Yesterday, the Presidency declared that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has no moral authority or competence to sermonise on good governance and effective leadership.
Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga made the statement in a reaction to what Obasanjo said at the weekend.
He highlighted the misdeeds in Obasanjo’s years as military leader and president, saying he has taken self-righteousness too far.
Delivering a keynote address at the weekend at Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University, New Haven, in Connecticut, United States, the former president said the country’s pervasive corruption and all other forms of iniquity confirmed Nigeria’s failing state status under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“The failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence, and all other forms of iniquity,” he said in his recorded lecture titled: ‘Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria.’
But the Presidency said Obasanjo, who has a penchant for criticizing all his successors, got it all wrong.
Onanuga described as ironic, that Obasanjo used the platform of a Chinua Achebe lecture to castigate the country and its government, whereas Achebe himself rejected the national honour bestowed on him in 2004 by the Obasanjo administration because “Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is…too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list.”
To buttress his claim that Obasanjo lacks the moral authority to give such sweeping remarks, Onanuga highlighted the flaws of Obasanjo and his government between 1999 and 2007 as follows:
•Illegality, assault on Constitution
•Failed economic policies
•Neglect of critical infrastructure
•Abuse of office
•Organisation of sham 2007 general election
•Neglect of security
•Lack of Integrity; and
•Widespread corruption
Onanuga advised Obasanjo who was military leader between 1976 and 1979 when he handed over to democratically elected President Shehu Shagari, to retrace his steps.
