Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has described allegations made
against him by Oba Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland, as resulting from
a lack of common sense and a potpourri of wild rumors.
Obasanjo’s response was
contained in a letter dated December 30, 2016, and was a direct riposte
to a welter of allegations contained in the traditional ruler’s 2010
autobiography, Awujale: The Autobiography Of Alaiyeluwa Oba SK Adetona,
Ogbagba 11. In the book, the Awujale pointedly claimed that Obasanjo
used his powers as president, among other things, to hound his cousin and
Chairman prominent businessman, Mr. Mike Adenuga.
The former president described the Awujale’s
claims in his book as products of bizarre rumors, which a traditional ruler of
his status should not be seen propagating. “Common sense would suggest that
wild rumors should not be perpetrated by an Oba of your caliber,” wrote
Obasanjo, who added that he now thinks a lot less of the Awujale than he once
did.
Writing on the 2006 experience of Mr. Adenuga
with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in his book, the
Awujale had accused the former President of harboring a deep-seated hate for
the Globacom Chairman, an accusation that drew a fusillade from Obasanjo.
“Kabiyesi, the total sum of what you have put
down in those pages of your book is that I dislike Mike (Adenuga). Maybe I need
to remind you that if there was any iota of truth in such a position or
mindset, Mike would never have been granted the mobile phone telephone license,
which made him a billionaire. It was my prerogative as the President so to do.
You may also be reminded that the first round of auction, which Mike did not
make, the country earned $285million for each license. The country earned only
$200million from the license transaction with Mike and in the subsequent
transaction with Etisalat, the country earned $400million. It was a deliberate
action on my part that a Nigerian should own one of the licenses. Anybody else
but Mike could have been that Nigerian,” wrote Obasanjo.
As part of the dislike Obasanjo allegedly
harbored for Mr. Adenuga, the Awujale wrote in his book that the former
president used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as a personal
battle axe against some prominent people, including the Globacom Chairman. Not
surprisingly, Obasanjo also bristled at the allegation, saying the EFCC, with
him as President, did its job as it deemed fit. Obasanjo accused the Awujale of
carrying out hate propaganda against his person by the suggestion that he used
the EFCC as a whip against certain persons.
“Kabiyesi, your cousin did not tell you that my
Chief of Staff, Abdul Mohammed, put his reputation on the line by assuring EFCC
that Mike would not go anywhere and they should trust him to give him his
passport. I did not even know that Abdul had done that until the Chairman of
EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, reported the case of my Chief of Staff seemingly colluding
with Mike to run out the country. But I had implicit confidence in my Chief of
Staff and I was to resolve the issue. Should your cousin not have mentioned to
Abdul who guaranteed the release of his passport, his fears and intention to go
on exile?” Obasanjo asked in the letter.
The former President ramped up his attack on
the Awujale by exposing the traditional ruler’s decision to send him documents
on Mr. Adenuga’s case with the EFCC, saying he paid no attention to those
documents because he was not the EFCC and did not put the commission on a leash.
“Mike did not need to send anything to me to
satisfy me. He needed to satisfy the EFCC, and so your sending any documents to
me was insinuating that I am the one to be satisfied rather than the EFCC.
So, such documents were not paid attention by
me. You, as a part beneficiary from Mike, as you have told me in the past,
would not be able to see the tree from the forest viz-a-viz, Mike. If the EFCC
was investigating anybody, I did not consider it right for me to be the
President of Nigeria to be undermining the EFCC by hobnobbing with that
person,” wrote Obasanjo.
On the Awujale’s allegation that Obasanjo
deliberately arranged a photo-op with Mr. Adenuga, the former President said
the traditional had fallen many notches in his estimation.
“Your assertion in the publication was a tissue
of lies and untruths. Olopade is one of my best friends, and yes, I would be at
his birthday celebration, but I would not have invited Mike, your cousin, to
meet me anywhere other than my office or official residence as President of
Nigeria. Kabiyesi, do you think I would set the press up for to capture Mike
and me in a photograph for the newspapers? That would be puerile for me as
President. Of course, I could not say that Mike could not do that,” wrote
Obasanjo.
The former president also dismissed the Awujale’s claim that he was
sore at the decision of Mr. Adenuga not to make financial contributions to the
building of the library at Bells University. According to Obasanjo, Mr. Adenuga
was invited by the then Vice-Chancellor of the University, who did not inform
him of the invitation to the Globacom Chairman to contribute until the
businessman pulled out.
Obasanjo said the Awujale has a reputation for
propagating unfounded rumors. “It is not only in the case of Obajana Cement
that you were rumour-mongering about me. You have done that repeatedly on many
occasions,” he wrote.
The latest of such, said the former president,
was last year when he said the Awujale told him that he heard he (Obasanjo)
went to businessman, Razak Okoya, to ask to marry his daughter. According to
Obasanjo, it was the girl that came to him seeking his intervention in a
disagreement with her father.
Obasanjo said he intervened and Okoya and his
daughter were reconciled.
“I told you even then that it was unbecoming.
Of course, I am used to such rumors, slandering, and insinuations since my days
as Unit Commander in the Army, and I have developed a thick skin. If ten
percent of the rumors ascribing businesses and properties I know nothing about were
true, I would be the richest man on earth. But recently when Aliko (Dangote),
yourself and myself were together, Aliko assured you that I never had a single
share in any of Aliko’s business interests, but whenever he has called on me to
help within and without to promote his business interests, I have always
helped,” Obasanjo stated.
He added that it was during that conversation
that Dangote revealed that one the directors in his cement company is somebody
very close to the Awujale.
Obasanjo further accused the Awujale of wanting
him, in and out of office, to act inappropriately to the benefit of Mr.
Adenuga.
“It is of interest to me that Mike did not tell
you that when he wanted a national honour, he came to me and I did not react
until Babangida (former military president) recommended him and said: ‘Of all
those I have helped, Mike is one of the most appreciative,” wrote Obasanjo.
He also dismissed the Awujale’s claim that he
had frittered all the political goodwill he once enjoyed, asking why, if true, the
traditional ruler contacted him when the All Progressives Congress (APC) was
formed in 2014. Obasanjo added that the Awujale was even personally present
when he received the APC delegation. “I probably have greater goodwill today,
internally and externally, than I had in office,” bragged Obasanjo.
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