A frustrated Olusegun Obasanjo,
a General, Nigerian ex-President ,has written a critical letter to President
Goodluck Jonathan, accusing him of, high level corruption, tribalism, aid and abating
of criminals, witch hunting, promise and fail, ineptitude and of taking actions
calculated at destroying Nigeria.
According to Premium
Times ,
Obasanjo said,“Nigeria is bleeding and the hemorrhage
must be stopped,”
PREAMBLE:
Obasanjo, according to Premium
Times, said Jonathan has failed to deliver on his promises to the
Nigerian people, stem corruption, promote national unity and strengthen
national security.
He said in the letter titled “Before
it is too late” that rather than take steps to advance Nigeria’s interest and
up the standards of living of Nigerians, Mr. Jonathan had betrayed God and the
Nigerian people that brought him to power, and has been pursuing selfish
personal and political interests based on advice he receives from “self-centred
aides”.
In the detailed letter, Obasanjo said
Mr. Jonathan had become terribly divisive and clannish, destroying his own
party, polarizing the country along regional and religious lines and ridiculing
Nigeria in the comity of nations. He blamed Jonathan for the crises tearing the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, apart.
PROMISE NOT KEPT:
He said apart from using party chairman Bamanga
Tukur to cause multiple crises and divide the ranks of the party, the
president’s failure to keep a promise he made not to seek a second term is also
generating tension within the ruling party.
“It would be unfair to continue to
level full blames on the Chairman (Tukur) for all that goes wrong with the
party,” Mr. Obasanjo said. “The chairman is playing the tune dictated by the
paymaster (Jonathan). But the paymaster is acting for a definitive purpose for
which deceit and deception seem to be the major ingredients.
“Up till two months ago, Mr.
President, you told me that you have not told anybody that you would contest in
2015. I quickly pointed out to you that the signs and the measures on the
ground do not tally with your statement. You said the same to one other person
who shared his observation with me. And only a fool would believe that
statement you made to me judging by what is going on. I must say it is not
ingenious. You may wish to pursue a more credible and more honorable path.”
The former President said
Jonathan told him before the 2011 election he would not seek a second term, and
made the same promise to governors, party stakeholders and Nigerians.
The president’s refusal to keep that
promise cast him as a man without honour, Mr. Obasanjo said.
The former president said it would be“fatally
morally flawed” for Mr. Jonathan to contest in 2015.
LACKED TRUST AND HONOUR:
“As a leader, two things you must
cherish and hold dear among others are trust and honour both of which are
important ingredients of character. I will want to see anyone in the Office of
the Presidency of Nigeria as a man or woman who can be trusted, a person of
honour in his words and character.”
Obasanjo also accused Mr. Jonathan of
anti-party conducts – supporting opposition parties’ candidates in governorship
elections in some states such as Ondo, Edo and Anambra states at
the detriment of PDP’s own candidates – and of pitting party members against
one another. Obasanjo’s inclusion of Lagos in the list of states that Jonathan
favoured to the detriment of the PDP raised eyebrows in political circles this
morning.
REFUSED TO LISTEN TO ADVISE:
On Boko Haram, Obasanjo returned to
his pet prescription on how to end the insurgency, a counsel Jonathan had
thrown into the dustbin.
To Obasanjo, Jonathan had
failed to address the underlying causes of the Boko Haram menace, reiterating
that Jonathan to adopt a carrot and stick approach in dealing with the
insurgency.
He explained that “conventional
military actions based on standard phases of military operations alone will not
permanently and effectively deal with the issue of Boko Haram”.
HE IS A TRIBALIST:
Obasanjo also accused Jonathan
for being clannish. “For you to allow yourself to be “possessed”, so to
say, to the exclusion of most of the rest of Nigerians as an “Ijaw man” is a
mistake that should never have been allowed to happen. Yes, you have to be born
in one part of Nigeria to be Nigerian if not naturalized but the Nigerian
President must be above ethnic factionalism. And those who prop you up as of,
and for ‘Ijaw nation’ are not your friends genuinely, not friends of Nigeria
nor friends of ‘Ijaw nation’ they tout about.
“To allow or tacitly encourage people
of ‘Ijaw nation’ to throw insults on other Nigerians from other parts of the
country and threaten fire and brimstone to protect your interest as an Ijaw man
is myopic and your not openly quieting them is even more unfortunate.
WITCH HUNTING:
Obasanjo also accused
Jonathan of placing over 1000 Nigerians on political watch list and “training
snipers and other armed personnel secretly and clandestinely acquiring weapons
to match for political purposes like Abacha and training them where Abacha
trained his killers”.
He also wondered why Jonathan was
providing assistance for a murderer to evade justice.
AID AND ABATING:
“Presidential assistance for a
murderer to evade justice and presidential delegation to welcome him home can
only be in bad taste generally but particularly to the family of his victim,”
Mr. Obasanjo said. “Assisting criminals to evade justice cannot be part of the
job of the presidency. Or, as it is viewed in some quarters, is he being
recruited to do for you what he had done for Abacha in the past? Hopefully, he
should have learned his lesson. Let us continue to watch.”
According to Premium Times, though
Obasanjo did not mention the name of the murderer he accused the President of
protecting, the medium believed he must be referring to Hamza
Al-Mustapha, a former security aide to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha,
who is facing trial for allegedly masterminding the killing of Kudirat Abiola,
the wife of Moshood Abiola, the winner of the annulled 1993 presidential election.
Mr. Al-Mustapha was freed by the
appeal court in July but the Lagos state government has since appealed the
judgment at the Supreme Court.
HIGH LEVEL CORRUPTION:
The former President also called on
the National Assembly to rise up and take decisive action over the recent
allegation in the country that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
failed to remit billions of dollars in proceeds of crude oil sales to the
federation account.
“This allegation will not fly away by
non-action, cover-up, denial or bribing possible investigators,” Mr. Obasanjo
told the President. “Please deal with this allegation transparently and let the
truth be known.
“The dramatis personae in this
allegation and who they are working for will one day be public knowledge. Those
who know are watching if the National Assembly will not be accomplice in the
heinous crime and naked grand corruption. May God grant you the grace for at
least one effective corrective action against high corruption which seems to
stink all around you in your government.”
Obasanjo said he wrote the letter in
the national interest, saying nothing, at this stage of his life, would prevent
him from standing up for whatever he considers to be in the best interest of
Nigeria, Africa and the world.
He said he was ready for whatever
backlash his letter would provoke from the presidency.
“Knowing what happens around you most
of which you know of and condone or deny, this letter will proke cacophony from
hired and unhired attackers but I will maintain my serenity because by this letter,
I have done my duty to you as I have always done, to your government, to the
party, PDP, and to our country, Nigeria…,” Obasanjo said.
“I have passed the stage of being
flattered, intimidated, threatened, frightened, induced or bought… Death is the
end of all human beings and may it come when God wills it to come.”
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