Former Nasarawa State governor and current senator, Abdullahi Adamu, on Monday criticised the position taken by former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida against President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid.
Adamu stated that Obasanjo lacked moral standing to counsel Buhari against seeking a second term in office, adding that most of the economic and political problems in Nigeria today were caused by Babangida’s faulty transition programme.
Recall that the two former heads of state had in an open letter to Buhari, urged him not to seek reelection in the 2019 general elections.
But Adamu who served as governor of Nasarawa State from 1999 to 2007 when Obasanjo was Nigeria’s two-term president, recalled the former President had sought a third term in office.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, he said: “I wish to remind the general that although men have short memories, history has a long memory. We can trace nearly all our present economic and political problems to his transition programme. We cannot forget SAP that sapped the economy or the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election for which the nation is still paying a stiff price. It is not always advisable to be holier-than-thou”.
On the real motive of Obasanjo in writing an open letter to Buhari, Adamu said: “The question is, if Obasanjo meant well for Buhari, his administration and Nigeria, why did he not choose the option of quietly offering his advice to the president? In taking his case to the rowdy market place of sensationalism, he clearly intended to score cheap political points at the expense of the I president. He intended to undermine the Buhari administration, subject the president to public ridicule and impugn his moral strength and integrity to lead the nation. As he must have obviously expected, his Statement was intended to heat and is heating up the polity and causing confusion at this critical time when the myriads of our national challenges commend themselves to our statesmen and women for sober reflections rather than indulgence in crass sensationalism. It is a disservice to the country”.
The former Nasarawa governor who was a close ally of the former President, alleged that Obasanjo could not be criticising the methods adopted by Buhari in executing the anti-graft war because he (Obasanjo) was not too clean.
Adamu who cynically admitted that Buhari was very selective in his fight against corruption, submitted that Obasanjo should have been prosecuted and convicted for corruption if the administration of Buhari was not selective in fighting corruption.
Adamu who opposed and led other nine senators to stage a walkout against the adoption of reordering of elections in the amended Electoral Act, said: “Obasanjo said that President Buhari is selective in his anti-corruption war. I agree with him because if the president were not selective, Chief Obasanjo himself would be in the dock today on trial on charges of corruption arising from the corrupt practices in the pursuit of his third term gambit in the National Assembly in 2006. Today he denies that he ever nursed such ambition. And being a man much favoured by God, he has repeatedly said that if he had wanted it and asked the almighty for it, he would have given him the third term.
“He knows as well as I and other leading members of the PDP that he badly wanted it and initiated the process of constitutional amendment. He bribed each member of the national assembly who signed to support the amendment, with the whopping sum of N50 million to make the constitutional amendment scale (sic) through. The fresh, mint money was taken in its original boxes presumably from the vaults of the Central Bank of Nigeria and distributed among the legislators. The money was not his and it was not appropriated by the national assembly as required by law. I, therefore, agree that in failing to make former president account for that money, President Buhari is waging his anti-corruption war selectively.”
Adamu urged Buhari to investigate the alleged role of Obasanjo in the Halliburton and Siemens scandals.
The former Nasarawa State governor defended the allegation of nepotism against Buhari, insisting that it was normal for Presidents all over the world to appoint persons they trusted into offices.
On the health problem of President Buhari for which Obasanjo asked him not to seek re-election, Adamu stated that those raising the issue are not as healthy as the President.
He accused Obasanjo of attempting to rubbish all former Presidents and making himself the most successful and cleanest.
“As a friend, I wish to advise the former president to pull back from the dangerous path of rubbishing all presidents that came into office after him. Bringing everyone down is not a patriotic duty. I fear that if he continues along this path, he would, sooner than later over reach himself and begin the inevitable descent into national nuisance and irrelevance. That would be a self-inflicted wound and a personal tragedy,” he stated.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
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