President Goodluck Jonathan has
dismissed as “most reckless” and “unjustifiable” a fiercely scathing letter he
received from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in which Mr. Obasanjo accused
him of lying, condoning corruption, and leading Nigeria to the brink of
collapse.
A statement by the president’s
aide, Reuben Abati, said the allegations by the former president were “baseless
and indecorous.”
The statement said Mr. Jonathan
has directed his aides not to respond to the barrage of attacks and allegations
from Mr. Obasanjo, listed in an 18-page letter exclusively published by PREMIUM
TIMES.
Mr. Jonathan will personally
respond to the charges at the “appropriate time”, the statement said.
“While many patriotic, objective
and well-meaning Nigerians have already condemned the leaked letter as
self-serving, hypocritical, malicious, indecent, and very disrespectful of the
highest office in the land, President Jonathan has directed that none of his
aides or any government official should join issues with Chief Obasanjo over
it,” Mr. Abati said.
“The president himself will, at
the appropriate time, offer a full personal response to the most reckless,
baseless, unjustifiable and indecorous charges levelled against him and his
administration by the former Head of State.”
In the highly acerbic letter,
Mr. Obasanjo laid out a series of allegations against Mr. Jonathan, accusing
him of corruption and ineptitude.
Mr. Obasanjo lamented that Mr.
Jonathan had become terribly divisive and clannish, destroying his own party,
polarizing the country along regional and religious lines and ridiculing
Nigeria in the comity of nations.
He blamed Mr. Jonathan for the
crises tearing the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, apart, and accused him
of lacking in personal integrity by consistently lying about his ambition for a
new term of office.
Mr. Obasanjo also tackled Mr.
Jonathan for allegedly being clannish. “For you to allow yourself to be
“possessed”, so to say, to the exclusion of most of the rest of Nigerians as an
“Ijaw man” is a mistake that should never have been allowed to happen. Yes, you
have to be born in one part of Nigeria to be Nigerian if not naturalized but
the Nigerian President must be above ethnic factionalism. And those who prop
you up as of, and for ‘Ijaw nation’ are not your friends genuinely, not friends
of Nigeria nor friends of ‘Ijaw nation’ they tout about.
“To allow or tacitly encourage
people of ‘Ijaw nation’ to throw insults on other Nigerians from other parts of
the country and threaten fire and brimstone to protect your interest as an Ijaw
man is myopic and your not openly quieting them is even more unfortunate.”
The former president also
accused Mr. Jonathan of placing over 1000 Nigerians on political watch list and
“training snipers and other armed personnel secretly and clandestinely
acquiring weapons to match for political purposes like Abacha and training them
where Abacha trained his killers”.
The former President also called
on the National Assembly to rise up and take decisive action over the
allegation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation failed to remit
billions of dollars in proceed of crude oil sales to the federation account.
“This allegation will not fly
away by non-action, cover-up, denial or bribing possible investigators,” Mr.
Obasanjo told the President. “Please deal with this allegation transparently
and let the truth be known.”
The Senate on Wednesday ordered
an investigation. The senate committee on finance is to probe the allegation
and make its findings known in seven days.
The presidency did not respond
to any of the issues specifically beyond dismissing them as “provocative and
unjustifiable.”
Mr. Abati said President Jonathan
will respond personally. But the statement criticised the leakage of the letter
to the media.
“We however find it highly
unbecoming, mischievous and provocative that a letter written by a former Head
of State and respected elder statesman to President Jonathan has been
deliberately leaked to the mass media in a deplorable effort to impugn the
integrity of the president and denigrate his commitment to giving
Nigeria the
best possible leadership,” the statement said.
Read the statement by the president’s
spokesperson, Reuben Abati, below.
OBASANJO’S LETTER UNBECOMING,
SELF-SERVING AND HIGHLY PROVOCATIVE
We have noted the publication on
several websites today of a letter recently written by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
The Presidency acknowledges that it
has indeed received the said letter from Chief Obasanjo.
We however find it highly unbecoming,
mischievous and provocative that a letter written by a former Head of State and
respected elder statesman to President Jonathan has been deliberately
leaked to the mass media in a deplorable effort to impugn the integrity of the
President and denigrate his commitment to giving Nigeria the best possible
leadership.
While many patriotic, objective and
well-meaning Nigerians have already condemned the leaked letter as
self-serving, hypocritical, malicious, indecent, and very disrespectful of the
highest office in the land, President Jonathan has directed that none of his
aides or any government official should join issues with Chief Obasanjo over
it.
The President himself will, at the
appropriate time, offer a full personal response to the most reckless,
baseless, unjustifiable and indecorous charges levied against him and his
administration by the former Head of State.
Reuben Abati
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
December 11, 2013
Read our later report about the
letter here.
Source: Premium Times
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