Obasanjo is Nigeria's enemy, says Na'Abba

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday received a hard knock from former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Umar Ghali Na'Abba.

Na'Abba, the number four citizen from 1999 to 2003, said the former President was the number one enemy of the country.

The former Speaker, who spoke  during an interactive session with journalists at the Press Centre,  Kano, which coincided with the country's 52nd Independence anniversary celebrations,  accused Obasanjo of manipulating other political parties by proxy, which, he said, was part of the weapons he used to destroy internal democracy while in office. 

For Na’Abba, Obasanjo not only marginalised the geo-political zones of the entire country, but extended same to the South-West, his immediate constituency, “as the Yoruba complained aloud during his administration”.

He observed that Obasanjo had a mindset against the North, which he blamed for some of his misfortunes, adding that he (Na'Abba) frustrated Obasanjo’s Bill on Political Violence, which he brought before the House of Representatives, explaining that the bill, if passed, would have provided an opportunity for the police to arrest and detain political opponents without trial.  

According to the former Speaker, the absence of internal democracy portends the greatest danger to the country’s nascent democracy, adding that if the trend is allowed to continue, it will further slide the country backwards.

Na’Abba said: “Unless one becomes a sycophant, he cannot be mobile in the ongoing political dispensation, which means that one must be ready to do anything, including sabotaging his country, so that he can become relevant. This is a very dangerous trend in our polity.

“Today, when you look everywhere in the field of governance, you cannot see Nigeria’s best brains. People have fallen by the wayside. Those who can spur democracy forward are no longer in reckoning in most public offices.

“What is meant here is that when people contest in any election within our political parties, either to become candidates or executive members of parties, these elections must be free and fair and anybody who wins must be allowed to exercise his mandate.

“What you witness today is that when people who are disliked are elected, their election would be quashed by those who control the party and in a lot of places, elections do not hold. Ppeople will say that there is consensus and certain candidates are favoured in the consensus arrangement”.

Na'Abba observed that the country amassed  more money in the last 13 years “than between 1960, when we got our independence, and 1999 when we began this democratic journey, but instead of seeing a corresponding progress in the lives of our people, we have only witnessed a corresponding dip into abject poverty”.

He believes that the missing link is leadership “and we cannot get good leadership unless there is internal democracy within our political parties.

‘My obsession today is to ensure that good  men are in the helm of affairs. And as a former Speaker and stakeholder in the country, if I perceive anything that is capable of derailing the country, I must speak out to condemn it.”

Source: Compass