The N15.6 trillion
Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway project has been labelled as “wasteful” and
“corrupt” disbursement according to Olusegun Obasanjo (the former head of state
and president of Nigeria). This criticism has also condemned the President Ahmed
Bola Tinubu administration’s decision to spend N21 billion on a new official
residence for Vice President Kashim Shettima, hereby calling it a “misplaced
priority” and a means to misappropriate public funds.
These views were expressed in the former president’s new book titled, “Nigeria: Past and Future,” where he painted a vivid picture of the characters and actions of chief executives at both federal and state levels. The book was publicized to mark his 88th birthday.
In the book the former
president in a statement asked the question, “How do you explain the situation
of a chief executive, a governor, whose business was owing the banks billions
of naira and millions of dollars before becoming a governor and within two
years of becoming governor, without his company doing any business, he paid all
that his businesses owed the banks…”
“…You are left to guess where the money came
from. Having got away with that in the first term, he consigned to himself
almost half of the state resources in the second term. He was a typical example
of the goings-on at that level almost universally in the country with only a
few exceptions...”
“…State resources are captured and
appropriated to themselves with a pittance to staff and associates to close the
mouths of those that could blow the whistle or raise alarm against them while
in office and when they are out of office.’’
The former president added
that “The ones that are criminally ridiculous are the chief executives that
deceive, lie and try to cover up on the realities and truth of action and
inaction on contract awards, agreements, treaties, borrowings and forward sales
of national assets. Such chief executives are unfit for the job they find
themselves in...”
“Typical examples of waste, corruption and
misplaced priority are the murky Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road on which the
President had turned deaf ears to protests and the new Vice-President’s official
residence built at a cost of N21bn in the time of economic hardship to showcase
the administration hitting the ground running and to show the importance of the
office of the Vice-President. What small minds!”
The former President held
that in order to address some of the challenges facing the country, there is a
need to question the Western prolific democracy being practised and see how it
could be reviewed to reflect African peculiarities.
“If the West, from where the liberal democracy
started should complain about it not working well for them, we should be wise
enough at this stage to interrogate, carry out introspection, internal analysis
and realise that Western liberal democracy is not working for us and is not
delivering apart from the shortcomings of the operators.
“We should seek democracy within African
history, culture, attributes and characteristics, one that will take necessary
African factors into consideration. Until we can get a better word or
description for it, let us call it Afro-democracy.
“It is from Afro-democracy that we will draw
up an African people’s constitution for any African that chooses to go the way
of Afro-democracy, which will avoid most, to all, the faults we have found in
Western liberal democracy,” he proposed.
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