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OBJ Has Lost His Sanity -M.D. Yusufu

April 2, 2006

How do you feel about the third term idea that is gaining ground by the day?

I am getting more and more depressed day by day as we move along because I see it all as a neo-colonialist agenda. All these stories about why Obasanjo needs a third term to complete his program or the program they have designed for Nigeria, as I see it, are to tie us all, the Nigerian economy, and hand it over to the powers he has been working for all along. Let us not forget that by 1980, after we left office in 1979, Ford Foundation took President Olusegun Obasanjo on and put him on their payroll. As far as I know, he may still be on their payroll. And they (Ford Foundation) started paying for his activities in Ota (African Leadership Forum), up to the time he went to prison. The so-called Northerners who are beating their chests that they were the ones who brought Obasanjo up and manipulated the votes for him and got him into the position, were themselves manipulated into that position because they knew they could not sell him in the South West. So the plan to take over the nation has been on for some time. The program they said they want to complete and finish with his wonderful economic team are nothing but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank plans on what to do with this country. I am not questioning the integrity of Nigerians he is using in the Central Bank or the Ministry of Finance or even the Bureau of Public Enterprises. But there are Nigerians and World Bank officials situated in these places, running our economy from behind. This is how I see it. To say that he needs another term to complete his program is not true, because it is not his program. It is the program to recolonize Nigeria permanently. He is always coming up with some excuses like the Niger Delta business.


 

All these years we had OMPADEC, NDDC. In the real sense, if he wanted to resolve that problem in the Niger Delta, we would have gone very far or even finished it by now, because we are talking about something of almost 10 years. All we hear are diversionary talks about resource control, increase in the percentage they allocate every month to the states. The real fact is completely ignored. What is the blueprint for the development of that area from OMPADEC, NDDC? We have not yet seen it, and that should be presented to Nigerians and the people of the Niger Delta to say, look, this is a blueprint of what we want to do in your area over a period of maybe, two, three or even 10 years. They should call on the oil companies and assign these responsibilities to them. They know how to do some engineering work in marshy areas, go ahead, build roads, hospitals, clean the environment so that people can go to their farms and develop the area generally.

 

You are trying to say that contrary to what we read in the papers concerning the British and American positions on the Niger Delta, they may actually be in support of Obasanjo. Did we get you correctly?

The real fact is that the British and Americans are clearly after their own interests, not after our welfare. They will make statements, blowing hot and cold and issuing big diplomatic statements. You should remember that there was fury against Abacha continuing to rule by the American government in those days. But I think it was just a few months before Abacha died. Clinton was in South Africa. He made a speech in which he said, ?Look, we are not against Nigeria. If Abacha would submit himself to an election, we will accept and work with him. Now if you look at the statements closely, there are loopholes in what they say. They are saying that, Look, it is up to you Nigerians, but we also are interested in keeping our interests intact. You must have been hearing the news that the Americans are saying, now that getting oil in the Middle East is getting more and more dangerous, we have to look elsewhere. And this Gulf of Guinea is full of oil.

You will even find enough supply between Sao Tome and Nigerian waters, right up to Mauritania. It is enough to satisfy their needs. This is straight oil from Sao Tome and Principe or Fernando Po (Equitorial Guinea) or from Warri. They can even lay a pipeline straight to the United States without any interference at all. So let us not underestimate the importance of what they are doing in Nigeria for themselves.

 

You said earlier that you are depressed about what Obasanjo is doing. Are you not also depressed by the activities of the emergency democrats, who claim they want to die for democracy now?

Sometimes when I look at this matter, for example, like the group in the North which says that it put Obasanjo in government; when you put it all in a basket, Obasanjo comes out more honorable than they are because from the word go, he knew what he wanted and he knew what he had discussed with his bosses. So he went for it. But those other people? That is why you find Chief Sunday Awoniyi being very bitter always. It was not Babangida or Abdulsalami who brought out Obasanjo and told his people that they must take him on. Those people in the North, in their own wisdom, decided that the West, or the Yoruba, had really been maltreated, something had to be done in order to keep them quiet.

You know that in the history of Nigerian politics, you cannot ride rough shod over the Yoruba people. If you want to govern, and govern in peace, you cannot wrong the Yoruba people and get away with it. They will not allow you to govern peacefully. So they decided that we must, after the June 12 fiasco, try to find somebody from the West. As I told you, they were manipulated into that position and they decided that Obasanjo would be the best man because he had been in government before and a lot of those Northerners know him. So Chief Awoniyi went and told some people who, together, went to see Babangida to convince him that ?we need your support for this candidate.? They argued and eventually, Babangida agreed and said, ?all right, we will help talk to Abdulsalami and Gusau.? That is how Obasanjo emerged. As I said, Awoniyi felt completely betrayed because he thought he knew him (Obasanjo).

 

Having known Obasanjo for many decades, are you surprised at what he is doing?

Yes, I am really frustrated because in those days, we talked together so many times about how to liberate our country from colonialism and imperialism. To find him now completely in their hands and doing their bidding is really very frustrating. I don?t see why he should accept World Bank and IMF programs and ignore the Vision 2010 for Nigeria. It was the country?s homegrown economic program. Every Nigerian, who is anybody in the economic sector, took part in the program, including foreigners who are our friends and produced a plan for this country. It is now completely ignored. I am really frustrated.

 

Have you always seen this trend in him (wanting to hold on to power, wanting to be hero-worshipped or to be seen as a legend or god sent)?

Yes, he has always been like that. He has that tendency in his character. But I never thought it would get out of hand in the way it has right now!

Some people might want to see it as having something to do with the fear of the unknown. People would rather stay where they are or possibly die there instead of going back to the valley.

Well, yes. I think so because that is the result of betraying your ideals. If you are still alive and somewhere you have betrayed your ideals, somewhere along the line you become afraid about what you are going to do since you have been found out. The feeling is I better find a way of dying in the office or something!

As an elder statesman, are there assurances that could be provided to make him leave power quietly or constitutionally or informally? That is, through some processes that you people could think of in assuring him to leave power and that Nigerians will forgive him?

Why should there be such assurances? When he came in, he did so under a constitution, which provided for a certain period at the end of which he had to go. Full stop.

 

I am talking of the Pinochet kind of thing, whereby the Senate could say, look, this man has been forgiven of his sins for a period of time.  I am just looking at that kind of scenario...

Yes, but don?t forget that Pinochet came after a coup. He then went on to commit many atrocities, killing so many people. He needed that pardon, which they gave him. But there is no need for Obasanjo to do that. He does not need that.

There could be atrocities that he may have committed.

Yes. Up till now, we are talking about Dele Giwa, that Babangida killed him, but there was no proper investigation to pin that on him. I see that in the newspapers, there are stories about Bola Ige, Harry Marshal, Dikibo. Virtually every death, Obasanjo fails to account for it. His government has rendered the police unable to perform their investigative duties. So that may be something.

 

What of the area of corruption?

That one has become a pervasive thing. This government virtually encourages corruption. I cannot see how they can investigate corruption or how they can go against corruption. A lot of money was budgeted, for what they called poverty alleviation but up till now, we have not seen where it works. The governors found themselves in a position of being blackmailed by the president for cheating on their own people (not doing the right thing with the money). Everything ended up as government by blackmail. They cannot investigate corruption or prosecute it. What they did, like the noise they are making about Tafa Balogun; we have not been told yet (as I said they have truncated the investigative power of the police).

 

 What was the budgetary allocation of the police in those years? Was the money Tafa Balogun was supposed to have stolen up to that amount?

During that period, the police were being paid their salary and they were doing their work but this money disappeared. We are not told where this money came from. On top of it all, at the end, they gave him, for stealing N13 billion, six months! Any thief stealing a goat can get a year or two in my place.

My liberty is very important to me, but gives me N6 billion and locks me up for six months. I will take it! That is not anti-corruption or anti-anything. They have to tell us what happened. You know the ICPC is the one Obasanjo brought out as soon as he came in. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is not his own. It is the IMF and the World Bank that imposed it on him that you have to do this. Then he took it on and made so much noise about it.

In your own opinion and as an experienced person, what can Nigerians do to stop Obasanjo from accomplishing a third term or what some others are regarding as life presidency?

We allow ourselves to be distracted from particular issues that we should be pursuing. We ignored the function of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly is more powerful than the Presidency. But we ignored it and allowed elections into the National Assembly to become frivolous - anybody can walk into it. Now, from what we are hearing, they are beginning to appreciate their own responsibilities and powers. Their rise against the maneuvering of their colleagues is a very good development because they are the people who can really stop it. But Nigerians who elected them have to pressurize them into that position. It does not matter if they take money. Let them take the money, which they will give them. It does not stop them from doing their job. Take it, it is your money. If they give you, take it, because they are using your money and nobody can challenge you after that. Take the money and also be honorable and throw out the mad agenda.

What do you make of the clamor of the South-South people for the presidency?

 I may be archaic or old-fashioned but my own ideas are based on what we grew up with ? Zik, Awolowo, Sarduana or NCNC, Action Group, NPC. There are no more patriotic Nigerians and people fighting for their own people than these three people. Even in their wildest claims, they never asked for rotational presidency. The idea of democracy is what we should stick to. That was why Awolowo was able to go to the North to campaign, Zik was able to go to the North to campaign, Sarduana was able to come to the South to campaign. Eventually they formed alliances to take over power from those regions, which were very powerful. To resort to rotational (give-me-this, give-me-that), is completely to divert our attention from political parties and individuals to produce programmes for the development of this country. Whoever has the programme, go and sell it to the people and if they accept you, they will vote for you. It doesn?t matter where you come from.

You go round the world. Wherever you find any good and big establishment, you will find the number two or three in it being a Nigerian. Now, with that type of fantastic resource, you know that human resources are the best - yet we are unable to put our acts together, to be where we ought to be. It is very sad. We don?t deserve that kind of situation. Our leaders ought to really rise up to that.

 

Many observers put the blame of what is happening at the doorstep of politicians; that by now, serious campaign ought to be on. Why is that not happening now?

I suppose there is a lot of campaigning going on. I agree, those leading this campaign are the media. The media are doing very well. One, in educating the people (it is their function anyway), and in campaigning against this dangerous thing. If you think that the rest of the people are not coming around, that is very bad. But I think this campaign should continue. The politicians, you know a lot of them, they don?t want to get into trouble. But there are quite a lot of them who did a lot of things, which would have put them in jail. You can?t expect much from these people. If they shout that you want Obasanjo to go, they will say you have forgotten that they allowed you to be walking the streets, freely. They would set them up. I would assume that some politicians within the National Assembly, like Uche Chukwumerije, Bugaje, and the other one from Lagos are doing a lot to rally their colleagues to really stop this thing at the National Assembly. Of course, people like Mantu are also there to make sure that things remain the way they are.

If you were locked up in a room with Obasanjo today, what would you tell him?

I will find the easiest way to jump out!

  Why?

What should I tell him? He has been in this job for quite a long time and he knows what is right. But he ignores that. I will tell you, I believe he is insane. That is why I will run away. How can Obasanjo be behaving in this way except for reasons of insanity? He has lost his sanity.

As a compatriot who knows the nature of power, how it insulates rulers against reality, don?t you want to wake him up?

We are about the same age. If he were a younger man, I would probably put him on a chair and slap him to wake him up! But it is not so.

 

You have a responsibility to say something if you were locked up in a room with him. To fulfil all righteousness, what would you tell him?

You still want to lock me up in a room with him? I  will list things that I think are wrong with him

What are those things which you think are wrong with him.?

I mentioned to you that it is not right to be working for neo-colonial interests or to keep our country under the control of other people and ignore good leadership, connecting Nigerians from all over. These ethnicity and religious things are brought about by the economic measures they were told to adopt. When you put a Nigerian in a position, he will have to do what the people want, even for his own safety, and forget this ethnic thing. At the same time, where you come from or your religion won?t matter. But now they are dragging us back. Didn?t you see the meeting in Enugu, which was government-sponsored? All the big guns of the PDP were there, telling us that this country will break up, that the South and North can never meet if we don?t behave ourselves. It is not right.

You stated earlier that President Obasanjo is solely pursuing neo-colonial interests. You also cited the EFCC as part of that agenda. But is there anything at all for Nigeria and Nigerians in the agenda or is it just an outright foreign agenda?

 

Do they really ever think of us, except give us all up so that they can take what they want?

I mentioned earlier that they had put their own people there. They may be Nigerians with Nigerian faces but their allegiance is elsewhere.  World Bank. They are in the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Bureau of Public Enterprises (which decides which projects to be sold and to whom). They merge the banks into bigger banks; kill People?s and Community banks. These are the real ingredients of growth at that level. I was talking to one of the chairmen of these big banks. I said: ?what are you people doing?? Even if there is an anti-poverty programme by the government, you are killing it with what you are doing. He said: ?when we are told to merge, there is nothing else we can do. That is what we are doing.? He probably has a point, because why should I waste my time on one person who needs N1 million loan because the paper or other works is the same for somebody who wants N50 or N100 million. The power this generates to the economy, I believe, is not at the IMF or World Bank. It is at the local level or small operators that need loans of N50, 000, N60, 000 to continue their business. That was what produced all this great money in Asia and other places. It is not the big banks. We know when we heard that there are people from outside, either from America or Britain, in the Ministry of Defense, monitoring what is going on and reporting, not to our own people, but someone else. You heard General Malu?s outcry recently. Even if you are not convinced that our activities, especially of this government, are for someone else, not for us, when the Chairman of World Bank was appointed, his first port of call was Nigeria. For the former Secretary of Defence in the United States, the first place of call was here. If you think you are a small man, forget it, because you are big in their consideration.

2007:IBB Will Beat OBJ Silly ?Deboh

 

Dr. Godwin Daboh-Adzuana, National Chairman, Concerned Nigerians for IBB, spoke with FRANCIS OTTAH AGBO in Minna

 

Recently, General Babangida declared his intention to be president in 2007. What are his chances?

Nigerians want General Babangida to lead them for the second time. Nigeria is now in dire need of a dynamic leader who would not flout court rulings, a leader that would not be insensitive to their yearnings. I would not say Obasanjo has failed totally, but his politics is too bad to be allowed to stay in Aso Rock a day longer than 29 May 2007. Obasanjo is a King-Kong, and at this crucial stage of our nationhood we have to come out to say enough is enough. We have given Nigerians an alternative and that man is IBB. IBB is the answer to Nigeria?s problems for now. Babangida has got more goodwill, geographical acceptability, intelligence and statecraft than any Nigerian living today. Babangida is a household name in Nigeria because he empathises with his subjects but Obasanjo does not. He uses people and dumps them. So it is no magic that Nigerians from all nooks and crannies are pressurizing IBB to join the race. And I can assure you, if Obasanjo insists on contesting the 2007 election, General Babangida would beat him silly.

But many Nigerians believe both Obasanjo and IBB share the same character traits.

That is not true. Unlike Obasanjo who wants to be life president, IBB is not hungry for power. After the annulment of the June 12 election, IBB stepped aside and returned to Minna. After several years, IBB facilitated the release of Obasanjo from Abacha?s gulag and provided the financial base that made Obasanjo president. It was IBB who went to Ota farm to drag Obasanjo to stand for election. Obasanjo said he had no money. Babangida left and within three days, he and his friends raised more than N500 million to kick off the presidential campaign of Obasanjo. General T.Y Danjuma too donated generously towards that project. Today, Obasanjo has abandoned both IBB and Danjuma. I was part of the members of the presidential campaign committee that visited 15 states with OBJ. None of us was given a kobo. After we secured victory for him, he abandoned us. In my own case, he detained me for 14 days in Abuja. Could IBB have treated people like that? No, IBB and Obasanjo are not the same. Obasanjo only thinks about himself and family but Babangida empowers anybody that comes his way. In April 2005, I went to IBB for help because I was broke; he handed me to three governors, and that was how my story was changed and today I can afford to feed my family and send my children to school. But Obasnajo could not even organize a dinner to thank us for traversing all the nooks and crannies of the country to put him in Aso Rock.

Apart from being ungrateful, Obasanjo is not as visionary and charismatic as IBB. The much talked about de-regulation policy started with the IBB regime when he opened the economy. Second, IBB enjoys working with the intelligentsia but Obasanjo is intimidated by intelligence. That is why he surreptitiously schemes out great brains from the PDP. And worse still, Obasanjo is unforgiving. This is a serious minus for Obasanjo. If you offend Obasanjo, he does not forgive, even though he claims to be a ?born-again? Christian. But IBB forgives people and that makes him a better leader. In any case, both men are very firm. This is the only area that IBB and Obasanjo share similarity. History has shown that both men have taken far-reaching decisions on the economy and the polity without minding the consequence.

 

 

 

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