of the allegations contained in your petitions, like the alleged profiteering from Paris Club debt payment, the Ajaokuta and Transcorp deals, are speculations that have been in the public domain for some time. Do you now have any substantial evidence to prove to Nigerians that these allegations are indeed true?

I want to say yes. The son of the former President, Gbenga Obasanjo, happens to be a friend. Apart from writing in documents that he knows for fact that his father is having an affair with his wife, the second thing he came up with is the Ajaokuta issue. He called me on a particular day, I think that was the first election of Obama, and we spoke for about 23 minutes. He spoke specifically about Ajaokuta, where he was accused of benefiting as a consultant. He said the real issue is between Obasanjo and Andy Uba. I think that is a weighty allegation and it is also part of the petition. That also was on live TV over four weeks ago. It is something that is weighty enough.

Did you work with Andy Uba in the Villa?

We all worked together in the Villa and in retrospect, I will even want to say that I had more critical assignments than most of them.

What do you have to say to allegations by Otunba Fasawe that you did not have any direct relationship with President Obasanjo? 

I have decided that I am not going to join issues with him. I read also in the newspapers reactions to his claims and I found that out of every 10 commentators, nine were asking him serious questions and his comments, which were mere frivolities, were not reckoned with. As for me, a well brought-up person, there are some words I won’t use. But again, it is left for the public to read between the lines. Let me say that during the inauguration of the first National Assembly, I was a key actor in the undercurrents that produced Senate President, Evans Enwerem, alongside Arthur Eze, Dr. Deji Adeleke and others. But for a man who has spent all his life in the wharf to make such assertion is unfortunate.

You talked about Bodunde Adeyanju, a former Obasanjo aide, who was arrested over the Halliburton scandal and who you said told you that he deliberately refused to implicate the former President when he was questioned. Do you remember the circumstances in which he said this?

While going back to the airport, we had a conversation and he tried to impress it on me that for the whole period he was with them, he did not implicate Obasanjo.

Do you know any other thing about the Halliburton deal?

Like every other Nigerian and every other person in the world. The Halliburton deal is an international issue in which every other person involved in it in other parts of the world, except for the culprits in Nigeria, have been jailed. That much I know.

You said there is a nexus between your being asked to take monetary gifts to some people and their death a few days later. Why do you think so?

I am not just a Christian, but a strong believer in the supremacy of God. I also have people I looked up to as mentors and I also have capacity to appraise issues and my own actions. For those reasons, I put a number of things together and I have been carrying a burden. For instance, Chief Bola Ige. I was there the very first day he visited the Villa and I, in the company of Obasanjo and a few others, conducted him round the Villa. He was not yet a minister. When I was asked to work with Fasawe, I was reluctant to go, but Fasawe himself caused that to happen. I will tell you the story. After carrying out an assignment with Dr. Gbolade Osinowo, as the chairperson of the inaugural committee, the facilities we were going to use for the President’s relations, his guests and other things like transport and accommodation, were handed over to me by  Princess Titi Ogunleye, the then Minister of State for  FCT. And on a particular day, Fasawe called me in the presence of Dr. Gbolade Osinowo and said, ‘From today henceforth, the President has decreed that you should start working with me and that I should stop working with the inaugural committee.’ I obeyed. For that reason, there were assignments and part of the assignments were the issue of Chief Ige and others. So, one day, I sat back and began to ask myself many questions. Why did Omisore get the kind of support to win election from prison? One day I was right there with Obasanjo’s children where they call Glass House, directly opposite the residence of the President. Hakeem Bello was there, Iyabo was there, Oba was there, Seun was there. I believe about five of them, and the conversation they were having was about the kind of country we are living in. They were wondering how a man on trial for murder could become a senator from prison. I just looked at them and said these children didn’t know that Ahmadu Ali and Ojo Maduekwe could not have done this on their own and that their father was the originator. Did you not witness how Ehindero, the former Inspector-General of Police, paraded a man covered from head to the chest as the killer of Bola Ige a few days to his retirement? These are the issues that if I have the opportunity of seeing President Jonathan, I would encourage him to stop the rot. We want fairness, we want a country where nobody would die without it being investigated. We want an IGP that will come to equity with the truth. We want a president that will be fair to his people. We want a President with vision, not one lacking in vision like Obasanjo. You can imagine the corruption that characterised the Obasanjo government. Look at third term issue. Young boys in business made nonsense of him by illegitimately acquiring money from this country, assuring him that he would become what he will never become.

How did you arrive at the assumption that former Internal Affairs Minister, Chief S.M Afolabi, may not have died of natural courses?

On a particular day, I was with the Vice-President in company of Fasawe and a call came in from the office of the Internal Affairs Minister, Dr. Iyorcha Ayu. He told the then Vice-President that he had it on good authority that Chief S.M Afolabi had passed away. The Vice-President stood up. That was around 11 a.m. and he said he was going home. We all got up and followed him. But something within me told me to crosscheck with his son, Lanre Afolabi, who then was Commissioner for Health in Osun State. I called him to ask if he had heard. He said his father was where he was with him. We were already on the way to the residence of the Vice-President, but I called Otunba Fasawe, who was in the Vice-President’s car, that the information was not correct. I told him that I had just spoken with Lanre and he said his father was hale and hearty. The man died six months after.

What do you know about third term? Obasanjo has continued to deny that he harboured a tenure-elongation.

When I see Obasanjo discussing third term, I usually feel very pained because I was in the thick of it.  Third term was real. The issue of third term was imported by the crowd Obasanjo put together. They called themselves the economic team. A few days to the death of third term, I went to Adeyanju’s house and he said he was sure that the plot would succeed. I didn’t engage him further, but his confidence was high. Unfortunately, he didn’t travel with the President to France and the day the third term died, he (the former President) was on his way to Nigeria. The Nigerian Ambassador to France was with him, taking him back to the airport when he (Obasanjo) suddenly received a call and asked the driver to park. The driver said he couldn’t park because it would have been illegal to do so. From there, he started receiving phone calls, more than 50 phone calls, according to the account given by the ambassador. He was threatening to deal with a lot of people, including Ken Nnamani. I should also add this: In 1999, shortly before we took over in May, a barrel of crude oil was oscillating between $19 and $15. As soon as the civilian government took over, the price started to rise and Nigerians need to know how much we made from it and where those funds were spent because there was no visible improvement in infrastructure – no railways, no good roads. Within the same period, what we now have as Dubai was built by reasonable leaders.