FORMER Head of State and Presidential Candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the 2011 general election, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), on Monday threw a direct challenge to three of his successors - Generals Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Olusegun Obasanjo as well as President Goodluck Jonathan, accusing them of being responsible for the rot in the oil industry and the spiraling wave of corruption in the country.
The comment drew responses from President Jonathan and Babangida and is panning out as a repeat of a similar face-off between Obasanjo and Babangida exactly a year ago.
Last August, Babangida, who ruled Nigeria between 1985 and 1993, kick-started the fight on the eve of his 70th birthday celebration in Minna, Niger State when he dismissed Obasanjo's achievements after eight years as President, as low. He said Obasanjo failed to improve the power sector, despite the huge cash available to the government.
Vintage Obasanjo's reply was swift. He said Babangida should be "pitied" and not "condemned" or visited with "anger" because he was a fool. His words: "Some of the things he (Babangida) said, unfortunately, were not well thought-out. For instance, he talked about our energy. When I was the military Head of State, I built Jebba Dam; built Shiroro Dam. I prepared the foundation of Egbin plant, which President Shagari completed and commissioned.
That time, the money we were making was not up to the money Babangida was making annually for his eight years and yet we built two dams. But since the building of Egbin power plant, until I came back in 1999, there was no generating plant for almost 20 years and Babangida spent eight years out of that.
Dividends of democracy
"Now, he has the audacity to talk about anybody; I think that is unfortunate. I also read where he said in his time, he gave the dividends of democracy and at the same time he regretted.
"When I read that, well, I said Babangida should be pitied and shown sympathy, rather than anger or condemnation because the old saying says a fool at 40 is a fool forever and I would say a regret at 70 is regret too late. Well, a regret at 70 is regret to the grave."
Babangida countered and accused Obasanjo of massive failure during his reign. "In my eight years in office, I was able to manage poverty and achieve success while somebody for eight years managed affluence and achieved failure.
"Chief Obasanjo should ponder these incontrovertible facts: The revenues that accrued to former President Olusegun Obasanjo during his eight years are more than those that accrued to the nation from independence till 1999 before he took over. Despite such stupendous wealth of the nation, what is his performance profile? ...The history of Chief Obasanjo is an open sore that is irredeemably contrived in several incongruities and contradictions," he said.
The bitter exchanges were to continue for a while before the Generals sheathed their swords and denied Nigerians of dearly needed details that would have helped to unearth the reasons behind Nigeria's paradox of poverty amid plenty.
This time, eminent citizens want the battle to be fought to a logical conclusion and have challenged Babangida, Obasanjo and Jonathan, to defend themselves against the allegations.
Incidentally, the quartet, cumulatively, have ruled Nigeria for 23 out of the 52 years the country has existed as an independent nation. While Obasanjo ruled for 11 years, Buhari was in power for approximately two years, Babangida - eight years and Jonathan, two years.
Buhari's allegation: Pointedly, Buhari said that the corrupt practices in the oil sector during the eras of Babangida, Obasanjo and Jonathan had led to the enslaving of the masses. The first to respond was President Goodluck Jonathan.
While declaring open the 52nd Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja, on Monday, President Jonathan said he could not be held responsible for the country's failings and wondered why former leaders, who had the opportunity of fixing the nation and failed to do so, were now criticizing his young administration.
"Sometimes, even people who have held offices in government criticise me to the extent of personal abuses. Sometimes I ask, were there roads across the country and Jonathan brought flood to wipe out these roads? Or we had power and I brought hurricane to break down the entire infrastructure?
"If they say Boko Haram is because of poverty; were there massive irrigation projects in the North where agriculture can thrive and massive farms, and Jonathan brought drought to wipe out these farms? Under two years, is it possible?" he wondered.
Obasanjo is yet to defend himself on the issue. Rather, speaking at the Nigeria Leadership Initiative, NLI, Guest Speaker Forum in Lagos, on Tuesday, he regretted his inability to fix the power problem, which he attributed to lack of funds in the initial period of his administration, owing to the low price of crude oil in the international market, Nigeria's depleted foreign reserves and huge debt burden.
He also refused to comment on Nigeria's leadership at the moment when asked to rate the country's current leadership.
On his part, IBB, who spoke through his spokesman, Mr. Kassim Afegbua, threatened to expose Buhari's shady deals in the oil sector when he functioned as Petroleum Minister and later chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), if Buhari did not shut his mouth.
"We are conversant with General Buahri's so-called holier-than-thou attitude. He is a one-time Minister of Petroleum and we have good records of his tenure as minister. Secondly, he presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which records we also have. We challenge him to come out with clean hands in those two portfolios. Those, who live in glass houses, do not throw stones. General Buhari should be properly guided," he said.
Exposing corruption
However, Buhari insisted on his comments and challenged Babangida to expose his shady deals if he had facts.
Reacting to the development, some eminent Nigerians have urged the former leaders to speak up in the interest of the country's development.
Among those who spoke are Second Republic politicians and elder statesmen, Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim; former governor of old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa; former Governor of Anambra State, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife; one-time Minister for Finance and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae; and former President of Institute of Chartered Accounts of Nigeria, ICAN, Otunba Lateef Owoyemi.
They should fight it out--Balarabe Musa
Musa said the issue should not be swept under the carpet. "It is a disagreement of former heads of state. Apart from President Jonathan, they are all former heads of state. Let them fight it out themselves. I don't think anybody should interfere. Let Ibrahim Babangida expose Buhari like he threatened," he said.
Obasanjo, Babangida, Jonathan must defend themselves -- Isyaku Ibrahim
On his part, Isyaku Ibrahim said the manner Buhari made the allegation should compel the former leaders to speak and defend their integrity.
His words: "Babangida should expose Buhari instead of threatening to do so. If Babangida has anything on Buhari, let him say it. Buhari said that the governments of Babangida, Obasanjo and Jonathan are the most corrupt. He said it categorically; he did not issue a threat.
"If Babangida has something on Buhari, he should say it. If your integrity is involved, you come out to fight because Buhari threw the challenge directly," he stated.
"For me as a politician, if somebody challenges my integrity and I know something about the person, I will say it. The matter is in the public. Let them say whether or not what Buhari said is true. Buhari has challenged them, let them defend themselves. Buhari is going to run for election, if Babangida has something against him, we will like to know."
We want to know how they ruined Nigeria -- Ezeife
To Ezeife, General Buhari must come out with facts to substantiate his claims. In a telephone chat with vanguard, he said, "General Buhari must know what he is talking about. Is he saying that Jonathan inherited oil industry destroyed by leaders before him? He must know what he is saying: how they ruled and ruined our great country, Nigeria, ruining the North even more.
"Please, it is not every high level statement that I understand. I don't know what they know but if Buhari is saying that IBB, Obasanjo and Jonathan destroyed the oil industry, he must surely know what he is talking about. However, let me say they, all together, should tell Nigerians how they ruled and ruined Nigeria and the North."
Corruption blossomed under Obasanjo --Falae
Reacting to the exchanges, Falae told Vanguard on phone that corruption reached an alarming height during Obasanjo's administration in 1999.
His words: "The people are former heads of state and to the extent that corruption had been going on for quite sometime in the country, maybe that is why he (Buhari) is holding them accountable. But I don't know the statistics or information to either agree or disagree with him (Buhari). But there is corruption in the whole country; the country is washed with corruption and nobody can really know where it started from though some government functionaries can. Corruption is the biggest problem we have.
"I cannot attribute it to any particular person but this thing started in earnest since 1999 that was during the Obasanjo administration; that was when the thing really blossomed. In the past, one suspected that a few military leaders were the ones, who had access to the money, but since we returned to civilian rule, thousands of people now got into the act: from the local to state and federal government level. And it has been growing since then. Corruption has grown very fast since 1999."
They are all culpable -- Owoyemi
However, Owoyemi said the former leaders, including Buhari, contributed to the rot in the oil industry.
He said: "Whoever should have done the maintenance of the refineries and did not do it and instead started importing fuel should be blamed for each and every part of the problem.
"Whoever provided funds for people to do turn around maintenance of the petroleum refineries and did not carpet or disgrace the contractors for failing to carryout their jobs, should be blamed for the destruction of the oil industry.
"So, definitely the military as a whole did a lot of havoc with the issue of accountability and transparency in this country; all of them, all the military people, including Buhari. Their take-over of the government was illegal and they ran the government illegally throughout when they suspended the Constitution of the country especially law and order.
"They, all of them, are guilty. If the politicians had been in charge since 1960 till now, things would have been better. They should allow the politicians to run the government and things will be better off.
"They were just too ambitious that was why they dabbled into the whole thing and messed everything up and now we are in for it. This is our generation: nobody has money except the corrupt! It is very unfortunate," he said.
Comments Post a comment
Of all these Second Republic politicians and elder statesmen, only one of them made sense -OTUNBA LATEEF OWOYEMI. While the lot focused on the symptoms and effects of the disease, Owoyemi was spot-on with the cause. Her made it clear that "....definitely the military as a whole did a lot of havoc with the issue of accountability and transparency in this country; all of them, all the military people, including Buhari. Their take-over of the government was illegal and they ran the government illegally throughout when they suspended the Constitution of the country especially law and order". The key statement here is "....Their take-over of the government was illegal and they ran the government illegally...". This is the perspective of the whole misadventure everybody tends to ignore. The reason is not far fetched. Many of those, most of them civilian politicians, benefited from the military in power. Fore an odd reason, these people began to see the military usurpation of governance as the norm. Things were not made easier when the same military people who committed acts of illegality turn around to become politicians and lawmakers in a democratic dispensation. The invasion of our politics by predator retired soldiers is calculated to perpetuate the infestation in what may be characterized as neo-dictatorship. These men ambled their way into political decision-making positions for two reasons. One is to suppress the tabling of bills that that call coup-making to question, or punish for the high treason they committed. Second reason is to promote bills that reward retired coup makers instead. A recent example is the scandalous padding of the retirement benefits of these coup makers (now ex-heads of state), such that their numerous wives and babies, parents-in-law, concubines, house maids, cooks, uncles, aunties, wives hair-dressers, masseurs and manicurists, security details are covered in perpetuity. Some of them even dare government to arrest them for criminal acts. Everybody knows how hard the Senate Leader, army GENERAL DAVID MARK, worked to ram that one down. It won't come as a surprise that this Senate President milks the Nigerian cow from two udders concurrently: one is his military retirement money, the other, the Senate President salary. Plus……., wait for it, the... (?) Farouk Lawan can tell us more about... (?) that. As if that is not enough, these coup-makers are insulated from trial for high treason with the instrument of state; they are all MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. Wait again for it....position that attracts extra benefits. We all see how responsibly Buhari carries on as a member of this so-called 'council of state’. That is a classic case of the crippling pile of outrage stacked up against the progress of the country since 1966. These men are the head of the vicious serpent that injected the toxin of corruption and impunity. Not until this serpent is decapitated literally will cease striking. Otunba Lateef Owoyemi has a clear understanding of this evil and Nigerians need to listen to him.
Otunba Lateef Owoyemi struck the right chord. It feels great that some readers noticed, including our own dear Garden-City Boy. He said it all, except for traces of naiveté observable in some of his presumptuous ideas. Those ideas derive from his erroneous belief that Nigeria, as we know it, works firmly on the principles of mathematical logic, in other words that 1+1 must always be equal to 2. Rather, Nigeria is a rotten, perverse, degenerate system of relentless, insincere, greedy, lying hostage takers, so unreasonable, and totally out of touch with realities. For these people, 1+1= -5 or 11, depending on the preferred, predetermined outcome. I doubt if the Garden-City Boy fully understands that. OBJ wiped out a generation of fine military officers, mainly from the then Benue-Plateau State, for their part in the attempted military putsch that claimed the life of his boss, Murtala Mohamed. In addition to the massacre calculated largely to appease the Hausa/Fulani clan, OBJ named the Ikeja Airport after Muritala Mohamed, notorious for brazen crimes against humanity. The victims, which included Brig I.D. Bisalla, were lined up before a firing squad and sprayed with hot lead. It was a most gory spectacle aired on Nigerian television. They were pronounced guilty of treason -an attempt to seize power illegally- by a military court marshal. Then came the Gideon Orkar coup. Babangida and his buddy, Augustus Aikhomu, executed Maj.Orkar and other alleged accomplices for the very same treasonable offense they were engaged in. Had the Dimkas and Orkas succeeded, they would also be glamorized and rewarded as "EX-HEADS OF STATE" and "MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE" today. Now here is the question: Why would Gowon, OBJ, IBB, and Buhari not be tried for treason and sprayed before a firing squad that same way, for, not only attempting to, but actually seizing power illegally? Having set the pace, did these men not inadvertently signed off their death sentences and merely living on borrows times? All it needs is for a serious leader with the courage and strength to dispatch the hypocritical jackals and all those who served under their regimes , including the civilian Judases called technocrats. For the moment, let it be known to Garden-City Boy that the basics of mathematical principles and logic do not hold in present day fraudulent Nigeria. The rule of law applies to you and me, never yet to the Hausa/Fulani sacred cows who act with impunity.
It is part of natural history that some day, those whose collective action rained havoc upon the citizens of this nation will someday voluntarily tell the story by themselves . What we have witnessed in the current national conversation or debate hosted by Vanguard Newspaper is not new . I hasten to say am extremely surprised at the intimidation and culture of silence these hard core criminals drove successfuly into the hitherto fearless population of Nigeria. This culture of fear and submission began from the rule of Ibrahim Babangida , especially after the misterious cut down of the life of vibrant and bold jounalist Mr Dele Giuwa by Babangida and his henchmen . The parcel Bomb saga was intimidating to every Nigeria . That brutal act was a new entry to our otherwise vocal social and political engagement. Both Babangida and OBJ , especially in his last revitalization into our political foray . This man took oat and swore in the presence of multitude of Nigerian population eager to listen to the man ,our new hope and peoples messai who was not only pastor and preacher in his Methodist church , same Church that was in the forefront in slave trade , but also promised specifically that if Nelson Mandela can do it , he'll also do it for the people of Nigeria. Obasanjo left our nation realing in the worst history of corruption ever known to man , he has no moral or ethical propriety to even open his uncultured mouth to maralize to this nation because we know better. Come to think about it , Jonathan may not have started the wave of brutal corruption in Nigeria ,but that is why the nation elected him to salvage ! He was never elected to swam the national economy with friends and huge bureaucracy above those of America,s 51 States to run a nation of only 36 States with 160million populaion as opposed to America's 230 million population . The natural tendency for the law of dimishing returns is the cause of massive looting and plunder of every corner of our national treasury was the inescapable consequence of such over employment and dumping of all shades of characters in the government . The NNPC, the peoples economic lifewire still have lot many of such redundant rouges and criminals , and so no one in his right mind will expect any change in that sector until there's effective sanitization . This is where Mr Jonathan was dead wrong . Obama knew the history of American economic problem , he began with thorough clean wash of Wall Street without fear or favour of the most and feared power that be. I have lived in North America for almost 30 years and it was under Obama I ever heard the most respected financial powerhouse of the great America was damn too corrupt .He went to do real purge which brought in some sanity and provided the real prism to see the extent of damage. Jonathan will find it hard to convince me or many other Nigerian that he had no vision or knowledge of the extent of robbery and looting in the NNPC and other sector of the economy and that none of his battle ready fellowmen in the petroleum palava intimated him on the extent of corruption within the oil sector prior or when he took over the administration as the nations President. He was not elected to babysit the problems and to wake up from sleep when every segment of the economy had become invaded by shameless Senators and House Members in his government. I have my great respect and admiration for Buhari, I saw great element of no nonsense in his ability to infuse descipline in very disorganised Nigerian society for the first time when he was Nigerian leader for a very short time and he built that trust among most of us . Our nation today can only be saved with an honest and trusting leader and PLEASE we have many of this within . Our problem is to fish them out and use them. We can not continue to let looters like IBB , OBJ and JOnathan lead us anymore. These men are pathological liars . Their avarice and penchant for money is endless and they're willing to sell me and you to reach that objective even when they're close to their graves . Tell you the truth, I'll go after their looted wealth even on their death bed because they 're no patriots by any standard . Every part of the Nations tragedy today is planted by their scrupulous leadership.