How Obasanjo Brought Poverty To Nigeria - Tinubu Reveals

National leader of the All Progressives Congress  ( APC) Bola Tinubu has accused former president Olusegun Obasanjo of causing most of the flaws in the Nigerian political economy since 1999.


He made this known in a letter entitled: “Chief Obasanjo -At War Against his Own Deeds”.

The APC chieftain wrote the letter in response to Obasanjo’s earlier

letter to President Muhammadu Buhari , in which the ormer Nigerian leader chastised Buhari and his administration, claiming the president was preparing to rig next month’s elections.

In Tinubu’s view, Obasanjo was merely telling the APC the electoral misconduct he would have perpetrated if he was still in power.

The Co-Chair of the APC Presidential Campaign said Obasanjo squandered the opportunity of leadership from 1999 to 2007.

He said, “This man should have positioned himself to be the father of the nation. All the goodwill that could be granted a political figure was bestowed on him. The global economy was such that it should have fuelled our growth.

”Everyone wanted Nigeria to succeed after emerging from years of noxious military rule. Despite the flawed exercise that rendered him president, we all bit our tongues in hope that he would say and do the right things that would move Nigeria forward.

“Instead of being a unifying figure as Commander-in-chief, he lowered himself to being a divisive, vindictive conniver. There was no table which he neared that he did not upset and overturn.”

Tinubu said that Obasanjo had the opportunity of placing the economy on the path to durable growth and shared prosperity through diversification, industrialisation and creation of a social safety net for the poor.

”He tried to convert our young democracy into a one-party state. His PDP boasted that they would rule for 60 uninterrupted years. Never did they boast that they would govern us well during even one year of the sixty,” he added.

”Instead, he handed the economy over to a tight group of cronies, turning what should be a modern economy into a version of the mammoth trading companies that dominated the 17th and 18th century.

“We hoped that Obasanjo would personify statesmanship, thus showing the way to a more benign political culture. Instead, he bickered and feuded with his vice president and mostly anyone who dared remind him that he was human and thus infallible.

“Given the vast margin between the good he could have achieved and the nebulous feats that comprise his true record, Chief Obasanjo is the person most responsible for the flaws in the Nigerian political economy since 1999.”