More criticisms have come the way
of former president Olusegun Obasanjo over his letter where he chastised
President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration, claiming the president was
preparing to rig the 2019 poll.
In his response to the letter on
Tuesday, former Lagos governor and Co-Chair of the All Progressives Congress
Presidential Campaigns, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, said Obasanjo was projecting unto
the APC the misconduct he would perpetrate if still in power.
“Yet, the ways of Obasanjo are
not those of the APC. And this difference has meant the better for Nigeria,”
Tinubu said in the strongly-worded letter.
Asiwaju described the former
president as an election rigger without peer.
“There is no election which
occurred under Obasanjo’s watch or in which he participated that did not
involve cheating on his part. Even the late President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua
admitted he was the beneficiary of a flawed election engineered by none other than
today’s vociferous complainant,” he said.
Tinubu’s riposte personally
signed by him, titled “CHIEF OBASANJO – AT WAR AGAINST HIS OWN DEEDS”, reads:
“Former President Obasanjo is many things to many people; but he is all things
unto himself. His recent contribution to our political discourse wherein he
alleges plots to steer the coming elections shows he benefits from an
exceedingly faulty memory, is purely shameless or has a most wicked sense of
humor. Perhaps all three are facets of his makeup and were equally on display
in his latest prosaic display.
“The crux of his long tirade was
the allegation that INEC is poised to cook the election results. Chief Obasanjo
should not get his dander up and waste good ink for nothing. This election will
be a free and open exercise of the people’s right to choose their leaders.
Obasanjo makes fiery allegations against this right but offers no corroborating
evidence; he presents only reams of words. This is because Obasanjo is
projecting onto the APC the misconduct he would wrought if still in power. Yet,
the ways of Obasanjo are not those of the APC. And this difference has meant
the better for Nigeria.
“Moreover, Chief Obasanjo should
be the last to complain about election rigging. His administration was an
unalloyed miscarriage of justice and of the best aspirations of the Nigerian
people. We all know he was not elected in 1999. He was handed Nigeria on a
silver platter; perhaps because Nigeria was so easily given that he went about
treating the nation as if it was a less than precious thing; he thought it was
a cheap give-away not a privilege to govern this nation.
“This man should have positioned
himself to be the father of the nation. All the goodwill that could be granted
a political figure was bestowed on him. The global economy was such that it
fueled our growth. Everyone wanted Nigeria to succeed after emerging from years
of noxious military rule. Despite the flawed exercise that rendered him
president, we all bit our tongues in hope that he would say and do the right
things that would move Nigeria forward.
“Instead of being a unifying
figure as Commander-in-chief, he lowered himself to being a divisive,
vindictive conniver. There was no table which he neared that he did not upset
and overturn. There was no one who came into his company for any period of time
with whom he did not fall out if he expresses a thought contrary to one of his.
“He tried to convert our young
democracy into a one party state. His PDP boasted that they would rule for 60
uninterrupted years. Never did they boast that they would govern us well during
even one year of the sixty. He could have placed the economy on the path to
durable growth and shared prosperity through diversification, industrialization
and creation of a social safety net for the poor. Instead, he handed the
economy over to a tight group of cronies, turning what should be a modern
economy into a version of the mammoth trading companies that dominated the 17th
and 18th century. The Transcorp conglomerate was intended to be a throwback to
monopolistic enterprises such as the East Indian Company wherein a select
handful would control the national economy’s strategic heights.
“We hoped that Obasanjo would
personify statesmanship, thus showing the way to a more benign political
culture. Instead, he bickered and feuded with his vice president and mostly
anyone who dared remind him that he was human and thus infallible.
“Given the vast margin between
the good he could have achieved and the nebulous feats that comprise his true
record, Chief Obasanjo is the person most responsible for the flaws in the
Nigerian political economy since 1999. His ego is as expansive as the firmament
but his good deeds would fit into a modest sachet with ample room to spare.
“The worst of Obasanjo’s record,
I have yet to describe. When it comes to elections, he has been a rigger
without peer. There is no election which occurred under Obasanjo’s watch or in
which he participated that did not involve cheating on his part. Even the late
President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua admitted he was the beneficiary of a flawed
election engineered by none other than today’s vociferous complainant. For
Obasanjo to lament over electoral malpractice is tantamount to the ocean
complaining that a few raindrops are causing it to get wet.
“In his writing, Obasanjo alleges
the Osun election indicates rigging will take place in the coming contests.
Let’s go straight to the truth, Obasanjo has no grievance with the process. His
personal history suggests fair process is the least of his concerns. What
knocks Obasanjo off kilter is that he could not dictate the result in Osun. He
told those in the PDP that he held sway in Osun and throughout the Southwest.
They believed him. He led them to defeat notwithstanding the almost impossible voter
turnout in PDP strongholds in that state. Obasanjo can only win an election
when has the final say over the final vote tally. Otherwise, he is a troubled
man.
“In an attempt to relieve his
trouble, Chief Obasanjo makes reference to a joke about INEC. He says, “The
INEC was asked if the Commission was ready for the election and if it expects
the election to be free, fair and credible. The INEC man is reported as saying
in response, ‘we are ready with everything including the results.’” The joke
has a touch of humor; we are glad that Obasanjo is not completely devoid of
this most human of traits. However, he makes a telling omission by failing to
give you the vintage of this bit of sarcasm.
“The jest was not born last week.
It’s vintage is circa 2003- a time when a certain President Obasanjo rode
roughshod over INEC. He would summon the nervous INEC chairman to the Villa,
proceeding to hector the man until he gave way to Obasanjo’s demands. At
Obasanjo’s urging, INEC improperly published fake election results on the
gubernatorial race in Lagos. Not until a public outcry did INEC back away from
rigging Lagos. A similar attempt was made in Lagos in 2007. In essence, for
Obasanjo to laugh at this joke means he has belatedly developed the ability to
laugh at himself.
“If Obasanjo was so committed to
free elections, how could he countenance Atiku’s recent boast of
single-handedly rigging elections in the Southwest. Atiku claimed that he took
all states for the PDP but left Lagos alone due to some misguided affinity for
me. By this statement, Atiku publicly admitted to rigged elections in the SW.
Beyond resort to wholesale rigging, Atiku could never deign to be more popular
and potent in the Southwest than the panoply of good and decent leaders that
guided the defunct AC. Moreover, I can assure you that we did not need Atiku’s
false beneficence to win the elections in Lagos. The people voted for us and
their votes countered the ill-designs Obasanjo and Atiku set in motion. Thus,
if Obasanjo cannot chastise Atiku for publicly boasting that he rigged
elections, then Obasanjo’s display of righteous indignation is but a magician’s
trick.
“His fine words and sentiments
come a dozen years too late. These noble things would have greater effect had
he placed them into practice when he was at the helm of affairs. At that time,
he was powerful so he did as he might. Now that he lacks power, he has taken to
preach that which he never did.
“In his commentary, he mentions
that INEC has a record of past rigging. I wonder if he understands the
admission he makes. No other president has exercised such tight control over
INEC for as many years as Obasanjo. No president has had the domineering
relationship with INEC that Obasanjo enjoyed. If there are reports of past INEC
rigging, those reports are of Obasanjo’s making. It is the irony of ironies for
Obasanjo to complain of the fruit on the table when his was the hand that
planted the tree.
“Chief Obasanjo tries to further
confuse matters by pointing to the case of the CJN’s assets declaration as
evidence of future vote-rigging via tampering with the judiciary. Again,
Obasanjo goes into a personality shift. For years, Obasanjo has boasted of
himself as our corruption fighter nonpareil. The very aim of this current
letter is to attack imagined INEC malfeasance. Yet, with regard to the CJN, he
blithely ignores the large cache of dollars in the CJN’s account and the
millions of dollars that passed through the accounts. Obasanjo seems unbothered
by the unexplained presence of such sums. Perhaps Obasanjo’s nonchalance
regarding the money is that he expected the funds there because he knows both
the origin and reasons for the trove.
“Chief Obasanjo sinks so low as
to suggest that the VP, during the exercise of his official duties, was taking
the PVC numbers of market women and traders. This statement reveals the bilious
nature of the man. Obasanjo even quotes the notorious Bode George in claiming
that the VP was “gutting our collective treasury” by giving loans of N10,000 to
market women under the administration’s empowerment programs.
“What? Giving money to poor
people to enhance their lives and escape the maw of poverty is, by PDP metrics,
gutting the collective treasury. If helping the poor is gutting the treasury,
Atiku’s privatizing large chunks of the economy into his own pocket must have
been seen by the PDP as a vital public service. Jonathan and his Petroleum
Minister’s siphoning government coffers of several billion dollars to enrich
the already-rich must have been viewed by the PDP as the epitome of a social
safety net. Obasanjo’s and the PDP’s disdain for the common person could not be
clearer.
“Obasanjo should be ashamed to
even raise this issue. When he was president, the economy was on an easy
sledding due to positive global trends. Obasanjo did not raise a finger to do
anything for the poor. He and Atiku were champions of trickle-down economics. If
anything good trickled down to the poor it was by accident. Obasanjo left the
poor unattended because he cared nothing for them. Poverty increased under his
cold indifference. Not one meaningful social program was established during his
watch. The banking and pension deregulation he brought were geared to profit
the wealthy CEO’s and managers of these financial entities. The malpractices
attendant to these deregulation fiascos extinguished the savings of millions of
Nigerians. In reliance on these artifices of Obasanjo and his ilk, many
Nigerians were thrust down the lower rungs of the poverty they so desperately
sought to avoid. Obasanjo’s allies gobbled the savings of the poor and still
feast on them to this day.
“Chief Obasanjo is one of the
last people to preach to anyone about using public funds to care for the poor.
He had the gall to fret that funds should not be given to the urban poor
because they are not poor enough. But his grouse does not show any defect in
the administration’s program. His complaint shows the defect in Obasanjo’s
humanity or lack of it. To complain that some people are not poor enough for
his liking is to reveal that seeing human suffering does not motivate him to
cure it. He would rather that people suffer it the more. Your unease and
distress becomes his entertainment or at least evidence he is superior to the
common man. Watching a laborer struggle against penury is no more than a
spectator sport for Obasanjo.
“The most fantastic of all his
claims is that this administration has returned Nigeria to the days of Abacha.
If this were true, the press would be constantly closed. Obasanjo would be
constricted in writing such letters. Elections would not be upon us. Atiku
would not be able to freely campaign and the diversity of opinion in the public
space would be suppressed.
“For Obasanjo to utter such an
outrage is that he hopes lighting strikes twice. He was ushered into office
after Abacha’s demise. He thinks if he can invoke Abacha’s name, the same thing
will happen again. By hook, crook or utter fantasy, Obasanjo seeks to return to
Aso Villa, not as an irritating, importuning guest but as a long-term resident.
He wants to be back in control. If he cannot be president, then the president
better carve from his office a special room for Obasanjo.
“Obasanjo thinks he is more than
the greatest Nigerian. He thinks himself greater than Nigeria itself. Unless he
is allowed to lead the procession, he will groan, grouse and grit. However,
neither President Buhari nor the progressive APC have much use for his
reactionary policies and his megalomaniac ways. Thus, we shall be forced to
endure more of his letters. But enduring such missives is vastly superior and
small price to pay for not having to endure a repeat of his unenlightened misgovernance”.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
Tinubu needs immediate psychiatric evaluation.
ReplyDeleteThey should send Tinubu to Psychiatric hospital immediately, the major actor who kill this country with this present so called APC government
ReplyDelete