Sunday Dare, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, has hit back at former President Olusegun Obasanjo, saying his tenure was marked by monumental corruption while democracy suffered “mortal wounds”.
Obasanjo was Nigeria’s president between 1999 and 2007 and had recently claimed that the country is a failing state due to “widespread corruption, poor leadership, and immorality” under President Bola Tinubu’s leadership.
In response, Dare accused Obasanjo of failing to lay the appropriate foundation for the country to excel.
“Former President Obasanjo is a man with a tremendous capacity for mischief and Nigerians know it. His journey along the path of hallucinations has never been in doubt. So is his descent into muddling facts, forgetting that he ran a Presidency on record as the most corrupt. His recent diatribe at Yale University lacks sincerity,” Dare wrote on his X handle on Monday.
“It is actually laughable that Obasanjo’s pretentiousness about fighting corruption is not cutting any ice in the eyes of the general public. We all know what happened under his watch and how, up till the present moment, there has been no explanation as to how he wasted a whopping $16bn in generating megawatts of darkness across the nation. But that is not even the issue.
“Democracy suffered mortal wounds under his watch only capped by his murderous rage for an ill-fated 3rd term. Successive administrations struggled to clean up the mess Obasanjo left behind, which President Tinubu is now making progress with. Obasanjo has lost any moral right to condemn any government. He should apologise to Nigerians for not laying the foundational infrastructure Nigeria needed to advance.
“The Yoruba proverb, ‘A o ki n wo ariwo oja, eniti a anba na oja ni a n wo’. This means that you shouldn’t pay heed to the market’s noise. Rather, keep an eye on the person you are negotiating with. This is instructive. In this market called Nigeria, the man with the renewed hope agenda is the one that matters, and indeed Nigerians. Everything else is ariwo oja. This administration will stay focused on bringing relief to Nigerians. Obasanjo’s remarks reflect the infantilist nature of market noise.
“President Tinubu will Stay the Course in seeing through the reforms he has instituted for a better Nigeria.
“The point here is that Obasanjo should take time off this habit of pulling down leaders, especially his successors, and try to interrogate himself on how he has contributed to the parlous state of the Nigerian nation which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is now spiritedly battling to put back on the track of development. We thank former President Obasanjo for agreeing that ‘Yes, there is hope’. That’s the Renewed Hope Agenda President Tinubu is about and it’s on track. We are happy to have that conversation with the former President,” Dare added.
