Sunday 29 December 2013

The Dirty Fight is Here Again

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 Olusegun Obasanjo
Shola Oyeyipo writes that as 2015 general elec tion inches closer, there are growing  anxieties  over  the successful conduct of the elections following the  increasing trading of brickbacks and insults  by the political gladiators there by  overheating the system

As the 2015 general election moves nearer, the political gladiators in the country have already started overheating the political landscape through unguraded utterances, throwing of brickbacks and trading of insults .It seems   these p oliticians would spare nothing  to in outdoing each other as everything is fair is now the rulr of the ganme.
The recent topical incident was the  letter  written by former president Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan; the letter by the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Sanusi Lamido to the president and the tactical labeling of the president as a  leader accommodating corruption by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal .
These were seen in some quarters as  a well orchestrated plot to create disaffection between the  president and the people ahead of the  2015 election.   
While the letters written by Obasanjo and  Lamido were made public, THISDAY findings  authoritatively indicated  that there are many other letters to be written before the next elections. Interestingly, as fundamental as the issues being raised are, they could be easily dismissed as politically motivated.
But the mases would still benefit as they will have insights into the corrupt activities of the leaders. In his  reaction to some of the allegations contained in Obasanjo’s letter,  a stalwart of the Peoples PDP in the South-west, Prince Buruji Kashamu,  considered  as libelous  obasano’s reference to him as a fraudlent person. Buruji's lawyers, Mr. Ajibola Oluyele and Mrs. Ifeoma Esom said no notice would be given the president before the legal proceeding would commence.
In the letter, Obasanjo had alleged that Buruji was a drug dealer, wondering why the presidency would have preferred to pitch tent with such character.
On his part, Buruji said Obasanjo was his political associate: "He was my  political ally and that time he depended on him to fight the former Ogun State governor Otunba Gbenga Daniel to standstill in the state and that he never referred to him as a drug dealer back then.
"How can he turn around to say that I'm a drug dealer? Then he didn't call me as a drug dealer - when I spend N3bn of my money to takeover the PDP structure from Gbenga Daniel. I ate in his house more than 30 times, I entered his office, his room and he presented me to several leaders of the party and told them to thank me. And didn't say I was drug dealer back then",
"During his regime, all the people that sorrounded him were drug dealers. When the time comes their names will be mentioned. I didn't know anything about what they were talking about", an obviously vexed Buruji said.
In fact, there and then, during a press conference held at his Best Western Hotel, Buruji was ready to spill the bean, except for his lawyers who calmed his frayed nerves. 
According to Oluyede, the reason for the legal battle that is to start against Obasanjo is to "expose him that he has no basis for making such statement so we are going to commence libel proceedings against former president Obasanjo," there is also the need to make sure that "Nigerians are not deceived by the allegations raised by Obasanjo agaisnt President Jonathan and his client."
He said that the content of the widely circulated letter was not meant to achieve anything positive but designed as an attack on the person of the president and my client.
"It is a vendetta" which emanated from the roles of Kashamu in the defeat of Obasanjo and Oyinlola in Ogun State, Osun State and the South-west and that it is as a result that, Obasanjo and Oyinlola have become irrelivant to the current vision and progress in the PDP.
"Its a product of bad belly. Its not a product of patriotism. It is a product of animosity against the president and Kashamu and it is an attempt to flair up the people against the president. Most of the things he raised are more applicable to him. You will recall that most of the people murdered during his regime are yet unresolved; the Bola Ige's murder is one of such. The case is there.
"Those who claimed to be the New PDP are actually the old PDP which disobeyed court orders, brandish persons of questionable characters
"This entire thing is charade, an attack with the hope that the relationship between him and the PDP leadership could be severed", he maintained.
Earlier, the Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido had alleged that his sons arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was an attack on him.
The duo of Aminu and Mustapha  Lamido, who are two sons of Governor Lamido were picked up by the EFCC over an alleged money laundering in Kano recently and were whisked to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja.
Lamido said the action was a product of vendetta. He specifically noted that President Jonathan personally owns Pilot Newspaper. He said the president is using the EFCC to witch-hunt opponents of the federal government.
“Some politicians believe that they can use intimidation and threat to have their way. In the last 30 years, I have suffered all kinds of intimidation and harassment you can think of and so there is nothing new. All these harassments cannot break Sule Lamido. I am a human being and I can make mistakes, but honestly speaking, in the last six years, I have tried my best for Jigawa State and even President Goodluck Jonathan testified to that severally when he visited Jigawa.
He said all that are being done to blackmail was unconnected with his membership of the aggrieved G7 governors under and his purported interest to contest the presidential election in 2015.
While all these subsist, more revelations are still expected. There are yet to be verified information coming in from various quarters. Some of such is connected to the ownership of a property on the right hand side - on the way to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport in Abuja. The highbrow property observable from about 2000 metres from road is said to be owned by a top member of the executive. It is conspicuous with the cyclical road that leads to the building atop a mountain.
With such information, Nigerians will continue to enjoy fascinating - intriguing dimensions of accusation from the contending forces as they unfold.

ThisDay

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