3 hours Ago By Ibrahim Ramalan
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has blasted the administration of President Bola Tinubu for earmarking N15.6trillion for Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway project. Mr Obasanjo described the project as wasteful and conduit pipe for looting public funds.
Mr Obasanjo also slammed the administration for spending N21bn on a new official residence for Vice President Kashim Shettima, describing it as a misplaced priority. He also lambasted the Tinubu administration for turning a deaf ears to the protests by Nigerians against the projects. According to the Punch Newspaper, the former president disclosed this in chapter six of his new book, ‘Nigeria: Past and Future’.
The book was one of the two new books unveiled to mark Obasanjo’s 88th birthday last week. Assessing the two years of Mr Tinubu in office, Mr Obasanjo said it appears that the game of short-changing the over 230 million Nigerians would continue because, “Everything is said to be transactional and the slogan is ‘It is my turn to chop”. The former President said the majority of those who have been opportune to hold leadership positions in the country are ill-prepared, satanic, self-centred and are all out to corruptly enrich themselves while the nation continues to wallow in abject poverty and condemnable underdevelopment.
“How do you explain the situation of a chief executive, a governor, whose business was owing the banks billions of naira and millions of dollars before becoming a governor and within two years of becoming governor, without his company doing any business, he paid all that his businesses owed the banks. “You are left to guess where the money came from. Having got away with that in the first term, he consigned to himself almost half of the state resources in the second term.
He was a typical example of the goings-on at that level almost universally in the country with only a few exceptions. “State resources are captured and appropriated to themselves with a pittance to staff and associates to close the mouths of those that could blow the whistle or raise alarm against them while in office and when they are out of office.’’ He further noted that, “the ones that are criminally ridiculous are the chief executives that deceive, lie and try to cover up on the realities and truth of action and inaction on contract awards, agreements, treaties, borrowings and forward sales of national assets.
Such chief executives are unfit for the job they find themselves in. “Typical examples of waste, corruption and misplaced priority are the murky Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road on which the President had turned deaf ears to protests and the new Vice-President’s official residence built at a cost of N21bn in the time of economic hardship to showcase the administration hitting the ground running and to show the importance of the office of the Vice-President. What small minds!”.
