ABEOKUTA – Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has
described the Awujale and Paramount ruler of Ijebuland, Oba Dr. Sikiru Kayode
Adetona as a serial liar for causing him of using the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission to torture him while he was President of the country.
Obasanjo while responding to some accusations levelled against him in Awujale
Autobiography titled
“Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S. K. Adetola,
Ogbagba II”, published by Mosuro Publishers in 2010, said Awujale’s action is
an unbecoming action of an Oba. The former President through his media aide,
Kehinde Akinyemi in a letter of reply addressed to Awujale and dated December 30,2016
and made available to newsmen in Abeokuta cautioned the Monarch against what he
described as hate propaganda.
Awujale had in his autobiography, acussed Obasanjo of
several allegations while he held the sway as President of Nigeria which
include tormenting the founder of the Globacom limited Mike Adenuga with EFCC
and using Aliko Dangote to front business.
But, Obasanjo in his reply said “the extract from your
Autobiography “Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S. K. Adetola,
Ogbagba II”, published by Mosuro Publishers 2010, pp. 187-195, which I attach
to this letter was presented to me for my attention. “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 to capture me and Mike in a
photograph for the newspapers? That would be puerile of me as President. Of
course, I could not say that Mike could not do that.
That you think that I, as President of Nigeria, would
descend to such depravity makes me think of you much less than I thought of
you, until now. ”The invitation to Mike to contribute to the building of the
Library block of Bells University was issued to him by the then
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Julius Okogie, who never told me about inviting Mike
to so contribute until Mike pulled out.
And that I have not and I will not talk to Mike about it
should convince you that I know nothing about its genesis. ”Under my watch,
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, was free to do its job as it
saw fit. Common sense would suggest that wild rumours should not be perpetrated
by an Oba of your calibre.
Kabiyesi, your cousin did not tell you that My Chief of
Staff, Abdul Mohammed, put his reputation on line by assuring EFCC that Mike
would go nowhere 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
of 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?
On several occasions, Nuhu Ribadu has asserted that, under my watch, he was a
free agent to do his work as he deemed fit.
Where it was necessary, he reported the outcome of his work
to me and the subsequent or follow-up actions he intended to take. On no
occasion did I guide, lead or direct him on what to do. ”Mike did not need to
send anything to me to satisfy me, he needed to satisfy 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 any attention by me.
You, as the cousin and part beneficiary from Mike as you
have told me in the past, would not be able to see the tree from the forest as
far as the mode of operation of Nuhu Ribadu was concerned viz-a-viz Mike. If
the EFCC was investigating anybody, I did not consider it right for me as the
President of Nigeria to be undermining EFCC by hobnobbing with that person.
EFCC must be given free hand to do its work.
Even if such a person was my child, the best I could do
would be to secure a good lawyer to handle the matter before the EFCC for that
child. “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.
The latest one you did in 2016 was you telling me that you
heard that I had gone to Rasak Okoya to seek to marry her daughter, Abiola,
when it was the girl that came to appeal to me to intervene to placate and
appeal to her father to forgive her for all her misbehaviour to her father. I
did and the father and daughter were reconciled. “I told you even then that it
was unbecoming of an Oba.
Of course, I am used to such rumours, slandering and
insinuations since my days as a Unit Commander in the Army and I have developed
thick skin. If ten per cent of the rumours ascribing businesses and properties
I know nothing about were true, I would be the richest man on earth.
But recently, when Aliko, yourself and myself were together,
Aliko assured you that I never ever 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 interest, I have always helped and I will always do
because that is part of my job as a Nigerian leader – to help Nigerians grow
their businesses or interests – and I have done that for other Nigerians and
indeed for non-Nigerians, Africans and non-Africans who have requested me for
help.
It was revealing to me on that occasion when Aliko made the
point that one of his directors on his cement company is somebody very close to
you. “I owed nobody any apologies in the course of doing my work as I believe I
should do it or in the course of defending the interest of Nigeria and
defending my integrity.
As I could not open the treasury for S. O. Bakare for your
so-called political support to me, I did not regard that as an offence. To the
extent that I believed and regarded as proper, I instructed Tony Anenih as
Minister of Works to patronize S. O. Bakare as a Peugeot car dealer.
I will not comment on Atiku issue that you touched upon in
your book because I have dealt with that elsewhere and you were only dabbling
into an area where and thing you are absolutely ignorant about. “All that you
wanted me to do in respect of Mike was improper whether when I was President or
when I was out of office.
I must not be seen to be in the way of allowing law to take
its natural course. All I should do is to help the course of the law and help
secure a good lawyer to help the process. “It is of interest to me that Mike
did not tell you that when he wanted national honour, he came to me and I did
not react until Babangida recommended him and said, “Of all those I have
helped, Mike is one of the most appreciative.”
“Kabiyesi, if I have squandered all the goodwill I had, you
would not have contacted me on behalf of All Progressive Party, APC, to receive
them in 2014 and you would not have been personally present when I received
them as I demanded. I probably have greater goodwill today internally and
externally than I had in office.
“Kabiyesi, the total sum of what you have put down in those
pages of your book is that I dislike Mike. Maybe I need to remind you that if
there was any iota of truth in such a position or mindset, Mike would not have
been granted the mobile telephone licence which made him a billionaire. It was
my prerogative as the President so to do.
You may also be reminded that in the first round of the
auction which Mike did not make, the country earned US$285 million for each
licence. The country earned only US$200 million from the licence transaction
with Mike and in the subsequent transaction with Etisalat, the country earned
US$400 million.
It was a deliberate action on my part that a Nigerian should
own one of the licences. Anybody else but Mike could have been that Nigerian.
“Kabiyesi, the type of hate propaganda you have tried to project in that
section of your book against my person is grossly unbecoming of an Oba let
alone an Oba of your status and stature.
“Kabiyesi, I believe that I should set the record straight for posterity and to caution you from engaging in unedifying rumour-mongering and untruth.
Source:Vanguard
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