Leadership Rescue Initiative, an advocacy group, launches a fresh call for a probe of the Olusegun Obasanjo years

•Obasanjo: An advocacy group wants him probed

Media reports suggesting that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was to be probed were, last month, dismissed by a statement from the Presidency.

Signed by Dr. Reuben Abati, spokesperson to President Goodluck Jonathan, the statement said Jonathan has nothing but respect for Obasanjo’s contributions to national development over the years.

“What is more, President Jonathan regards his administration as a continuation of the unbroken chain of PDP-led governments started by Chief Obasanjo in 1999, which have worked tirelessly to entrench democratic governance and achieve rapid socio-economic growth in the country. Speculations and suggestions of an impending probe of the Obasanjo administration by President Jonathan are, therefore, nonsensical and should be dismissed by all right-thinking Nigerians as the product of the fertile imagination of mischievous political jobbers,” the statement said.

It is not a view shared by the Leadership Rescue Initiative, an advocacy group. The group, in a recent petition to the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, called for a revisit of some issues and events between 1999 and 2007 when Obasanjo was president. “The present socio-economic-political crisis in Nigeria has its foundation in the maladministration of the past, particularly the arbitrariness and corruption in all ramifications of the Obasanjo administration,” the group said in its petition signed by Richard Odusanya, its Chairman. Ironically, Odusanya was part of the Obasanjo administration from the beginning. He was later deployed to work with Otunba Oyewole Fasawe, one of Obasanjo’s closest friends. He told this magazine that his decision to take up the campaign for further investigation of the Obasanjo years is informed by what he experienced in those eight years. In the petition which he co-authored with Prince Segun Seriki, LRI Director-General, the group is demanding investigations into allegations of corrupt enrichment by proxy, high profile assassinations and criminal imposition of personal will during Obasanjo’s time as president.

While noting that as a military head of state, Obasanjo used the Land Use Decree he promulgated to acquire land across the country, the group noted that it is a public fact that the fortunes of the former president plummeted following his imprisonment for alleged coup plotting by the late General Sani Abacha.

To probe the source of the new wealth of the former president, LRI said there should be an investigation of the tremendous wealth of his associates and proxies as well as a probe of the process of privatisation of national assets under his  administration. LRI cited the case of Andy Uba, Obasanjo’s Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs, who is today a multi-billionaire. “With the FoI Bill, it might be necessary to compare what he declared when he was appointed the domestic aide and what he declared upon becoming the governor of Anambra/ Senator to the Code of Conduct Bureau,” said LRI in the petition.

The group is also calling for another look into the sale of key national assets like the Ajaokuta Steel Company, Oku-Iboku Paper Mills and others based abroad. This, it said, can be obtained through the deployment of the FoI law. Similarly, the group is demanding further investigations into the $ 6 million Halliburton bribery scandal in which many officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and officials of the Obasanjo administration were indicted.

The police once arrested Bodunde Adeyanju, Obasanjo’s Personal Assistant, following pressure for the investigation of the bribery scandal, especially when United States citizens involved were tried and jailed by their home government. The presidential aide was mentioned as collecting $ 6 million bribe from the American company for disbursement to PDP bigwigs and other officials of the Obasanjo administration in investigations conducted by foreign security agencies. Obasanjo, under whose administration the scandal took place, was never arrested or queried by the police. LRI said it found it difficult to believe that the presidential aide could have collected $ 6 million from the American oil servicing company without the knowledge of his boss.

•Adoke: Received a petition from Leadership Rescue Initiative

Odunsanya, who claimed to be a friend to Adeyanju, said in the petition that the former presidential aide admitted to him that he collected $ 6 million, but refused to implicate Obasanjo. The LRI Chairman claimed that Adeyanju told him this when he was driving him to the airport after he was released from detention. Also, the group asked for fresh investigations of monetary inflow and outflow into the controversial MOFAS Account operated by Fasawe. The account came to prominence in the fight between Obasanjo and his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar, in the run-in  to the 2007 presidential election. The account, domiciled at the defunct Trans International Bank, belonged to Fasawe’s shipping agency. But Fasawe was said to have made it available to the Presidency as a dedicated repository of slush funds from rich government agencies like the Petroleum Development Trust Fund, PDTF.

Fasawe told the Senate Committee, which investigated the PDTF in 2007, that Obasanjo paid N700 million into the account in 2003, after it was overdrawn to settle 2003 election expenses. He also said the account was made available to Obasanjo/Atiku Campaign Organisation and the PDP to settle election expenses in 2003 while the party and other related political programmes were also executed through the account since the return of civil rule in 1999. “On the N700 million, it was given to me after we have long overdrawn my account. When I had overdrawn my account to a certain level, I ran to the leadership of the party, which is Baba (Obasanjo). That is how the money came in. We have been maintaining the PDP, the ruling party since 1999,” said Fasawe, who insisted that there was no direct inflow of PDTF money into the account. LRI, however, said there is the need to conclusively investigate inflows and outflows on the account, especially allegations on the N4 million Obasanjo allegedly gave to each member of the House of Representatives to impeach Speaker Ghali Na’Abba. This led to the celebrated display of currency-filled bags.

Odusanya said he ran the account with Adeyanju and Pariya Umar, an aide of the former Vice-President. Odusanya also confessed that from the account, he was issued different cheques to fund various personal habits of Obasanjo. These included a cheque of N5 million for the purchase of a vehicle as a birthday gift for one Ms. Lamide Adegbenro, alleged to be a mistress of the former President. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had investigated the account in the wake of the controversies, but the anti-graft agency was reported to have stopped its investigations when its findings indicted the former President.

LRI is demanding a conclusion of the investigations, especially since the huge deficit in the account is one of the contributory factors to the demise of TIB. In the same vein, the group wants a probe of why Obasanjo permitted his brother in-law, Kenny Martins, to set up a fund for police equipment. This, it noted, was in negation of the constitutional provision that the responsibility of funding the law enforcement agency is that of government. Aside from the issues of alleged corruption, the group also asked for the probe of some assassinations that took place in the Obasanjo years. Chief among these were those of Chief Bola Ige, former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice; and Chief Harry Marshall, a chieftain of the All Nigeria People’s Party.

The petitioners want a further probe into the handling of the investigations of Ige’s murder by Sunday Ehindero, former Inspector-General of Police. A few days to his retirement in 2007, Ehindero had paraded a masked suspect, who confessed to killing Ige. The suspect refused to unveil his face and did not talk when journalists asked him questions. When asked if he killed Ige, he nodded and was never arraigned in court. Thus, LRI said, an investigation should be conducted to ascertain why the police chief engaged in what it described as a charade and national disgrace.

Another death LRI wants the investigated is that of Chief Sunday Afolabi, Minister of Internal Affairs under Obasanjo. On 29 December 2003, Afolabi and five others were arraigned before an Abuja High Court for fraud involving $ 214 million. The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, had accused the late minister of receiving $ 330,000 from a representative of SAGEM S.A. of France, the contractors handling the National Identity Card Project.

But the former minister pleaded innocence and there are claims that he had threatened to expose the real culprit in the bribery scandal at a meeting with a top security chief just before his death in 2004. LRI suspects that he might have been poisoned to stop him from squealing on the real beneficiaries of the scam.

LRI is also demanding investigation into the third term project of Obasanjo, arguing that though he has consistently denied it, there are documents and facts to prove that Obasanjo planned to stay longer in office than he was constitutionally entitled. “The financial, socio-political and even psychological corruption of Nigeria over the 3rd term madness is legendary. Some of us, on principled conviction worked vigorously in the then Atiku media campaign, with other patriots from other platforms, to stop the evil that third term project was, so we know what truly happened,” the group said.

In addition, LRI asked for a probe of the circumstances in which the late President Umaru Yar’Adua was imposed on the country despite his health challenges, which were well known to Obasanjo, as well as the unconstitutional declaration of the office of the Vice-President vacant.

“Without prejudice to any relevant national institution that may wish to act by virtue of constitutional provisions or responsibilities, we humbly and fervently pray that Your Excellency graciously oblige the setting up of an Ad-Hoc committee to scrutinise these issues exhaustively in the interest of the nation,” said the  group. LRI said the setting up of a committee to probe the allegations is important as the investigations of some of the issues by the police and EFCC have been jaundiced.

—Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: PM News

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