Osamagbe Imadiyi
On Monday, the Presidency criticized former President Olusegun Obasanjo for asserting that corruption in the nation has reached a deadly level.
The Presidency also criticized Obasanjo’s demand that Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, be fired for his handling of the 2023 election, which he called a travesty.
But in his keynote speech at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University, New Haven, USA, on Sunday, the elder statesman brought up issues like graft, the need for electoral reform, and other topics, and the Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Party, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party supported him.
The former President called for shorter terms for INEC officials and a stricter screening procedure to avoid appointing partisans in his speech, “Leadership failure and state capture in Nigeria.” He criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration, claiming that corruption remains one of the biggest issues facing Nigerians.
According to the elder statesman, “cash bribes totaling over N700 billion were paid by citizens to public officials in 2023.” Most bribes are paid in the street or a public official’s office. Corruption in Nigeria has passed the alarming and entered the fatal stage, and Nigeria will die if we keep pretending that she is only slightly indisposed.’’
But in a rebuttal on Monday, Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, claimed that because the former president oversaw what he described as “the most fraudulent election held in Nigeria since 1960,” he had no moral authority to criticize INEC.
“When a man who oversaw Nigeria’s worst election calls for the dismissal of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s leadership, it is blatant hypocrisy,” Onanuga said in a statement titled “Former President Obasanjo was not an ideal leader to emulate.”
According to the Presidency, the former leader’s tendency to disparage every succeeding administration overshadowed the elder statesman’s expected participation in a productive discussion on achieving national advancement.
