Written by Idowu Samuel, Abuja
Sunday, February 7, 2010

APPARENTLY irked by the public outcry generated by his remarks on President Yar'Adua, at a public outing organised recently by a Northern based media outfit, the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has vowed never to offer any comment on the ailing president. The elder statesman made the remarks last week before he left the shores of  Nigeria.

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In the same forum, the former president dismissed plethora of criticisms about perceived inadequacies recorded during his regime, as he told a world audience during the  weekend, that the government he ran in Nigeria for eight years was not a failure,  rather a success.

Obasanjo made this known in a World Debate which took place in Geneva and broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television on Saturday. He said it was rather the enemies of his government who have been branding him as a failed leader.

It was the first time since he bowed out of office more than two years ago, that Obasanjo would  defend his government.

The former Nigerian President participated in the World Debate alongside former United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Anan, Malawian Governor of Central Bank, Linda Moholo and a renowned female world writer, Patricia Garppa. Each of them was asked to make remarks on the state of Africa and the rest of the world.

Obasanjo, in his remarks, had blamed the problem of Africa on the effect of colonialism and neo-colonialism and partly on what he described as failure of the leadership in the continent to bail Africa out of difficult times.

The coordinator of the debate had asked the former president whether or not he would admit that he was part of the failed leadership in Africa,  to which he remarked, "No."

Obasanjo, while responding to a question bothering on allegations that he set up the anti-corruption agencies, mostly the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission under the headship of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to fight his perceived enemies, said his government set the standard with the war against corruption in Nigeria, noting that the enemies of his government who never wanted the war to succeed were the brains behind the allegation.

He  referred to the arrest of some of the Ministers in his Cabinet whom he said the EFCC also arrested and prosecuted for acts of corruption, as he recalled that one of the ministers whom he described as his personal friend and former senior in his school days was among top government officials who answered to charges of corruption.

He further proved that in his era as president, the government made   efforts in closing the gap between the upper and lower classes in the country and cited the initiative by his government to  attend  to resource control agitation by the people of South-South region in Nigeria.

According to him, his government ensured the jerking up of revenue derivation to the South-South zone from the federation account from   three per cent before his regime came on board to 13 percent.

"In my time as president of Nigeria, the revenue to the zone became 13 per cent," he said.

Asked to comment on whether African is its own worst enemy, Obasanjo disagreed, citing the case of Liberia which he said encouraged a woman, Mrs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to become the president. According to him,  Sirleaf had since proved that Africa had not been its own worst enemy by embarking on programmes of reconstruction in the war-torn country she has so far been attaining remarkable success.

Former President Obasanjo, a United Nation Special Envoy to Congo Democratic Republic,  who is currently on world tour had two weeks ago caused a stir in Nigeria's political circles with an outburst he made on the health situation of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

At a public outing organised by a Northern based media outfit, Media Trust Limited, publisher of Trust titles in Abuja, Obasanjo had asked ailing President Yar'Adua to resign from office on health considerations, saying that if he  was sure that his health condition would not allow him to continue to function effectively with state assignments, he should tow the path of honour.

He had told those who visited him in Ota that as a man who encouraged Yar'Adua to become President of Nigeria in 2007, he had done Nigeria some good by asking him to obey the Nigerian constitution, in order for governance to continue to run smoothly, wondering why his good intention was attracting missiles from those who in his reckoning should know better.