A former minister of aviation, Mr Femi Fani-Kayode, has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to take some lessons from the decisive actions ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo applied in the Odi and Zaki-Biam killings of Nigerian soldiers.
In a press statement he issued following Jonathan's media chat criticism of Odi military action, Fani-Kayode said Obasanjo's decisive steps saved the lives of the military and the civilian population.
He said Jonathan's lacklustre attitude has led to the killing of 3,000 Nigerians and foreigners within two years by the Boko Haram Islamic sect.
During a live broadcast of the "Presidential Media Chat" to the nation this Sunday evening, Jonathan said that the military operation in Odi by the Nigerian armed forces in 1999, which was ordered by Obasanjo, did not solve the problem or stop the killing of soldiers, policemen and innocent civilians in the Niger Delta area by the terrorists and militants.
He also said that all he saw in Odi after he went there on an official visit as deputy governor were the dead bodies of old people.
Jonathan stated this ostensibly to react to Obasanjo's comment on Boko Haram insurgency that has defied solutions offered by the federal government in the last two years.
According to Obasanjo, the inability of Jonathan's administration to appreciate the gravity of threat posed by the sect and thereby apply decisive and appropriate measures allowed the menace to get out of hand.
While reacting to Jonathan's comment, Fani-Kayode said that after the Odi and Zaki-Biam military exercises, there were hardly any more attacks on or killing of soldiers and security personnel by the terrorists and militants because they knew that to do that would attract a swift and forceful reaction and terrible retribution from the Nigerian military.
"To stop and deter those attacks and killings was the objective of Obasanjo and that objective was achieved. Jonathan was therefore in error when he said that Odi did not solve the problem of killings in the Niger Delta area by the Niger Delta militants. "Not only did it stop the killings but it is also an eloquent testimony of how to deal with terrorists, how to handle those that kill our security personnel with impunity and how to deter militants from killing members of our civilian population and thinking that they can get away with it.
" If Obasanjo had not taken that strong action at that time many more of our civilian population and security personnel would have been killed by the Niger Delta militants between 1999 and 2007.
"By doing what he did at Odi and Zaki-Biam Obasanjo saved the lives of many and put a stop to the killings and terrorism that had taken root in the Niger Delta area previous to that time."
Five policemen and four soldiers were killed by a group of Niger Delta militants when they tried to enter the town of Odi in Bayelsa state in order to effect their arrest. This happened in 1999. After the brutal killing of these security personnel, President Olusegun Obasanjo asked the then governor of Bayelsa State, DSP Alamieyeseigha, to identify, locate, apprehend and hand over the perpetrators of that crime. The governor said that he was unable to do so and President Obasanjo, as the commander-in-chief of the Nigerian armed forces, took the position that security personnel could not be killed with impunity under his watch without a strong and appropriate response from the federal government. Consequently, he sent the military in to uproot and kill the terrorists and to destroy their operational base which was the town of Odi.
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You and Obasanjo should shot up your mouth go and sit down after doing all that as you said what's the out come of it now?Till tomorrow Obasanjo is the problem of that country he must brought to justices.
I would choose an errand boy with better credibility than Fani Kayode to do job had I been OBJ (even though I wouldn’t want to be him). He ruined the fun by employing a robotic attack-dog and cantankerous chatterbox. Femi’s pedantic grammar has become so boring. It will always begin with “……as a historian….as a student of history…….then,…. having said that………., then bla-bla-bla,…..yada-yada-yada ramble. He fails to realize how irritating he gets, how agonizing audience adjust sitting positions, wishing the the irritant shuts the hell up. The point here is that you can always predict what gushes out the moment he commences his jaw-flapping acrobatics. It is as though this “history” he flaunts around is such big deal, or rocket science of some sort, perhaps. Barely weeks ago, Babangida hired him to flap jaws at a birthday anniversary. Today it is OBJ. Tomorrow, he might line up behind those rooting for Buhari. Don’t count him out or raise your brows to hear him to-nite in a u-turn gaff, this time under the patronage of the opposing Jonathan camp. This same Fani Kayode was jumping up and down like a poppy-doll; he puffed hot smoke off his butt, attacking Chinua Achebe for assertions he perceives as anti-Awo in a memoir. Femi tore his garments, as it were, in his defense of the indefensible and making himself look like a big jackass. We all know that OBJ is not one of Awo's best fans. Yet our hypocritical story-teller is out in venomous defense of the "enemy" of his demigod. The young man deludes himself in a thinking that he is very smart champion of his ethnic base. But against the background of this political mathematics, it seems Femi Fani-Kayode is now out to practice hermaphroditic prostitution -a new product of his inventive ingenuity. On a serious note, Femi's avidity for publicity has been identified by these manipulative ex-these and ex-those, and will jump at the least opportunity for a jaw-flapping publicity stunt. These people then exploit his passionate for self-indulgence. The more he does it, the less sense he makes, and the more he makes ridiculous court jester out of himself. That is the sad part. Behold the rare-breed historian turned professional clown! We wish him luck.