Presidency calls Obasanjo hypocrite for criticising Tinubu’s leadership at Yale Forum

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has sparked controversy with his recent remarks on leadership during the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University.

He labeled President Muhammadu Buhari as 'Baba Go Slow' and President Bola Tinubu as 'Emilokan,' attributing Nigeria's ongoing challenges to their administrations.

In a statement, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga

responded sharply, stating, "Obasanjo should reflect on his leadership shortcomings rather than offering unsolicited advice."

He criticized Obasanjo's legacy, highlighting the former president's failure to address critical issues like infrastructure and security during his tenure. Onanuga pointed out that Achebe himself rejected an honour from Obasanjo in 2004, citing "the prevalence of abuse of power and poor leadership."

Onanuga emphasised the irony of Obasanjo discussing governance at a forum celebrating Achebe, who had little regard for him.

He remarked, "A man under whose watch all of these egregious infractions occurred should certainly not be the one to give any lecture on leadership and corruption."

He said in parts: “On matters of integrity, honesty, and morality in public leadership, Chief Obasanjo is certainly not a paragon of virtue for anyone to model after. Nigerians can still remember the messy public spat between Chief Obasanjo and his then-vice president, Atiku Abubakar, over PTDF money that led to a Senate Public Hearing in 2004. The sordid details of the public hearing included unsettling evidence of how Obasanjo instructed his Vice President to buy Sport Utility Vehicles for his mistresses with PTDF funds. There was also the Halliburton bribe scandal, which the US Congress probe revealed. Bribe payments were made to the highest political authorities at the Villa while Obasanjo was in charge.

“Nigerians will also remember how the Obasanjo administration invested $16 billion on electricity, which left the country in utter darkness. The colossal amount spent on power was so embarrassing that President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Obasanjo’s successor, ordered a probe. Similarly, Obasanjo’s privatisation programme was scandalous. It did not deliver real value for the country. His administration cheaply sold national assets to cronies who stripped the assets of the state-owned enterprises. A case in point was the aluminium smelter company ALSCON in Ikot-Abasi, Akwa-Ibom State, built by the military government at the princely sum of $ 3.2 billion. It was sold for 130 million dollars. Obasanjo also sank money into Turn Around Maintenance of our refineries, which never worked, leading to the massive importation of refined petroleum products.

“Such was the miasma of corruption under Obasanjo that the former governor of Abia, Orji Uzor Kalu, his party member, petitioned the EFCC, accusing Obasanjo of gross abuse of office.

“If Chief Obasanjo had addressed the many problems he critiqued in his poorly written Yale lecture when he ruled Nigeria for eight years, President Buhari and President Tinubu would have had a much lighter burden of fixing the country.”

He said that instead of casting blame, Obasanjo should use his remaining years to reflect on missed opportunities during his own time in leadership.

"While the Tinubu administration diligently works to overcome the country's economic challenges, it would be better and more advisable for former President Obasanjo to temper his self-righteousness in his public discussions regarding our nation’s temporary difficulties. Instead, his remaining years would be better spent reflecting on the missed opportunities during his own time in leadership, both as military head of state and civilian president.”