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Everybody in Nigeria should fasten their seat belt. There is going to be casualties in this war. Obasanjo is the big Pot but he is calling Artiku the "kettle" Black. Who is the bigger thief here, the man who has been the oil Minister for 8 years. or Artiku who is in charge of BPE. It looks like Artiku know too much and Obasanjo is afraid that if he leaves office without his hand picked crony taking over, his ass will be exposed.
Listen to this war words by surrogates of the two camps and you be the judge.
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President Olusegun Obasanjo has finally foreclosed any possibility of Atiku stepping into his shoes as he laid bare a plethora of reasons for the Presidential war between him and his deputy, Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
By Chesa Chesa and Iyobosa Uwugiaren, Abuja 16th September
Accusing the Vice President of leaking official secrets, among other misdeeds, Obasanjo advised him to apologise to Nigerians and quit office at once.
He spoke through his newly appointed Special Adviser on Public Affairs, Uba Sani.
Besides charges of abuse of office, the Vice President, the president said, committed many other atrocities in the Presidency eroding his moral high ground to lead the nation, Obasanjo said.
Sani argued that the pieces of evidence against Atiku were so overwhelming that the best option left for him was to beg Nigerians for forgiveness and thereafter tender his resignation to save the country from further ridicule.
"Let the Vice President respond to the facts of the case instead of engaging in the mobilisation of political sentiments. He who wants to lead a people must be prepared to account for his stewardship.
"It is inconceivable that a person whose moral authority has been completely damaged would aspire to lead Nigeria at this critical stage in the nation’s history".
The President accused Atiku of "sowing the seeds of discord in the Presidency. He has been leaking official information, all in a bid to damage the person and position of the President".
Obasanjo’s silence in the face of what Sani called a barrage of insults from the Atiku camp, should not be misconstrued for weakness, he warned. Doing so, he said, would amount to a significant political misstep.
Sani explained that it would have been out of place for a President waging war against corruption to shield the Vice President from public scrutiny.
"Shielding public officials from scrutiny goes completely against the spirit and letter of the anti-corruption agenda of the present administration."
Besides, the administration would lack the moral authority to lead the country out of the malaise of corruption if it did not engage in internal cleansing, said Sani, who argued that it would also be morally reprehensible for the President to cover up any government official accused of corruption.
He urged Nigerians not to be swayed by the Vice President’s efforts to attract sympathy, but to rather see the expanding crisis in Aso Rock as an opportunity to consign wreckers of the country to the dustbin of history.
"This is Nigeria’s defining moment. In this present political crisis lies the opportunity for a comprehensive cleansing of Nigeria whose development has long been held down by the cankerworm called corruption".
Meanwhile, Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation, yesterday, challenged Obasanjo to tell Nigerians the source of the funds he funneled into the controversial MOFAS account and expended at will on his personal, business and political activities between 1999 and 2004.
In a statement by his Media Adviser, Shehu Garuba, the Vice President restated that "the President not only made withdrawals, but also authorised lodgments into Otunba Oyewole Fashawe’s MOFAS account" at Trans International Bank (TIB), Abuja.
Atiku challenged the Nuhu Ribadu-led Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to make public, all the MOFAS account transactions since 1999 "if it is really sincere and serious about fighting corruption".
"The MOFAS statement of account will show that rather than the Vice President, it is the President who should be indicted for grossly abusing his office".
Atiku added, " The money belonging to the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), which was placed in Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB), has been returned with interest to the government. The investment in TIB is safe in the custody of the new owners of the bank, SpringBank.
"We restate that the President was not only aware of the existence of Marine Float and MOFAS accounts, but that he funded them and used the money from them for his personal, businesses, community and party needs. It is wicked and mischievous for the President and his handlers to deny any link to the accounts", Atiku said.
Atiku released further evidence of Obasanjo’s alleged MOFAS account transactions through his Special Assistant, Bodunde Adeyanju, to "debunk the claim that Obasanjo is above board".
The records showed 16 out of over 100 transactions allegedly made by Adeyanju on behalf of the President. According to him, the records selected randomly were from 2002, 2003 and 2004 transactions only, amounting to N51 million. Atiku added that the President, through Adeyanju, made withdrawals from the MOFAS account as recently as April 2004, about a year after the 2003 elections.
"He (Obasanjo) walked away from the controversial account the moment he began to nurse a third term ambition, which I refused to support. As I told the Bayo Ojo kangaroo panel on September 6, a palace coup occurred and Fasawe was dumped and left to pay the N1.2 billion debt which had accumulated in the account.
"Fasawe’s position has now been taken over by Mr Andy Uba, who now runs a new account for the President. For the President to deny any link to the MOFAS account, from which he had made withdrawals, is like denying his role in nursing, promoting and sponsoring the third term misadventure."
"It is evident that EFCC discovered these transactions by Bodunde in its investigation of the MOFAS account.
Why is he (Bodunde) conspicuously absent in the EEFC report?"
The MOFAS account, the Vice President restated, was unrelated to the PTDF deposit in TIB, adding that what the EEFC did was to assemble unrelated matters to reach a predetermined conclusion.
"If the Ribadu-led EFCC is truly impartial, let the commission publish the MOFAS account, showing lodgments and withdrawals, and tell Nigerians the source of the funds in the account", said Atiku.
The Vice President maintained that he did no wrong that could be categorised as abuse of office.
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Brother IG Nwafor Where the heck have you been? Anyway welcome back to the land of the living. You know the unfortunate about this whole mess and finger pointing going on between Atiku and Obasanjo, Is that An Igbo person occupied the number three seat. They were there while Obasanjo and Atiku carted away with national treasury and all the Federal corporations. All they did was long grammar. Now guess who is going to be the front men and spoke person for this two thieves. You guessed it, one Igbo efulefu with a PHD.
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