Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday said that he never imposed president Goodluck Jonathan on Nigerians, saying that his only vote couldn’t have made him president.
The Otta farmer affirmed that corruption is gradually eating deep into the nation’s economy, adding that it is only a mad man that would not notice it .
Obasanjo said this at a lecture delivered by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi to mark the 40th anniversary of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s call to ministry at the Word of Life Bible Church, Warri in Delta State.
He also called on Nigerians to choose between a strong leader who might adopt unusual approach to tackle a problem or a weak leader who will worsen the situation.
When asked on how he could forge any form of unity with those who are perpetuating violence in the Northern part of the country, an emotionladen Obasanjo went emotional- said: “Boko Haram is an ill wind that blows nobody no good.”
“ Boko Haram stated their grievances and I promised to relay them to the authorities in power, because that was the best I could do. I did report. But my fear at that time is still my fear till today. When you have a sore and fail to attend to it quickly, it festers and grows to become something else.
“Whichever way, you just have to attend to it. Don’t leave it unattended to. On two occasions I had to attend to the problem I faced at that time. I sent soldiers to a place and 19 of them were killed. If I had allowed that to continue, I will not have authority to send security whether police, soldier and any force any where again. So, I had to nip it in the bud and that was the end of that particular problem,” he said.
The former president admitted that all problems might not require that kind of treatment. According to him, “if you say you don’t want a strong leader who can have all characteristics of leaders including God fearing, then have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours.”
He argued that “the beauty of democracy is that power rests in the people, and every elected person would seek your votes to come back; if you don’t want him, he won’t come back.
Obasanjo argued that people had been saying that he imposed President Goodluck Jonathan on Nigerians but what they have failed to admit is that, his single vote could not have made a man president.
He urged Nigerians to stand up and take their destinies in their own hands, reminding them of a Yoruba adage, “if you say it the way it is, you will die; if you don’t say anything at all, you will die, why don’t you say it and die?
Obasanjo said there would be no room big enough to accommodate every Nigerian at a roundtable conference to find a national consensus, adding that he would rather want to see a Nigeria where justice, fairness and equity reign supreme.
“Only a mad man will fail to acknowledge that there is high level corruption in the country”, he said, adding that the same World Bank that is always releasing figures about Nigeria’s poor state of economic condition, recommended a structural adjustment programme for the nation and nearly all the eggheads in the country bought it even when the political leaders at the time said it would be detrimental to the nation.
“I challenged them to tell me the names of the Nigerians who had stashed monies abroad but they were not forthcoming except for the case of the Abacha loot. We recovered a large chunk of that loot and they told us there was still over $1 billion from that family but my successors did not pursue any further.
“What I am saying is that it is the same World Bank that came to us with structural adjustment and some of us said it would make us poorer, you (Akinyemi) were in government at the time. We went for structural adjustment and we were poorer. And then they came up with an excuse that we didn’t do it the way they wanted us to do it. Many years later, they accepted that we were right and they were wrong,” Obasanjo stated.
“I called World Bank, they said go and look at the agreement, and the agreement says they are not responsible for how the money is spent. The Word Bank then told me that is the agreement and there is nothing we can do.
“I didn’t say that we are not corrupt, we are. But are we doing something about it? Once, people said, the fear of Ribadu is the beginning of wisdom. Then what happened to Ribadu? Then there was no longer any wisdom,” he stated.
“I don’t see anything wrong with federal character if we want to wedge this country together because if you want to enter a place where there are 40 people and they require somebody and you are Urhobo and at the back you find somebody speaking Urhobo, the tendency is for you to go for that man. It’s natural. So there is some form of security in the application of federal character,” he said.
On the location of strategic and military assets which the lecturer argued are located on the Zaria-Kaduna axis out of mutual suspicion, he recommended that the nation must adopt the South African model of locating military formations across the nation, Obasanjo said: “If you look at the deployment of troops and formations in the country, it is fairly well spread.
“When I joined the army, there were five battalions, Enugu, Abeokuta, Ibadan and two were stationed in Kaduna. That was done by the colonial masters. Immediately after independence, our political leaders decided that there must be a battalion in Jos, Lagos, but as at today after the civil war there is a battalion in Warri and some other places.
“When we were doing that, we took into account the strategic interest of this country and don’t forget that there are certain types of trainings that you can get in certain parts of the country,” he pointed out.
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