OBASANJO’S “GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS” FOR THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!
By Cham Faliya Sharon
“We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.”
~ Francois Fenelon
In his second sojourn as Nigeria’s ruler from 1999 – 2007, he was fortunate to govern the country when the international market price for crude oil was hovering around the scale of $100 per barrel, and with such high revenue earnings, he was able to achieve the following “for Nigeria”:
■ First of all, immediately he became President on May 29, 1999, he embarked on reviving his private farming business, especially his poultry farm, turning it into a very profitable international venture!
■ He proceeded to liberalize the country’s entire foreign trade, thereby granting licenses and all manner of waivers for the importation of textile materials, rice, noodles, toothpick, toothpaste, toothbrush, chemicals, and virtually everything that we can aford to produce locally, which led to the collapse of all our textile factories and about 900 other industries and companies just between 1999 and 2006!
■ As a result of the above, millions of jobs and business opportunities were lost, thereby entrenching poverty in the country!
■ Industries and companies did not just simply collapse in the organized private sector, but industries and companies built by the federal government at the cost of billions of dollars were cheaply sold off by President Obasanjo, and in a very short while, they also collapsed leading to huge increase in job losses and poverty. Here, I am talking about ALSCON, Nigeria Airways, NITEL, M-TEL, Jos Steel Rolling Mill, and many others scattered across the country!
■ Obasanjo “cared so much” for Nigeria’s infrastructural development so much that a whopping N300bn his administration earmarked for road projects across the country vanished mysteriously before the 2003 general elections. This trend of “achievements” by his administration continued to the extent that till his tenure ended on May 29, 2007, there is no record anywhere showing that his administration constructed any road up to 50km!
■ Oh, lest I forget…. President Olusegun Obasanjo scored a “big win” for Nigeria by paying off our foreign debt of about $30bn in 2005. The only problem was that no one knows what that debt was spent on. The debt was paid off at a time the country’s roads have collapsed; the railway system was dead; the electricity sector was in total coma, and the ports, dams and other critical national infrastructure were dead. So, what was the debt spent on, and why was the debt paid off when there was no single project on ground to show as a dividend of the debt?
■ Well, stories began running round that the debt was paid off not because the payment could benefit Nigeria in any way, but that it was paid off because a certain clique in the upscale level of power was eyeing the 10% commission for pushing the country to pay the debt, and that the clique actually collected the percentage! In other words, paying off the debt was as profitable to those who engineered the payment just as the collection of the debt was profitable to those who collected and looted it!
■ Obasanjo so much “cared for Nigeria” that he revoked every infrastructural contract awarded by the administration of General Sani Abacha and then refused to re-award the contracts to any company. For example, he revoked the contract for the construction of the Gombe – Yola road, which was to be executed by the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under the leadership of General Muhammadu Buhari its Executive Chairman.
■ The revocation of the contract and abandonment of the road led to its total collapse, which made road trips on it total hell until the same General Muhammadu Buhari became President in 2015 and began (or resumed) its reconstruction. But did I hear Obasanjo recently say the last 7 years under Buhari has been hell on earth? Oh my! Then how do we describe the agonizing experience of travelling on those extremely rough roads, which turned 3-hour trips to 7 hours?
■ I also recall that Obasanjo had tremendous “love” for the development of education in Nigeria. In fact, during one of ASUU’s annual cultural festivals of strike in the early 2000s, President Obasanjo and his Deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, responded to the cultural festival by opening their own private universities while they were in office: Bells University for Obasanjo and ABTI University for Atiku!
■ Still on education, the headquarters project of the National Library in Abuja, which was begun by the General Abacha administration, was abandoned by President Obasanjo. And do you know why he abandoned it? Well, apart from the fact that he hated anything initiated by General Abacha, he chose to coerce State Governors, wealthy private sector businessmen and women, federal ministries and agencies to donate hefty sums to the construction and furnishing of his private library in Ota, Ogun State and then abandoned that project. His successors in his party, the PDP also abandoned it until the Buhari administration came and resumed the construction!
■ Obasanjo will also be remembered for his “awesome and legendary” contribution to the “development” of democracy in Nigeria. To demonstrate his democratic credentials, he simply usually got security agencies to forcefully round up about 5 or 6 members of any State’s House of Assembly, then camp them in Abuja and compel them to impeach their State Governors in hotel auditoriums, especially the Governors that openly disagreed with him or disrespected him in any way as perceived by him!
■ With that “awesome love” for the promotion of democracy by President Obasanjo and his party, the PDP, political assassinations gained foothold in Nigeria. Strong, principled politicians who refused to be swayed to support the ruling party were often pencilled down for assassination. Senate Presidents or Speakers of the House or Representatives who refused to play ball were forcefully impeached, usually with hefty sums of money used to bribe pliant lawmakers to execute the tasks!
■ And as a “morally upright man” who was fully determined to instill “integrity” and teach young Nigerians the right way to live, his son Gbenga told the press how his father, President Obasanjo, seduced his wife and slept with her as a condition to give her a very lucrative contract at the NNPC. This caused the crash of the marriage with Obasanjo celebrating his life as a morally upright man!
■ Forget about rumours of his alleged trysts with some of his female cabinet members. They were mere rumours without proof, especially in the light of the fact that he is a “morally sound man” who lives as an “example” of great morality!
■ With very huge capacity soundproof electricity generators firmly planted in his Ota hilltop mansion, his Bells University, his private presidential library and other assets, which were all acquired or built while in office, Obasanjo showed how much he “cared for electricity supply” to the rest of Nigerians by making sure $16bn appropriated by his own administration to fix Nigeria’s electricity problem vanished without trace! No money! No light!
■ And because Obasanjo believed so much in his capacity to “move Nigeria forward” as shown above, he illegally sought a third term in office for which he spent tens of billions of Naira bribing lawmakers, opinion leaders, etc to achieve it. Some people even believed that the $16bn electricity funds that vanished mysteriously were the funds that funded that third term bid!
That’s how Obasanjo wants Nigeria to be, and anything contrary to that attracts rebuke from him, especially through letters. Even the construction of a road by the Buhari administration to his hometown of Ota is a sin. As long as he couldn’t do it, no one should do it. He wants to shine alone without even the capacity or records that could make him shine!
He will never ever be lamented, especially by sane Nigerians.
