National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, yesterday, lambasted former President Olusegun Obasanjo, describing him as a man at war with his own deeds.
Reacting to the recent statement by the former president where he alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) planned to rig the elections for APC, Tinubu said Obasanjo was projecting the misconduct he would wreak if he was still in power.
Tinubu, in a statement, assured Nigerians that the forthcoming election will be free and fair, and reflect the will of the people.
The APC national leader, who said the ways of Obasanjo are not those of the APC, noted that the difference has meant the better for Nigeria.
According to him, “Chief Obasanjo should be the last to complain about election rigging. His administration was an unalloyed miscarriage of justice and of the best aspirations of the Nigerian people. We all know he was not elected in 1999. He was handed Nigeria on a silver platter; perhaps because Nigeria was so easily given that he went about treating the nation as if it was a less than a precious thing; he thought it was a cheap give-away not a privilege to govern this nation.”
While noting that the former president should have positioned himself to be the father of the nation, Tinubu said he had lowered himself to be a “divisive, vindictive conniver.”
He said, “All the goodwill that could be granted a political figure was bestowed on him. The global economy was such that it fueled our growth. Everyone wanted Nigeria to succeed after emerging from years of noxious military rule. Despite the flawed exercise that rendered him president, we all bit our tongues in hope that he would say and do the right things that would move Nigeria forward.”
“Instead of being a unifying figure as Commander-in-chief, he lowered himself to be a divisive, vindictive conniver. There was no table which he feared that he did not upset and overturn. There was no one who came into his company for any period of time with whom he did not fall out if he expresses a thought contrary to one of his.
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“He tried to convert our young democracy into a one-party state. His PDP boasted that they would rule for 60 uninterrupted years. Never did they boast that they would govern us well during even one year of the sixty.
“He could have placed the economy on the path to durable growth and shared prosperity through diversification, industrialization, and creation of a social safety net for the poor. Instead, he handed the economy over to a tight group of cronies, turning what should be a modern economy into a version of the mammoth trading companies that dominated the 17th and 18th century.
“The Transcorp conglomerate was intended to be a throwback to monopolistic enterprises such as the East Indian Company wherein a select handful would control the national economy’s strategic heights.
“We hoped that Obasanjo would personify statesmanship, thus showing the way to a more benign political culture. Instead, he bickered and feuded with his vice president and mostly anyone who dared remind him that he was human and thus infallible.
“Given the vast margin between the good he could have achieved and the nebulous feats that comprise his true record, Chief Obasanjo is the person most responsible for the flaws in the Nigerian political economy since 1999. His ego is as expansive as the firmament but his good deeds would fit into a modest sachet with ample room to spare.
“The worst of Obasanjo’s record, I have yet to describe. When it comes to elections, he has been a rigger without peer. There is no election which occurred under Obasanjo’s watch or in which he participated that did not involve cheating on his part. Even the late President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua admitted he was the beneficiary of a flawed election engineered by none other than today’s vociferous complainant.
“For Obasanjo to lament over electoral malpractice is tantamount to the ocean complaining that a few raindrops are causing it to get wet.”
Tinubu further disclosed that “Obasanjo thinks he is more than the greatest Nigerian. He thinks himself greater than Nigeria itself. Unless he is allowed to lead the procession, he will groan, grouse and grit. However, neither President Buhari nor the progressive APC has much use for his reactionary policies and his megalomaniac ways. Thus, we shall be forced to endure more of his letters. But enduring such missives is a vastly superior and small price to pay for not having to endure a repeat of his unenlightened misgovernance.”
