By Ezeocha Nzeh
The presidency and its ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) decended heavily on former President, Olusegun Obasanjo and his former Vice, Atiku Abubakar, accusing them of being the midwifes of the mirage of crisis that have put Nigeria in its present shambles
APC in a statement issued Sunday by its acting National Publicity Secretaery, Yekini Nabena, expressed shock that former Presidenty Olusegun Obasanjo and his former Vice, Atiku Abubakar, who the party described as the same political actors that midwifed and institutionalised the national rot, corruption, impunity and eroding of Nigeria’s value systems are the same characters posing as voices on the way forward in national life.
Obasanjo had last Thursday said Nigeria was slowly becoming a failed state and a basket case that urgently needs to be pulled from the brink of collapse.
The former President who spoke while delivering a speech titled “Moving Nigeria away from tipping over” at a consultative dialogue in Abuja, said he had never seen Nigeria so divided as now, adding that many of the problems plaguing the country today were due to the mismanagement of Nigeria by the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration
But the APC in its response, said, “Former President Olusegun Obasanjo could start with telling us where the electricity is despite $16billion he spent on the power sector.
“Obasanjo’s deputy, Alh. Atiku Abubakar should account for the privatisation exercise under his watch which saw national assets sold off to friends and cronies with no benefit to the country. Successive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administrations can also start by accounting for the trillions stolen from our national coffers in the guise of a fraudulent fuel subsidy regime,” APC noted
The APC regretted that the two political actors “probably only listen to their own voices because Nigerians have long stopped taking them seriously as they simply lack the antecedents and moral credentials to guide Nigeria and Nigerians to the path of prosperity and progress.”
“Instead of the “do or die” lingo Obasanjo and the PDP introduced to our electioneering, votes are beginning to count as our elections improves steadily. Their abandoned projects which constituted drainpipes on national resources are being completed by this administration. The brazen culture of impunity and corruption which they institutionalised is being replaced by strong and accountable systems.
Joining the ruling party in its attack on the former President and his Vice, the Presidency on Sunday, described Obasanjo as the country’s ‘Divider-in-Chief.’
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, this in a statement titled “Obasanjo is Nigeria’s Divider-in-Chief,” said with his comment which he described as unfair attacks on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and his regime, Obasanjo had descended from the lofty heights of a Commander-Chief
Shehu added that Obasanjo must have left his admirers confused in announcing the support for the boycott of a democratic process of changing the constitution, at the same time calling for dialogue and engagement.
The statement added, “The fact that the process he ushered in under his administration with the dubious intention of amendments that sought tenure elongation failed-as did two other attempts by the successor administrations of the same political party- does not in any way justify his dismissal of the exercise by the 9th Assembly as another waste of time and resources.
“It’s a known fact that the withdrawal of subsidies had been on the wish list of the Obasanjo-led Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. They failed in achieving these measures because; there was a shared greed. They plundered the treasury as much as anyone could in the name of either subsidy or waiver with reckless impunity.”
