Obasanjo’s Season Of Raising False Alarms

Obasanjo

In December, 2013 the former President Olusegun Obasanjo alleged that President Goodluck Jonathan was keeping over 1000 people on his political watch list while also secretly training snipers and other

armed personnel as well as acquiring weapons for political purposes.

He stated in a letter to Jonathan  that the snipers were being trained at the same place the late Head of State, Sani Abacha, trained his own killer squad.

 “Allegation of keeping over 1000 people on political watch list rather than criminal or security watch list and training snipers and other armed personnel secretly and clandestinely acquiring weapons to

match for political purposes like Abacha and training them where Abacha trained his own killers, if it is true, it cannot augur well for the initiator, the government and the people of Nigeria,” Obasanjo said in the letter dated December 2. He wrote to discourage Jonathan

from seeking second term.

The allegations were taken serious by Jonathan administration that it directed the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, to investigate them.

However the planned investigation by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of the allegation by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that President Goodluck Jonathan was training and arming killer squad for the 2015 elections was frustrated by Obasanjo, who failed to honour invitations to NHRC to provide the evidences he had.

Dr. Chidi Odinkalu, the then NHRC chairman also blamed the uncooperative attitude of Mohammed Adoke (SAN), attorney general of the Federation (AGF) for hindering the probe. But it was Obasanjo that frustrated the probe because, “He who alleges must provide proof”.

Dr. Odinkalu said the AGF and the former president, who are key to the investigation, refused to honour NHRC’s requests to furnish it with the information and evidence it required to carry out the investigation.

The NHRC boss said the commission, in trying to afford all concerned the opportunity to make representations, had written to both men twice, but without response from them.

“What happened was very straightforward. We need materials and evidence from different people. We have written to the attorney general of the Federation to give us his evidence. We have written to General Obasanjo to give us his evidence.  And we have heard from neither side. Now, we have repeated the demand and we have heard from neither side.

“The process is facts-based. It is evidence-led. We are not going to sit down here and manufacture evidence. We wanted to give everybody a chance before proceeding. Again, we wanted to convene the public hearing. But again, it was close to the elections.

“So, we took a deliberate decision that we did not want to make that a factor in the elections. After the elections, we are going to convene that hearing. But if the attitude continue, which is that neither side

is willing to give us evidence, we will adjourn it sine die (indefinitely),” he said.

That was how the matter ended.

Obasanjo made these weighty allegations against a man who said his “ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian” and it was totally fabricated. If it was not fabricated why didn’t Obasanjo provide the evidence? And if it was because he does not trust or have confidence in NHRC then, why has he not raised the issue since Jonathan left office, because allegation that Jonathan was training killers where Abacha trained his owner killers could not have been swept under the carpet.

Years after he failed to prove his allegations against Jonathan, former President Olusegun Obasanjo raised another alarm recently accusing President Muhamadu Buhari administration of plotting to arrest him and keep him in detention indefinitely or even kill him.

In a statement issued by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, Obasanjo said, “Impeccable security sources” informed him that his named had been placed on “their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be guaranteed.”

Obasanjo said since he released his State-of-the-Nation Special Statement in January, there had been unabated “desperation to frustrate, intimidate and blackmail him into abandoning his divine mandate to protect the rights of the people to better life and

living.”

The former President said he learnt that the plot against him for now were two-folds, which include seizing his international passport and clamping him into detention indefinitely to prevent him speaking on

the state of the nation, and ordering anti-graft agency to re-open investigation into his administration using false witnesses and documents.

He said, ordinarily, he would not have dignified such information with a response but for the fact that many of these informants were not known for flippant and frivolous talks and because the Buhari government had “exhibited apathy, and in some cases, encouraged by its conduct, daily loss of lives and property in many states of the country, the office cannot be indifferent.”

The statement reads: “Impeccable security sources have alleged Chief Obasanjo’s name is on their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be guaranteed. According to these informants, many of who are in the top echelon of the nation’s security management and close to the corridors of power, the operatives are daily perfecting how to curtail the personal liberties of the former President and hang a

crime on him.”

Like that of Jonathan, the present allegations are intended to damage Buhari’s second term ambition.

Apparently trying to take advantage of the police investigation of Senate President Bukola Saraki over alleged links with some Offa Robbery suspects and the perceived Aso Rock’s lukewarm relationship

with House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, Obasanjo wrote, “We are currently in a nation where the Number Three citizen is currently being harangued and the Number Four citizen is facing

similar threat within the same Government they serve. There is a groundswell of our nationals that live in fear that they could be hounded, harassed, maimed or even killed as the battle for 2019 takes this worrisome dimension.

“For Chief Obasanjo, this is a joke carried too far and being someone who do not act on unofficial information, he had cautioned all informants and adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the bestial propositions allegedly being contemplated to cow, cage and embarrass him.

“The content of the alleged beastly designs, it was learnt are two-fold for now. One, to seize his International Passport and clamp him into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further expressing angst on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of governance, economic management and in the protection of lives and property by the government.

“But, since that could expose the government to a swath of international condemnation, embarrassment and outrage, it is said that another plot being hatched is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to re-open investigation into the activities of Chief Obasanjo’s administration using false witnesses and documents. This will be a re-enactment of the Abacha era in which Chief Obasanjo was one of the principal victims’.

‘The same EFCC that had conducted a clinical investigation on the activities of Obasanjo in and out of government, it was said, would now be made to stand down the existing report that gave Chief Obasanjo a clean bill of health on the probes are now to get him indicted, fair or foul for possible prosecution and persecution like it is being done to real and perceived opponents, enemies and critics of this

government”.

Meanwhile the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who should know better having been victims of Obasanjo’s false alarm against their 2015 presidential candidate, Goodluck Jonathan was quick to fall under the spell of Obasanjo. PDP said the revelation coming from a Nigerian of Chief Obasanjo “status is terrifying as it has heightened the tension in the polity and confirmed our fears that our dear nation has descended into a police state where any Nigerian, who holds a divergent view to President Muhammodu Buhari 2019 re-election bid, becomes endangered.”

A statement by PDP’s spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan said, “The alarm by Chief Obasanjo has further shown that the PDP has not been crying

wolf regarding the plots by the APC Federal Government to frame, arrest, detain and arraign political opponents of the APC, including regular Nigerians, for holding or canvasing opinions that are divergent to the interest of those in power.

Not even Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President who was a victim of Obasanjo’s false accusations could read between the lines that this is another scheme by the former president to create tension in the polity

ahead of 2019 general elections.

Reacting to the allegation, Abubakar, who was Vice President in the Obasanjo administration, said such claim calls for serious concern. In a statement issued by his media office in Abuja, the Waziri of Adamawa

appealed to President Buhari to call the security agencies to order in order to douse the tension in the land.

He said, “I am disturbed by this turn of events in our dear country considering the huge price that was paid for us to have democracy.

 “The alert by President Obasanjo is coming against the backdrop of earlier alerts by some leaders, especially those of the opposition of deliberate and orchestrated attempt to intimidate and frame them up.”

Nigerians now expect the President Buhari administration to invite Obasanjo to provide proof for his allegations as was done by the Jonathan government. There is however many others who think that Obasanjo and his allegations should be ignored.