Obasanjo’s Frustrations

By Ben Nanaghan

Once again, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo has inauspiciously taken advantage of his “untouchable” status to heat the polity and cause political pandemonium in an otherwise serene and politically stable nation. This is not the first time Obasanjo is seeking political relevance and a boisterous attention.

Nigeria’s former military cum civilian ruler for 11½ years, Gen. Matthew Oluseegun, Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo is at it again. The self acclaimed fearless General who touts his ‘tigritude’ as a weapon of oppression and intimidation has again stirred the hornet’s nest.

The so-called Elder Statesman who had previously called for a Nigerian Arab Spring on Monday 5th of dec 2012at the June 12 Cultural Centre in Abeokuta also shocked his audience in Dakar, Senegal last year when he openly called for an en mass revolution in Nigeria, because of a 72% high rate of youth unemployment. If the audience in Dakar was shocked, the audience in Warri also last year was flabbergasted when the same Obasanjo openly called for a massive revolution to topple president Goodluck  Ebele Jonathans weak leadership.

Nigerians should not overlook Gen Obasanjo’s damning and treasonable letter published by most Nigerian media on Thursday, 12th Dec 2013. Gen Obasanjos letter is a very clever way of settling some political scores with President Jonathan in a self serving, unpartriotic and treasonable act to stir the masses against the President and either impeach him or overthrow him in a bloody coup

Some have written off OBJ’s latest frustrations as the ranting of an amnesia ‘with a brief viral spell touching on alzheimer’s condition. This group believe that OBJ has joined the Senile Elders Forum that are always a burden on the family and the nation.

Others argue that OBJ still “dey kampe” but that age has not reduced his blood thirstiness hence his incessant bonding with the Minna Generals to overthrow the GEJ regime with their fragile argument of GEJ’s weak leadership. Nigerians still remember the Odi genocide in Bayelsa and Zakibiam massacre in Benue States.

Nigerians should be security conscious enough to ask OBJ to name the 1000 Nigerians on the watch list of President Jonathan’s Strike Force and show us their training depots. I weep for those Nigerians who believe these cock and bull stories

The root cause and core of Obasanjo’s grievances is fueled by GEJ’s transformational Agenda which is smoking out the deep seated cabals benefiting from Nigerias woes. For instance diesel is no more imported by a single monopolist in Nigeria and all Nigerians know this Nigerian who is Obasanjo’s front to bleed this country through economic haemorrhage. Nigerians still remember the $620MN bribe scandal which Obasanjo tried to cover up. We all still remember the unrestrained atrocities of the single importer syndrome where 2000 litres of petroleum products imported become 200,000 litres in the payment vouchers.

OBJ is also annoyed with GEJ’s transformational program in the power sector as a result of governments privatization program of the power sector on November 1st 2013. With functional electricity, Nigerians will not patronize the cabal’s twin industries of imported diesel and the giant generator industry. Nigerians should remember that we lost Chief Bola Ige because of his determination and resolve to fix electricity in Nigeria.

Assisting criminals to evade justice, bunkering, stealing, drug baron (Buruji Kashamu) were some of the charges against GEJ. To say the least, Obasanjo’s letter was remotely primed to cause chaos, instant popular reaction to pounce on the president, and slaughter him to satisfy Obasanjo’s northern candidate to become president in 2005. After all one good turn deserves another. General Musa Yar’Adua prevailed on OBJ to become Military Head of State on 13/2/1976 after General Murtala Mohammed’s suspicious assassination which was then blamed on LT. Col.  Bukar Sukar Dimka. But Nigerians know better now.

Again in 1998 after Gen. Abacha was mysteriously poisoned and Gen. Obasanjo was released from his earned prison term in Yola, Gen. Babangida flew into Otta Farm with a loaded jet to convince-the ex convict to become Nigeria’s next president.  This is because it had became highly scandalous as the North had ruled Nigeria for 38 years then and the North wanted OBJ to rule Nigeria on behalf of the South West but with Northern interest. OBJ who came out of jail a pauper and heavily indebted quickly grabbed this opportunity which turned him into a dollar multi trillionaire today.

Obasanjo accused President Goodluck Jonathan of high “corruption which seems to stink all around you and your government”. This is not the case of pot calling the kettle black as some people have suggested but a case of Lucifer calling angel Gabriel a sinner. OBJ with his litany of corruption cases is the least qualified Nigerian to pronounce another guilty of corruption.

OBJ is a moral derelict and destitute. The corruption-to-high heavens cases involving Halliburton and Siemens are today yet unresolved and unburied because the legs are still protruding out of the coffin.

Obasanjo built a private library in Abeokuta worth N7BN and coerced his opulent Nigerian business partners to bank roll the shameful project which he dupliciously called Presidential Library Project.

Obasanjo built a modern world class university with federal funds just like his Vice President also did. Obasanjo’s Bells University which gulped over $50BN of Nigeria’s hard earned foreign currency is still there for all to see.

What about Obasanjo’s undistinguished purchase of Transcorp Hotel in Abuja. He did not hide the ownership of all these millions of dollar yielding possessions all of which he acquired as a sitting President.

Obasanjo’s privatization exercise was purely motivated by personal greed, profit and a dare-me-if-you-can impunity. And this was the beginning of the rift that created a deep chasm between him and his Vice President who wanted some of the action too. Obasanjo allegedly spend $16BN to generate electricity and at the end of the day-we had more darkness.

The Nigerian Senate has long recommended the revocation of Obasanjo’s corrupt and fraudulent privatization. The House of Representatives has also indicted the Obasanjo regime over the $16BN electricity fraud.

In the area of corruption there is no basis of comparison between former President Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan. I am sure Obasanjo still remembers the billions of dollars with which he bribed delegates of his political Reform Conference to rubber stamp his insatiable greed to perpetuate himself in office through his 3rd term misadventure.

Boko Haram

On boko haram and National Security the former president believes that the genesis of boko haram can be traced to drugs, indoctrination, fundamentalism, gun trafficking, hate culture, human trafficking, money laundering, religion, poverty, unemployment, poor education, revenge and international terrorism.

It is the height of stark hypocrisy for the well informed former president to pretend and try to hoodwink a credulous public that boko haram was caused by the reasons above. Is there any region of this country that is not affected by all the above factors. Is there no poverty or unemployment in the South West. If you are talking about poor education, go to the riparian coasts of the Niger Delta especially in Edo and Ebijaw ward in Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State where over 250,000 Ijaws do not have a single secondary school in the whole ward.

The metamorphosis of boko haram from a provincial machete-wielding, bare-footed, bow and arrow rag-tag army to a sophisticated bomb throwing modern hi-tech military force did not surprise those who observe Nigeria’s political panorama with a microscope. In 2002 boko haram founding fathers, Yussuf Mohammed and Buji Foi never imagined that their pet dream would assume such national and international status as it has today.

Those who vowed to make Nigeria ungovernable did not express themselves through secret wikileak documents. It was an open declaration of war against President Goodluck Jonathan if he dared to win the PDP presidential primaries of January 13th 2011. And winning the presidential election in April 2011 would be calamitous they declared. Making Nigeria ungovernable for President Jonathan is an agenda of the northern elite which transformed boko haram to a willing tool of vendetta, oppression and national and international terrorism. I therefore feel very pained and melancholy when some boko haram supporters insinuate the pedestrian argument of infrastructural decay in the North. We all saw the indiscriminate and unabated influx of hi-tech arms and amunitions into Nigeria through our air and seaports especially from Iran and other Islamic Countries. After all about 90% of the top management of our customs, Immigration, Police etc are of Northern extraction. And how many Northerners have really come out openly to criticize boko haram apart from the Sardauna of Sokoto, Dr. David Mark and Mrs Sarah Jibril.

Obasanjo should stop pretending with his stick and carrot solution. How much carrot did he give to the north in his 11½ years in Dodan Barracks and Aso Rock.

Why did he not use his carrot and stick theory in Odi or in Zakibiam. Especially in Odi which was thereafter leveled. Those who killed the 19 soldiers were also terrorists and so they deserved some carrot too and not all stick.

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is not a trained military officer. He is just a very humane and merciful man (to a fault) who has used these virtues to manage the bh crisis.

OPEN CALL FOR A COUP

Obasanjos frequent reference to bloodshed is an open invitation to the military to overthrow GEJ’S government. He openly confessed the involvement of his two evil Generals with whom he has concluded arrangement with the military. According to Obasanjo “God never sleeps. He is watching, waiting and bidding His time to dispense justice” against GEJ. But Obasanjo should remember that God is not man and He does not think as man does. As the heavens are higher that the earth, so are His ways higher than ours and His thoughts than our thoughts”. God will surely dispense justice against Obasanjo-Jeremiah 30 v 23 refers.

Obasanjo also tried to placate the National Assembly and prod members and senators to impeach President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. This is the same national assembly that Obasanjo even recently described as irretrievably corrupt during the $620MN bribe case between Rep, Lawan Farouk and Obasanjo’s business partner. Obasanjo is by all means resolved to make the whole country rise against President Jonathan.

OBASANJO’S ROLE AS NIGERIA’S KINGMAKER 

“On two occasions, I have had opportunity to work for my successors to the government of Nigeria… I worked for both presidents Shagari and Yar Adua to succeed me” The above confession by Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo finally lays to rest the speculations of political scientists who ventured to speculate  in 1979 that Obasanjo finally truncated the ambition of Chief Obafemi Awolowo to rule Nigeria because of his wish to probe the military if he became President. Gen. Obasanjo who is an apostle of “do or die” politics massively rigged the 1979 presidential elections in  favour of President Shehu Shagari to deny Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was then one of the most qualified Nigerians to lead  this country into political, social and economic freedom. Apart from massively rigging the elections to favour President Shehu Shagari, Obasanjo will one day also confess how he forced the judiciary to give victory to Shagari with the very obnoxious and controversial verdict of 122/3 ¬ of a state. But Obasanjo did not tell us the truth when he said he deprived Chief Awolowo of the presidency to strengthen Nigerian Unity. The best way to strengthen Nigerian Unity was to uphold and defend the constitution, to uphold justice and be fair to all. Obasanjo imposed Alhaji Shehu Shagari on Nigerians and since then he and the Minna Mafia have always decided who became President in Nigeria. And so Obasanjo installed a weak Shehu Shagari on Nigeria as President not because he loves Nigeria as he claims but because former President Olusegun Obasanjo is the head of Nigeria’s “power cabal” which ensures that the cabal never for a second lose grip on power so as to protect their wealth and possessions. This phobia for free and fair elections which could throw up an “untrusted and untrustworthy” President is Obasanjo’s driving force in this political and leadership chess game.

Cabals are a universal phenomenon, a deep-rooted and well entrenched clique of Mephistophelian manipulators who use their tremendous power and wealth to control government and para-governmental agencies. They hold sway and force governments to enact policies that would favour them and their enormous wealth. Cabals are formed by the most powerful, the wealthiest and the most influential members of society.

These selfish sociopaths and scoundrels who are top shots in society form these cabals with the sole aim of protecting their wealth and interest with a forceful determinism to maintain the status quo. Especially in Nigeria and a few other countries where cabals have a vicious strangle-hold on elected governments, such cabals are referred to as “parallel government”.