The Democratic Front (TDF) has dismissed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s accusation of inefficiency against the President Bola Tinubu administration as mischievous and baseless.
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad, and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, it noted that the former President was in no position to label any administration as inefficient based on his performance in office.
TDF said: “Obasanjo’s accusation would have been denounced as his usual tirade of a relevance-seeking political gaslighter; but because the accusation illuminated the failures of a former President of Nigeria, whose personal negligence of duty and inefficiency cost the nation $18 billion, as payment to offset a $30 billion loan from the Paris Club in 2006.
”This was at a time the entire nation was in darkness due to the inability to generate electricity, while the educational sector was also in a coma on account of lack of living wage for teachers and lecturers, leading to endless strike actions that disrupted university programs and the national academic calendar, etc.
”We are compelled by obligation to provide clarity on who, between President Tinubu and former President Obasanjo, presided over the most economically reckless and inefficient government in Nigeria.
”Unlike President Tinubu who has visited 17 countries in the last two years and secured a major livestock sector investment from Brazil, as well as attracted a total of $50.8 billion investment commitments from India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirate, and France, former President Obasanjo gallivanted across 97 countries without any notable foreign investment, or practical evidence of improved trade balance between Nigeria and the countries he visited. A monumental waste of public funds.
”We sadly remember Obasanjo’s inability to initiate private investments in Nigeria’s petroleum refining sub-sector for 8 years, despite failed attempts to sell state-owned refineries as scraps to vested interests. This is a feat President Tinubu surpassed in less than 7 months in office, by midwifing Dangote Refinery, a few years after the Buhari administration initiated the enabling environment for the establishment of Dangote and other private modular refineries in Nigeria.
”TDF is therefore not under any illusion that the former president is either exhibiting the symptoms of selective amnesia at old age, or resorting to the antics of a snake-oil salesman, by deceitfully manipulating public opinion to deflect accountability, and excuse his shortcomings for laying the foundation for the executive inefficiency that led to monumental waste of scarce national resources in Nigeria between 1999 and 2007.”
The group outlined some of the highlights of the Obasanjo years that showcased the inefficiency of that administration
”The annals of our national history will never forget that Obasanjo’s inefficiency as the President cost the nation billions of dollars in the power sector, and the waste of another $550 million in satellite projects known as Nigeriasat 1 and Nigeriasat 2, which have since disappeared from the orbit.
”Similarly, his anchorage of executive disrespect for democratic norms and constitutional ethics, which resulted in the infamous kidnapping of an elected State Governor, and the illegitimate impeachment of other State Governors, has also left an enduring infamy in Nigeria’s democratic history.
”In addition, the former President’s disregard for due process created legal entanglements and contractual liabilities that stalled the Mambila Power Project contract award, and denied Nigeria the opportunity to add 3,500 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.
” As an octogenarian with such a heavy burden of failure, Obasanjo is expected to act as a statesman and to desist from comments that are derogatory to the nation, and unbecoming of his person as a former President,” it added
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