In what can be portrayed as the principal guide reaction to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s perpetual assaults on his execution in government, President Muhammadu Buhari has lashed out at his former boss, saying that it is deplorable that Obasanjo misused $16billion on power with nothing to show for it.
The President included that the individuals who mismanaged Nigeria’s economy before, through a fake power supply and abuse of revenue from oil, had no adoration for the nation.
The advancement came similarly as Obasanjo, for the third time, assaulted Buhari, asserting that the President was uninformed of the certainties and needed fundamental four characteristics to stay in power, including that since Buhari did not have the characteristics, he ought to rapidly get out of Aso Rock and enable a dynamic leader to administer the nation in 2019.
According to Obasanjo, the four qualities are leadership, governance, development and values within our culture. Buhari spoke on Tuesday while receiving Buhari Support Organisations (BSO) led by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Taking up issues with Obasanjo for the first time, Buhari said: ‘‘One of the former Heads of State was bragging that he spent more than $16 billion on power in Nigeria. Where is the power?’’ On the mismanagement of the economy by previous administrations, Buhari noted that the perpetrators lacked imagination and plans for the development of the nation. He said: ‘‘Sometimes, I wonder about those who can afford to send their children abroad for studies and yet continue to sabotage the economy. I wonder what kind of Nigeria they want their children to return to and work. There is a lot of lack of imagination. ‘‘If you are working for the country, then you shouldn’t be misappropriating and misapplying public funds the way people did’’. He urged Nigerians to remain vigilant and ensure that only ‘‘people of conscience are in-charge of governance at all levels’’, as the nation prepares for general elections in 2019. ‘‘I challenge anybody to check from Europe, America and Asia; between 1999-2014, Nigeria was producing 2.1 million barrels of crude oil per day at an average cost of 100 USD per barrel and it went up to 143 USD. ‘‘When we came it collapsed to 37 – 38 USD and later was oscillating between 40 and 50 USD. ‘‘I went to the CBN Governor, with my cap in my hand, and asked if we had savings. He told me we had only debts, no savings. Some of the roads were not repaired since the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) days. ‘‘I don’t care the opinion you have about Abacha but I agreed to work with him and we constructed roads from Abuja to Port Harcourt, Benin to Onitsha and so on. We also touched education and health institutions,” he added. The President noted that under his watch, the 2016 and 2017 budgets recorded the highest appropriation and releases in capital projects, with over N2.8 trillion disbursements in two years. The President urged Nigerians to reject those bent on dividing the country along religious and ethnic lines, warning that they do not mean well for the country. Buhari said, ‘‘I have said severally that we do not have any other country than Nigeria and we will remain here and salvage it together. ‘‘We have nothing to regret. Absolutely nothing. God has given Nigeria everything. We are rich in human and material resources. Let us keep on praying to God to put people of conscience in-charge at all levels.” On the activities of the support group, Buhari apologised for not rallying them before announcing his intention to seek re-election in 2019 during a meeting of the National Executive Committee of the All Progressives Congress on April 9, 2018. He thanked members of the group for their resolute support to him as a Presidential candidate in 2015 and all through his term in office, adding that their voluntary sacrifices were an indication of their trust and belief in the great future of the country. In his remarks, Ali said the group and majority of Nigerians are passionate about a second-term for Buhari because of his integrity, honesty, love, and patriotism. He noted that Buhari has entrenched fiscal discipline and prudent management of resources, improved the nation’s security and delivered on his promise to revamp agriculture, as a major revenue earner for the country. But Obasanjo has accused Buhari of acting out of ignorance when he suggested that $16 billion was wasted on power projects by “a former President”, an allegation which Obasanjo believes to be referring to him. Obasanjo said that he believes that Buhari was referring to him because the allegation was just a re-echo of an unsubstantiated allegation against him, earlier made by his own predecessor but one. According to the former President, Buhari apparently was speaking without correct information and based on ignorance, to suggest that $16 billion was wasted on power projects by “a former President”. Obasanjo in a statement signed on his behalf by Mr Kunle Somorin, a Media Consultant, noted that “While it is doubtful that a President with proper understanding of the issue would utter such, it should be pointed out that records from the National Assembly had exculpated President Obasanjo of any wrongdoing concerning the power sector and has proved the allegations as false. “For the records, Chief Obasanjo has addressed the issues of the power sector and the allegations against him on many occasions and platforms, including in his widely publicised book, My Watch, in which he exhaustively stated the facts and reproduced various reports by both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which conducted a clinical investigation into the allegations against Chief Obasanjo, and the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Review of the Recommendations in the Report of the Committee on Power on the Investigation into how the huge sums of money was spent on Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution between June 1999 and May 2007 without Commensurate Result.” He pointed Buhari to some pages of the ex-President’s book to be better educated on the matter. “We recommend that the President and his co-travelers should read Chapters 41, 42, 43 and 47 of My Watch for Chief Obasanjo’s insights and perspectives on the power sector and indeed what transpired when the allegation of $16 billion on power projects was previously made. If he cannot read the three-volume book, he should detail his aides to do so and summarise the chapters in a language that he will easily understand. “In the same statement credited to the President, it was alleged that there was some bragging by Chief Obasanjo over $16 billion spent on power. To inform the uninformed, the so-called $16 billion power expenditure was an allegation against Chief Obasanjo’s administration and not his claim. “The President also queried where the power generated is. The answer is simple: The power is in the seven National Integrated Power Projects and 18 gas turbines that Chief Obasanjo’s successor who originally made the allegation of $16 billion did not clear from the ports for over a year and the civil works done on the sites. “Chief Obasanjo challenges, and in fact encourages, anybody to set up another enquiry if in doubt and unsatisfied with the EFCC report and that of the Hon. Aminu Tambuwal-led ad-hoc committee,” the statement added. Meanwhile, Obasanjo has that said higher education is expected to produce leaders that will lead Nigeria towards the attainment of its manifest destiny, saying if Nigeria continues with business as usual, the chance of being regarded in the comity of nations will be difficult and the world will leave the country behind. Obasanjo, who was the Chairman of the 22nd convocation lecture of the Lagos State University (LASU) with a theme titled ‘Role of Tertiary Education in Promoting Social Cohesion and Peace: Opportunities and Challenges for Nigeria, stated this on Tuesday at the Main Auditorium of LASU in Ojo, Lagos. He said there are four essential ways which a leader must possess in order to solve Nigeria’s problems, saying the qualities are leadership, governance, development, and values of our culture. Apparently referring to President Buhari, Obasanjo said: “If as a leader you cannot give these four, then no matter the level you have attained, you should get out”, The former President also reminded higher institutions in Nigeria that the purpose for their establishment was not only for education but for social, economic and political purposes, adding that that is why the idea of cohesion, unity and coming together comes in. He said Nigeria currently has 164 universities, stressing that How, When, Why and what has been done to make the universities serve the purpose for which they were created. “If anybody tells you that you can have peace without justice, he/she is telling a lie. Our universities have also stood for justice, that is what led to the establishment of one Federal and State universities par state and I charge them to make their purpose straightforward”, he said. The former President also said diversity is the order of the day, adding that the problem Nigerians have about diversity is the management caused by nepotism, favouritism, dominated by tribalism and marginalisation. “Why do we have disparity within communities and among communities, it is part of mismanagement of diversity”, he said. Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Education, Mr. Obafela Bank-Olemoh, said one of the most important roles a university is expected to play is to provide solutions to problems confronting the society. Ambode said the daily happenings in the country make the topic of the convocation lecture very apt at this crucial time, adding that there can be no development without peace. He said peace is both at the individual and collective levels. The convocation lecturer, Prof. Adamu Rasheed, the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), said for Nigeria to unlock its potential and take its rightful place in the comity of nations, the country must rise above all the parochial, sectional and retrogressive forces that have worked against its unity and nationhood. The lecturer suggested that there is need for increased strategic Government funding of tertiary education institutions to support long-term investment in research and development. “Our tertiary education system has failed woefully in two out of the three great missions identified in Ashby Report. No doubt, remarkable success has been achieved in the area of creating the manpower needed for development but the system has failed to give birth to a national elite or serve as an instrument of unity and peace”, he said. He said ethnicity and religious intolerance reign supreme almost 58 years after independence and after the Ashby Report, “today our disunity has become more pronounced and rather than the language of peace and progress, our so-called educated elite is spewing out noises of hate, secession and war. “The challenge for the immediate future and it is an urgent one, is to get our tertiary institutions back to do what they can do best, create a national elite that would facilitate the emergence of a truly united nation”, he added.
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