The Chief of Defence Staff, General Agwai has just dropped the final bomb-shell needed to coral Olusegun Obasanjo into a gulag - that Olusegun Obasanjo surreptitiously ceded away Nigerian owned and controlled Bakassi to Cameroon without consulting the necessary security agencies of Nigeria including the Armed Forces. General Owoye Azazi told the Senate Investigative Hearing on the Green Tea Agreement that there was nothing concrete to show that the military was consulted before President Olusegun Obasanjo signed the accord which he said was not in the interest of the national security. What a display of arrogance that a supposed president of Nigeria ran a country, as complex and as diverse as Nigeria, as if it was his private fiefdom? Was Olusegun Obasanjo an imperial president or what? Was Nigeria an extension of his private Otta farm estate? Did Nigeria belong to him while he was the president? Who gave him the right to dictate what happens to some Nigerians of Bakassi origin or are they lesser Nigerians than Obasanjo himself and his Otta people? Why are Nigerians not throwing a feat and demanding that this man be taken in for questioning! Where was his patriotism that a mere recognition of him as a gallivanting president of Nigeria was more important than the interest and welfare of fellow Nigerians of Bakassi ancestry?
Olusegun Obasanjo committed a "treasonable" felony by this singular act, which affects Nigeria national security interest as a nation; more-so since he did it without proper consultations with the security agencies of the country. How can this incestuous man, single handedly, pawn up Nigerians of Bakassi origin away to an untoward slavery and servitude to the Cameroons? This is the same man who massacred the people of Odi for no justifiable reason whatsoever? This is the same vampire who went on rampage in Zaki Ibiam and visited untold mayhem therein. This is the same man who crashed the value of the Naira from Abacha/Abubakar's era 70 Naira to the dollar to over 126 Naira to a dollar. Where is the power(energy) that he pilfered over 16 billion dollars USD for? Where are the roads that gulped over 300 billion Naira under his watch? Where are the jobs he created in his eight years of maladministration? What happened to the recovered Abacha's loot? Why was Commissioner Danbaba, General Bamayi and Major Mustafa incarcerated for over eight years awaiting trial for meritoriously serving their boss Abacha? With all the atrocities Olusegun Obasanjo committed, General Sani Abacha deserves to be made a saint, posthumously! So could it be possible that Babangida, Buhari and Abubarkar praised Abacha under this context? Where are all the billion dollars oil windfall revenue that accrued to Nigeria under Obasanjo's watch? Attorney General Bola Ige's assassination has not been fully investigated and it happened under Obasanjo's watch and Bola Ige was Obasanjo's serving Attorney General?
What more are
the authorities waiting to defrock Olusegun Obasanjo for all his infra-dignities while in office. Nigerians should demand that an example be made of this Otta medicine man, Babalawo Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo and the time to act is now! Nigerians should rise and demand for justice for all the victims of Olusegun Obasanjo atrocious regime and in order to set example on how not to govern Nigeria again! Icheoku therefore calls on all Nigerians not to be under any illusion that it is just a Bakassi internal affairs or matter! Yesterday was Bakassi, tomorrow might be your own ancestral home town; so do something today to ensure that Nigeria does not become a banana republic where the will of just one man is the law. A stitch in time saves nine so Nigerians should start today and set an example with Olusegun Obasanjo in order to make her future leaders more accountable! !
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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Bakassi: Azazi denies media reports
ReplyDeleteBy MOLLY KILETE, Abuja
Friday, July 18, 2008
More Stories on This Section
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Andrew Owoye Azazi, has denied media reports ascribed to him that former President Olusegun Obasanjo did not consult the military over the ceding of the Bakassi Pennisula to the Republic of Cameroon.
Gen. Azazi, who made the clarification at a briefing with Defence correspondents in his office on Thursday in Abuja said his testimony at the Senate Joint ad-hoc committee investigating the Green Tree Agreement (GTA), did not in anyway reflect on the screaming headlines of most newspapers reports of Thursday.
Azazi, who was at the National Assembly at the instance of the Senate Joint ad-hoc committee investigating the Green Tree Agreement, to give details of military involvement in the Bakassi Peninsula saga, said he had told the committee members that even though the former CDS, General Martin-Luther Agwai, had accompanied former President Olusegun Obasanjo to New York, he was unable to give further details of the military’s involvement and contributions as he was yet to lay his hands on any concrete documents prepared by the military over the matter.
According to him, “what transpired at the public hearing did not reflect what was written. I was asked a question as to how the military was involved in the green tree agreement and I said that I remembered that the former CDS accompanied the then President when he was going to New York, and am still looking for documents, prepared by the military if they contributed and I haven’t seen them and that when I see them, I will present them to the committee on public hearing and if there is none, I will put up a position paper.”
On the issue of national security, Azazi, said he told the committee that boundary adjustment in the Bakassi Peninsula if left the way it is, could jeopardize Nigeria’s security in that area because of the Calabar ports and that it also undermines Nigerian shipping as the deep waters is mostly on the Cameroonian side.
“There was no issue of the president at the time not taking the military into confidence or the president at the time not consulting the military on the agrement to be done. The screaming headline about OBJ not consulting the military is absolutely unnecessary.” Azazi, said.
Obasanjo Aborted Murtala's Vision - Buhari
ReplyDeleteBy Sunny Igboanugo and Sukuju Bakoji, Kaduna
Murtala Mohammed's dreams would have bequeathed moral rectitude and discipline that would have produced all round development - but for the ineptitude of his successor as Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo.
This is the opinion of former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, who told Sunday Independent during the week that it was Obasanjo who truncated the visionary leadership of Mohammed, and reintroduced corruption that has returned Nigeria to economic retardation.
Buhari spoke in an exclusive interview at his Kaduna home, where he regretted that Obasanjo not only failed to continue Mohammed's legacies - having become Head of State after Mohammed was assassinated in 1976 - he bungled the second chance given to him as a civilian President, and practically destroyed the country.
Buhari also explained that he was misquoted in reports saying that he had absolved former Head of State, Sani Abacha, of corruption.
He blamed the problems of the country on a cabal among the elite who refuse to allow genuine leaders to emerge.
His words: "They make sure they deny opportunity to those who can do it. See how they got rid of Murtala. The man could have organised a credible civilian government. Look at how Obasanjo led the military (after him). He and whatever principles he used to have and the experiences he acquired as a military leader were pulled down. And he is the only living Nigerian that God allowed to rule this country for more than 11 years. But see how he ended."
Buhari, whose regime was known for its iron grip in its effort to stamp out corruption, said he is particularly peeved by the amount of stealing Obasanjo allowed to go on around him, citing the case of former Inspector General of Police, Tarfa Balogun.
"How could Obasanjo allow his number one police officer to accumulate N17 billion under his nose?"
Denying that he absolved Abacha of corruption, he said the point he made at the venue in Kano where the statement was credited to him was to highlight some of the areas in which Abacha impacted positively on the society.
Buhari listed these to include security, restoration of confidence in governance by involving all parts of the country, including the South West that had stopped attending the Council of States meeting because it felt Ernest Shonekan's government that replace Abacha's was illegal.
He also recalled that Abacha ensured that the Naira was stable, and that he restored confidence in the financial institutions by preventing banks from paying depositors 40 per cent upfront while failing to redeem the remaining 60 per cent.
"I never absolved anybody, yet the statement that you people (the press)want to use to cut me to size. If because I spoke in the midst of other former Heads of State (Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar)and you want to lump us together, then so be it."
Anti-graft War Incomplete Without Obasanjo's Arrest, Says Kalu
ReplyDeleteBy Alexandra Mede (Abuja) and Sade Ayodele (Lagos)
Former Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, has repeated his warning that the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) would not fight a credible war against corruption until it prosecutes Obasanjo.
He told reporters at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos on Sunday that although recent developments under the new leadership of the EFCC are commendable, such would amount to selective justice if Obasanjo remains untouched.
He said the fact that some individuals who were close to Obasanjo are being hounded is not enough to give the EFCC a pass mark.
"We cannot judge the EFCC now. We are still watching. Until they catch the main man, they have not started," he stated.
In his view, Obasanjo should have been arrested long ago following disclosures from his former aides.
"What else is needed when somebody said you gave out contracts wrongly? Your Finance Minister said you did not obey the law and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) said a contract that was supposed to be given out of $400 million was given out for $5 billion. What else are you looking for?
"Until (Obasanjo) is arrested, the war on corruption has not started. I expect (EFCC) to go after him. I want everybody to answer his name. That is the correct thing to do. We are watching, we are not going to be a burden to anybody and we are not going to be spectators."
Kalu praised the way the EFCC Chairman, Farida Waziri, is going about her duties, noting that it is the best approach an astute security personnel should adopt.
"She is not calling a press conference everyday. She is in her office doing her job and that is what it should be. That is what is expected of the security people to do. You must have your information before you swing into action, not acting before having information."
In any case, a petition demanding the probe of Obasanjo has been received by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), which also has dossiers on 23 former Governors.
ICPC Chairman, Emmanuel Ayoola, made the disclosures in Abuja at the weekend.
He said the Commission would soon publish the list of former Governors who have violated the ICPC Act.
A statement issued by ICPC Resident Consultant, (Media and Event), Folu Olamiti, quoted him as saying that although the petition against Obasanjo appears vague the Commission is studying it.
"As far as the ICPC is concerned, nobody should feel offended if investigated. It is what the law says that it will do. It is misconception to look at the status of a person and conclude that you are not going to investigate him," the statement added.
"We are looking at the files. There are at least 23 of the former Governors (involved). I believe that in the next two weeks we will know which former Governors will be investigated and which ones will not."
Ayoola noted that the ICPC Act permits it to go after Governors once they leave office and no longer have immunity.
"We don't need an independent counsel to investigate and prosecute them. We are scrutinising the files to see whether there are cases that we could now pursue. Many of the allegations were made as far back as 2003. We need to see which of these allegations are motivated for election purposes.
"We (also) have one or two petitions against serving Governors. What the law says is that when we come across such petitions we should pass them to the Chief Justice who has the mandate to appoint independent counsel to investigate the allegations.
"When an independent counsel investigates, he does not prosecute. He reports to the legislature. It is for the legislature to take over from there."
He stressed that setting up special courts may not necessarily solve the problem of delay in the prosecution of corruption cases.
"Setting up special courts is an option. There is a Bill before the National Assembly (on it). With benefit of past experiences, it may probably work for a while but nobody can guarantee that it will be the solution to the problem."
Ayoola added that the ICPC will ask the House of Representatives for its report on the probe of the energy sector for review, in line with its mandate.
He also advocated that performance bonds should be a condition for the award of contracts to prevent the abandonment of projects.
"We are waiting for the (House) to complete the exercise and whether the report is sent to us for prosecution or not, we are going to ask for the transcript.
"We appreciate what they are doing but if we are following what they are doing merely for the purpose of prosecution, we are not going to get maximum benefit from their actions. Through the transcript, we will see how the system permitted such things to happen."