Abacha, Obasanjo’s hypocrisy

According to the former FCT Minister, even former Abacha critics, such as Professor Wole Soyinka, eventually admitted that the late General Abacha was by far better than Obasanjo. Despite being a so-called civilian democrat, General Useni accused Obasanjo of more brutality and suppression of dissent.  General Useni noted that, despite the allegations of dictatorship against […]

According to the former FCT Minister, even former Abacha critics, such as Professor Wole Soyinka, eventually admitted that the late General Abacha was by far better than Obasanjo. Despite being a so-called civilian democrat, General Useni accused Obasanjo of more brutality and suppression of dissent.

 General Useni noted that, despite the allegations of dictatorship against Abacha, he was never on record for leveling down towns and villages in Odi and Zaki-Biam in a frenzied moment of vengeance against fellow citizens. Ironically, Obasanjo committed these crimes against humanity even as Nigeria was pretending to return to democratic rule. The former president was preaching human rights but his record in that respect is one of the worst in Africa.

 Two Journalists, Rotimi Dujaiye of Daily Independent and Gbenga Aruleba of Africa Independent Television (AIT), were arrested and taken to court by Obasanjo because they had the audacity to report that his N10 billion new presidential jet was a refurbished one. For saying that Nigeria didn’t have a fair deal in the purchase of Obasanjo’s new presidential jet, the two poor journalists were bundled off into detention and charged with sedition.

 Indeed, as far as most Nigerians are concerned, General Useni was preaching to the converted and we must praise him for exposing the darkest sides of former President Obasanjo who frequently wears the camouflage of moral superiority. Former President Obasanjo was once an opponent of the late General Abacha’s self-succession agenda. Surprisingly, the same Obasanjo attempted a tenure extension scheme that would have amended Nigeria’s constitution to accommodate his ridiculous ambition for perpetual rule. His third term agenda collapsed because of nationwide unpopularity, caused by his poor performance record.

 The former FCT Minister also exposed Obasanjo as a shameless liar. According to him, while General Abacha didn’t personally comment on his alleged self-succession bid, Obasanjo openly denied he was interested in third term after the infamous agenda kissed the dust in May, 2006. General Abacha may be forgiven if he had pursued a third term because he wasn’t elected in the first place.

 In the case of Obasanjo, however, he was determined to use illegal, immoral and other corrupt methods to achieve his desperate third term ambition. Ten billion naira of public funds was wasted in pursuit of Obasanjo’s third term ambition. The immoral aspect of it is that Obasanjo took money from poor states to finance his unpopular third term project. One of the poorest states in the country was almost brought to the brink of collapse after it was forced to provide N10 billion loan to finance the widely rejected third term project of former President Obasanjo.

 The passage of time is the best weapon to expose the hypocrisy of leaders. After spending a lot of energy criticizing everything the late Abacha ever did, even if it was good for Nigeria, Obasanjo ultimately emerged arguably the worst leader we ever elected. Despite the billion of dollars of oil revenues that came to his administration, the impact of such huge earnings on the quality of life of the citizens was dismal. Conditions of roads, water supply, schools, electric power, hospitals and other aspects of national infrastructure got worse under the Obasanjo administration.

 With the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) alone, the late General Abacha had demonstrated that, even with limited resources, a committed and sincere leader could make positive impact. The PTF intervention brought impressive improvement in the quality of social services, despite the fact that it received just N10 billion throughout its entire life.

 On federal roads alone, the former Obasanjo administration claimed that it spent N350 billion for improving federal roads. At the end of the day, however, there was nothing to show for such huge expenditure. In fact, former President Obasanjo was on record as saying that he was ashamed of the conditions of federal roads. With that self-indictment, he automatically disqualified himself from attacking Abacha and from then on perceptive Nigerians no longer took him seriously.

 Ochenelu wrote from 29, Chief Joseph Takaar Road, Otukpo, Benue State