The Presidency, through the Minister of Information, responded to some of the issues raised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. What persuaded you to add your voice to the debate, weeks after?
What the government did under the leadership of President Buhari showed optimum maturity. Those of us who are not within the Presidency strongly believe that we have rights to make our opinions known on the issue.
Some believe you were probably deployed from the backdoor of the Presidency to do the other side of the attack on Obasanjo.
Between me, you and God, I say this with all honour; nobody made me say something about Obasanjo. If anything, I am known for how I stood by Obasanjo and how I supported him. What makes him think that he alone has the solutions to the problems of Nigeria? What qualifications does he have for this? In his first election (1999), he didn’t win one state in the entire South -West of the country, including his own state, Ogun. By 2003, he virtually went on his knees and made a deal with some governors that he would support them to get back their seats if they didn’t disgrace him. He betrayed them. The only governor that refused to be hoodwinked was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who won his seat without the help of Obasanjo. The remaining governors lost their seats.
When Goodluck Jonathan was in power, he also wrote a letter to him. He believes that the destiny of any president is in his hands. He believes that his support is critical. This must stop.
Some say you should look at the message and not the messenger. Obasanjo raised some issues like corruption and nepotism against President Buhari. What is your take on this?
I agree with that concept that you “look at the message and not the messenger.” But what is right in what the messenger is saying? For instance, why should he accuse Buhari of nepotism? The constitution of this country is clear enough. Buhari must have at least one minister from each state and he has done that. Take a look at the ministers and the portfolios they hold. I don’t believe that every ministry is equal. You can’t say that the Minister of Finance is on the same page with the Minister of Culture or Minister of Information. None of the key ministries (except that of Education and Agriculture) have leaders of northern extraction.
If he (Obasanjo) was neutral or didn’t even make false allegations, I may not have responded the way I did. But he is throwing his weight around and people respect him because he is a former head of the country. I am close to him and I know him very well. Every government is not good enough, according to him. If he had solved the problems of this country, why then did he leave Yar’adua to inherit the kind of problems he did? If he succeeded in his economic policies, why did Jonathan have problems with the economy of this country? Obasanjo, in all good conscience, ruled this country for about 11 years and still couldn’t solve the problems of this country.
I was a governor and I know what he tried to do, and if walls were to speak, go to house number seven in the Villa here and the walls would tell you what transpired there. The walls would tell you that he actually wanted a third term because he made attempts, many attempts to try to amend the Nigerian constitution such that it would enable him have tenure elongation.
He tried to work on the party’s (PDP) constitution to see what it would be if he didn’t become the president so that he would have what we call soft landing.
I am not a passerby in this; I was part and parcel of this movement, and we keep this thing because we have a duty to keep it as much as possible, you know. But when he comes to undo a whole government because it is Buhari, it is about this government. I said it in my release, except you want me to repeat it, that to an extent, he has not been called to answer. Look, I did mention Halliburton sometimes. I talked about Siemens.Did he play any role in the accusation of corruption and what have you? If not, let him come out and say he was not aware. There are some cases; what happened to those cases in Nigeria? Some of the people that are involved in those cases are languishing in jail in the United States of America. Some of the cases started here and nobody is hearing about them again.
If Buhari wanted, if not for the respect he has for his predecessors, he would have put him on trial. What about the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE)? You know the privatisation that took place and got to him; let him come and let’s have an open enquiry on who played what part. What about Transcorp deals and the oil blocks in this country? He wants to tell us that he is a perfect angel, that there is no palm oil on his hands.
There is an insinuation that you too have some questions to answer; that’s why you came out to protect President Buhari. For instance, your son has been on trial at the instance of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The case involving my son is not a government problem. Yes, my son had a private contract between him and his friends; it is not like I was in government to give him contract. In fact, I was out of this country when the matter happened. It was just a business between him and his friend because they were there together in the United Kingdom (UK). They got a contract but they did not have the money to execute the contract; then he got a friend and they worked on it together. I think when they were sharing their profit they had a misunderstanding and his friend decided to report to the EFCC. In fact, when I came back, the case was on ground, but his friend said he did not report to the EFCC.
They did a contract for the Kano State Government and were paid for the job done. The Kano State Government is not complaining about the job. Go to Kano and the EFCC, there is no case of money laundering there. The matter is in court, I don’t want to talk about it.
Obasanjo and IBB were applauded in some quarters for what they said, why did you align yourself with those who are against the messages?
I admit to the fact that they have the right as Nigerians to hold opinions; after all, they are stakeholders and former presidents of this country. They are elder statesmen. Look, the two former presidents have good relationships with President Buhari, so if they were not able to come to Buhari in Abuja, they could make a private arrangement with him. Buhari can go to Minna; he has been to Minna before and can go to Minna again. I have seen Obasanjo, and I saw IBB once in the Villa since Buhari took over as president. I saw Obasanjo more than I can count. I have seen him alone; I have seen him with some people, so what went wrong?
They served together in the military government. At a point, Buhari was his minister; why couldn’t he talk to him? It will not be honest to say Obasanjo doesn’t have access to Buhari. I have seen him live on television entering the Villa, I have seen him talking to the press in the Villa as well, so Buhari is very accessible to him.
General Yakubu Gowon was head of state before any of them. He fought the Nigerian civil war, he was the commander-in-chief, he prosecuted the war and won without borrowing from outside to keep Nigeria as one.And he is alive. When he has cause to talk to the government, he is allowed and nobody can stop him and nobody has ever had Gowon criticise the government openly. He might make a statement but was never critical.
Shagari was president, and when we had a change of government, he never opened his mouth once to criticise the government.
Abdulsalami is there and was never seen outwardly criticising the government. Take reference from the Obama-Trump election where you don’t see Obama take on Trump publicly. In Britain, where did you see the prime minister take on his predecessor? It is part of the ‘don’t do’ when you get to the pinnacle of power.
I can say that Obasanjo is not holier than any of these presidents he has tried to undermine.
Tribune
