Obasanjo’s Hypocrisy Is Why He Can’t Be Taken Seriously – FG

The Presidency has come out to attack former President, Olusegun Obasanjo over his claim that corruption has reached a fatal stage in the country.

Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga recently had his say via his press statement, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, Obasanjo has no moral grounds to criticize INEC having presided over what was the most fraudulent election held in Nigeria since 1960, and his hypocrisy is why he should never be taken seriously.

He added that the colossal amount OBJ spent on power was so embarrassing that late President, Umaru Yar’Adua ordered a probe when he took over.

His words, “It is hypocrisy writ large when a man who presided over the worst election in Nigeria demands the sack of the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

After wasting billions of naira on a failed third-term project in 2007, Chief Obasanjo hurriedly organised a sham electoral process that would go down in history as the most fraudulent election held in Nigeria since 1960.

The beneficiary of the sham election, Umaru Yar’adua, admitted that the election was seriously flawed and, as Justice Muhammed Uwais’ panel recommended, worked towards electoral reforms.

In his latest critique of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he pejoratively called ‘Baba Go Slow’ and President Bola Tinubu, who he tagged ‘Emilokan’, Chief Obasanjo used the platform provided by Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University to unfurl his latest treatise on leadership and public morality. He also used the forum to write off Nigeria as a failing country.

The irony of Chief Obasanjo using the platform that celebrates Achebe to sermonise on the ideals of good governance, statecraft, economic management, and corruption should be apparent to discerning minds.

When he was alive, Chinua Achebe was a universally acclaimed moral, cultural and literary icon with scant regard for Obasanjo.

In rejecting the 2004 national honour by the Obasanjo administration, Achebe declared: ‘Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is…too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list.

A man under whose watch all of these egregious infractions occurred should certainly not be the one to give any lecture on leadership and corruption.

He should not be taken seriously as he reeks of profound hypocrisy of the worst form.

Nigerians can still remember the messy public spat between Chief Obasanjo and his then-vice president, Atiku Abubakar, over PTDF money that led to a Senate Public Hearing in 2004.

The sordid details of the public hearing included unsettling evidence of how Obasanjo instructed his Vice President to buy Sport Utility Vehicles for his mistresses with PTDF funds.

There was also the Halliburton bribe scandal, which the US Congress probe revealed. Bribe payments were made to the highest political authorities at the Villa while Obasanjo was in charge.

The colossal amount spent on power was so embarrassing that President Umaru Yar’Adua, Obasanjo’s successor, ordered a probe. Similarly, Obasanjo’s privatisation programme was scandalous. It did not deliver real value for the country.

His administration cheaply sold national assets to cronies who stripped the assets of the state-owned enterprises. A case in point was the aluminium smelter company ALSCON in Ikot-Abasi, Akwa-Ibom State, built by the military government at the princely sum of $ 3.2bn. It was sold for 130 million dollars.

Obasanjo also sank money into Turn Around Maintenance of our refineries, which never worked, leading to the massive importation of refined petroleum products.”