Eight issues in Obasanjo’s statement Nigerian govt did not respond to

 

On Wednesday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, responded to the 13-page statement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo which rated the performance of the Muhammadu Buhari administration as below par.

In the explosive statement, Mr. Obasanjo highlighted the widespread discontent with the Buhari administration and advised Mr. Buhari not to seek re-election but to “dismount the horse” with honour and dignity.

While Mr. Mohammed’s response was measured and devoid of raucous counter-attack that is usually associated with such retorts within political circles in Nigeria, he, however, dodged some salient issues raised by the former president in his statement.

Mr. Obasanjo had tongue-lashed the president for Nigeria’s economic woes saying though he had suspected that Mr. Buhari was not to be trusted with properly handling the economy, he had supported his election and in fact, voted for him because he thought the president would appoint capable managers to take charge of the economy.

However, Mr. Mohammed’s response was mainly aimed at Mr. Obasanjo’s commentary on the state of the economy. He also spent some time highlighting the infrastructural projects being undertaken by the government.

In the main, Mr. Mohammed was silent on some of the main grouses raised by Mr. Obasanjo. Below

are eight issues the former president wrote about that Mr. Muhammed failed to address.

1. Mr. Obasanjo accused Mr. Buhari of turning a blind eye and condoning reported cases of corruption within his government. He mentioned the infamous recall of a former chairman of the Presidential Pension Reform Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina. Mr. Muhammed’s statement completely avoided this.

2. Mr. Obasanjo accused the president of being clannish and failing to act in cases of reported corruption and bad behaviour of people from his part of the country. He added that it appears that Mr. Buhari was prepared to sacrifice national interest on the altar of nepotic interest.
“What does one make of a case like that of Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action? How many similar cases are buried, ignored or covered up and not yet in the glare of the media and the public?”

Mr. Mohammed said nothing on this, too.

3. Mr. Obasanjo criticised the president’s handling of the herdsmen crisis while lashing out at some governors of the All Progressives Congress for endorsing the president for re-election a day after 73 people killed in the crisis were buried.
“It is no credit to the Federal Government that the herdsmen rampage continues with careless abandon and without finding an effective solution to it. And it is a sad symptom of insensitivity and callousness that some Governors, a day after 73 victims were being buried in a mass grave in Benue State without condolence, were jubilantly endorsing President Buhari for a second term! The timing was most unfortunate,” he said.
Mr. Mohammed statement completely ignored this.

4. Mr. Muhammed was also silent about Mr. Obasanjo accusation that Mr. Buhari lacks understanding of the dynamics of internal politics. According to him, this has “led to wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided and inequality has widened and become more pronounced.”

5. The minister of Information was also silent about Mr. Obasanjo’s claim that the president was in the habit of passing the buck instead of taking responsibility for his failures.

6. Mr. Mohammed merely described talks about reelection of the president as a distraction, as the ministers did not respond to Mr. Obasanjo’s assertion that Mr. Buhari does not have the physical energy required to run the country and should consider quitting office at the end of his tenure to attend to his failing health.
President Buhari needs a dignified and honourable dismount from the horse. He needs to have time to reflect, refurbish physically and recoup and after appropriate rest, once again, join the stock of Nigerian leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country. His place in history is already assured. Without impaired health and strain of age, running the affairs of Nigeria is a 25/7 affair, not 24/7, he wrote.

7. Mr. Mohammed did not say something about Mr. Obasanjo’s accusation that the ruling party does not have what it takes to salvage the country, obviously leaving it to the party, which also on Wednesday issued a reaction concentrating mainly on aspects of Mr. Obasanjo’s statement that affected the party.

8. Mr. Muhammed also did not respond to Mr. Obasanjo’s call for a third force, which he named Coalition for Nigeria (CN) to oust the ruling party.
The APC’s reaction, however, covered the issue, with the party decrying Mr. Obasanjo’s wholesale rejection of the nation’s 72 registered parties.

Buhari in closed door meeting with six governors

President Muhammadu Buhari is currently holding a closed-door meeting with six governors in his office at the presidential villa, Abuja.
The governors include, Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom, and Aminu Masari of Katsina states.
Others are Governors David Umahi of Ebonyi, Simon Lalong, Plateau and chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state.
The meeting is taking place immediately after Mr. Buhari received security briefing from service chiefs and heads other of security agencies.

FLASH | Buhari in closed door meeting with Security Chiefs

 
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, January 2018 met with Nigeria’s security chiefs as part of efforts aimed at ending the spate of insecurity across the country.

The meeting was held inside the President’s office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali; and the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, led the security chiefs to the meeting.

The new Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Abubakar, attended the security meeting for the first time since his recent appointment.
Apart from the service chiefs, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, also attended the meeting.
In a message posted on the Twitter handle, President, the Presidency said the security chiefs briefed Buhari on intelligence gathering and law enforcement efforts across the country. Security meeting

today, presided over by President . NSA, Service Chiefs, Intelligence Chiefs, IGP in attendance.
President briefed on Intelligence-gathering and law enforcement efforts across the country, by the various agencies, the message read.

statement on Buhari goes on sale in Abuja, Lagos

 

The much discussed and debated controversial statement by former President, Olusegun Obasanjo on President Muhammadu Buhari’s performance has become a source of income to some book and newspapers vendors in Abuja, Lagos and other parts of the country.

Findings by DAILY POST have shown that vendors in Abuja, Lagos and other cities of the country have started selling Obasanjo’s note of warning to Buhari in form of a book. 

Obasanjo had in the statement warned President Buhari against presenting himself for another term.
The former Head of State cited some areas which the government had failed.

He scored the Buhari-led government low in economy, security, health and other sectors.
The controversy has now been put together as a book and vendors are hawking them on some of the

streets of Nigeria for sale.  approached one of the vendors displaying the the laminated letter with the bold inscription, ‘Obasanjo writes Buhari, forget 2019 reelection’ around the Federal Secretariat, Abuja on Thursday, he said the book goes for N500.

After much negations, the vendor agreed to sell it for N300.
‘I also have the last letter he wrote to Jonathan and Iyabo if you want to also buy them. Those ones are N200 each,” he told this reporter.

Also in Lagos, many vendors were seen displaying the letter at the Ikeja under bridge.   
The vendors were said to be selling it for N200 per copy.
Also, a newspaper vendor in Mararaba was seen displaying the letter in the hold up Thursday morning.

TODAY Nigerian VP noncommittal on Buhari's 2019 election plans

Buhari, 75, has not publicly said whether he will contest the February 2019 election. Political insiders have privately questioned his willingness or ability to keep the top job after he spent much of the past year in Britain being treated for an undisclosed ailment that left him visibly weakened.

But Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu, who played a prominent role in Buhari’s 2015 campaign, has said he would chair a group to support the re-election of the president and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Osinbajo, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said: “The president is focused on this term. He wants to ensure that he delivers on the promises that were made. He is not talking about 2019.”

In an interview with CNBC, Osinbajo outlined a number of road and rail projects which the administration is working on and a social program to support the unemployed in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.

In 2015, Buhari rode a wave of resentment against President Goodluck Jonathan over endemic government corruption, a struggling economy and a failure to defeat the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, but now much of public opinion has turned against him.

In a blow to the president, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and Buhari ally, quit the ruling All Progressives Congress and said he was prepared to run in 2019. Last month he joined the opposition People’s Democratic Party.

Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Alison Williams and Angus MacSwan

 
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is focused on delivering on promises made for his current term rather than thinking about the next election, his vice president said on Thursday.

IPOB restates call for referendum

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) worldwide, on Sunday, said that happenings in Nigeria have vindicated its position that the Nigerian union was unsustainable.

IPOB, which expressed gratitude to all, especially Biafrans and lovers of freedom who joined in the march/rally, in Aba, Abia State capital, on Saturday, to honour its members and other innocent people allegedly murdered in cold blood by Nigerian security agents last year at Igweocha (Port Harcourt) on the day of the inauguration of President Donald Trump of America, insisted that the only solution for Nigeria was for free, self-governing nation states.

The group, in a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, noted that all the injustices that necessitated its agitation for Biafra were now being felt by all including those that opposed the ideology of its leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The statement read in parts, “Today, Nigeria is still paying a high cost in loss of human lives, which unfortunately, includes a preponderance of Biafran lives, for that decision of Yakubu Gowon. Nigeria is still paying in the form of renewed genocide, now championed under the twin umbrella of a lopsided Nigerian security forces and Fulani herdsmen.

In an era where armed Fulani men, emboldened by the acquiescence of the Northern ruling class and complacency of the Presidency, unleash murderous mayhem on unsuspecting civilian populations, we must spare a thought for IPOB agitators brutally slaughtered for demanding to be accorded their constitutionally guaranteed rights.    

Ironically what IPOB is agitating for – freedom for all, is the only approach that can solve the Fulani conundrum. Had the wider Nigerian public not sided with the Buhari regime in their persecution of IPOB, such blatant discriminatory and hypocritical approach to democratic governance in Nigeria would not obtain. We steadfastly and unapologetically maintain that the Nigerian union is unsustainable, only free self governing nation states is the solution.

IPOB remains today, at the forefront of the new revolutionary change sweeping across the land. Things can no longer be the same because all the injustices that gave birth to our agitation for an independent Biafran state are now being felt by all those that once stood in opposition to the ideology of our prophet and leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

As genocide looms ever large in Nigeria today, IPOB restates the call for a referendum to enable ordinary people decide their destiny. The fate of 160 million people cobbled together by Frederick Luggard in a horrible experiment gone wrong cannot be determined by a morally bankrupt leadership of old men who are past their retirement age.

In the face of all these, Biafrans have exercised uncommon restraint and continue to demonstrate to the world their commitment to peaceful agitation by refusing to take up arms for self-preservation. We have chosen this route because we trust in a new international order that is committed to protecting all oppressed peoples from genocide

Biafrans we must share dis information to save lives of others especially in Biafra land.

Biafrans we must share dis information to save lives of others especially in Biafra land.
As we continue to preach d Gospel of Biafra, I want to assure biafrans and freedom fighters all over d world dat our struggle is legitimate and internationally constitutional.
As our leader Nnamdi KANU expect us to obey d chain of his commands he rightfully put in place before he was kidnapped by Nigerian DSS officials in Lagos.
If d below populations of biafrans can stay at home on Friday 23th and pray for d release of our leader KANU, den d world will understand again dat we r fanatic about our freedom. And soon Biafra will be restored for all to live again happily.
Buhari let Biafra go now or d economic recession will be worsening day by day as long as KANU is still being detained illegally without any substantial evidence of d false charges against him.
Pls both Igbanke, Idoma, Igala, Ishoko, Ishekiri, Ishogbo, Urobo, Akwa Ibom, Ijaw and Igbo are expected to stay at home tomorrow and ignore anybody dat calls for protest because dat will be an attempt to kill us again. God will guide his people and grant us our heart desires which is Restoration of Biafra on d face of d earth. All hail Biafra. Pls share to others. – Biafrans

IPOB SIT-AT-HOME UPDATE: ABA DESERTED, ONITSHA-ENUGU SHUT DOWN, IGWEOCHA-ONITSHA TRADERS ON HOLIDAY.
Family Writers Correspondence across all sections of Biafra Land has given an update on the ‘Sit-at-home’ protest which is currently taking places across Biafra Land and environs.
The indoor protest which is scheduled to hold today, September 23 2016, by the Indigenous People Of Biafra, IPOB, have early this morning around 9:30am left several cities in Biafra Land deserted, as millions of Biafrans both in Biafra Land and across Nigeria adheres to the protest ‘modus operandi’.

A reporter from Aba, Abia state has disclosed that as at this morning, businesses, schools and transportation companies across the city witnesses a massive shut down as few people are seen parading the roads and streets.
In Onitsha, Anambra states, the hub of Commerce of Biafra Land also witnessed a massive level of desertion on roads, market and schools. Main market, Ochanja market, Okija market in Onitsha are all shut down. At Nkpor, shops are locked, as similar situation is noticed across Awka Road Onitsha.

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In Port-Harcourt, several markets and businesses have all been locked up. Oil tools dealers at Mile 3 Market are nowhere to be found, Motor Parts dealers and Business tycoons at Ikokwu Port-Harcourt, all seem to be enjoying their holiday in their various homes, as Ikokwu Market is completely shut down.
STEEL VILLAGE at Eleme Rivers state is deserted. Hundreds of shops at Mile 1 Port-Harcourt are locked up, even as Trans-Amadi Oil Tools dealers have all gone on vacation.
Few civil servants and taxi drivers(mostly of Yoruba and Hausa origin) are spotted going about their daily routine.
Enugu also witnessing similar case, as shops in Ogbete Market are locked up. Few cars and people are seen on the roads as the beautiful city looks as if its inhabitants are still at sleep.
Family Writers Correspondence across Biafra Land have reported that hundreds of Military trucks and Police vans have been mounted across various check points, roadsides and other strategic places across BiafraLand, with personnels fully equipped to the teeth like soldiers ready to win a second World War.
Biafrans have been advised to remain indoors, as Human Rights groups have revealed that a “shoot at sight” order have been given to Nigerian military and Police, against any Biafran activist or loyalist seen on the streets or roads with any item or colour that synchronises with Biafraagitation.
More reports and updates will be coming shortly – Biafra Reporter
It will be so stupid if i refused to observe what is right, the sit at home instruction. I’ll not beg anyone either to remember this day 23rd September 2016 and keep it Holy,because it’s an avenue we will use to know who is who, who loves Biafra and who stand with Nnamdi Kanu in distress. Remember, Nnamdi Kanu is where he is today not for his sake but for our sake and that of our children and yet unborn, therefore I’ll reciprocate the undying love he showed to me and millions of Biafrans with my humble prayers to Almighty creator for his immediate release.
I Stand With Biafra! I Stand With Nnamdi Kanu! – Biafra

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Biafrans in Biafra Land and any where in the zoo, today is 23rd of sep 2016, the long awaited day for our SIT AT HOME protest in honour of our trusted leader and hero, the prophet of our time who has been kept in illegal detention by the evil forces of the zoo called nigeria for one year now. If you know you are a Biafran and you want Biafra to come, dnnt engage in any commercial activity today. Dont go to market, close your shops and stay at home let the world know that we are seriouse about what we are saying and doing. If you sacrifice today for Biafra and our leader, you will not die, afterall our leader had sacrificed all he is and all he has for Biafra. May Chukwuokikeabiama bless him. – Biafra

I AM NNAMDI KANU I have chosen death, I shall die for Biafra and let my death give my generation a better life, let my death be a guarantee for a better future, let my death be your smile and let my death end your marginalization, subjugation, slavery and tears. I am Nnamdi Kanu the lion that chose death over the abuse of his people. I instead die than renounce Biafra, give me Biafra or kill me is where I stand. I have been arrested for nothing, I am a prisoner of conscience, they are here to break me, to make me renounce Biafra but they don’t know me, they don’t know Biafra is my religion and they don’t know renouncing Biafra is a death sentence, is like committing suicide. In their widest dream shall I commit suicide and I assure them that days of reckoning will come, for Chiukwuokikeabiama shall avenge the death of His children. I have taken an oath with the name of God that I shall never betray or give up Biafra because I knew this day will come. I am physically and psychologically prepared for this period. I took the oath and staked my family, my generations and everything I am, and so giving up Biafra in any condition is impossible, even at gun point, I will only accept my inevitable death than renounce Biafra. – Nnamdi Kanu