Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL)
The Humanity Centre: 610, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Ijaye Bus stop, Ijaye-Ojokoro.
P.O. Box 1592 , Agege, Lagos.
Tel: 01-4736534, 08023226276, 08037194969 E-mail: cacolc@yahoo.com, dadnig@yahoo.com
Name, Nail, Shame and Shun Corrupt Leaders Anywhere, Everywhere
PRESS RELEASE 21 March, 2009
OBASANJO HAS CORRUPTION CASES TO ANSWER
The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) views the recent attempt by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo to self-launder his image by exonerating himself of corruption allegations in a B.B.C interview is a shameless display of arrogant lack of conscience. CACOL insists that the ex-president must face trial for the endemic corruption that the supervised during his eight years of nightmarish civilian dictatorship.
Nigerians demand to know why they have continued to grope in nation-wide darkness and industrial collapse due to power failures even though Obasanjo claimed to have spent almost 14 billion dollars on the power sector. Nigerians demand to know why Nigerians roads are the highest traffic killers in the world even though Obasanjo allocated over 300 billion naira for road rehabilitation in 2001 alone not to talk of several other billions voted for roads that were never constructed.
Nigerians demand to know why the ex-President authorized the illegal release of billions of naira from the NNPC, PTDF and other government parastatals to fund his ill-fated third term agenda. Nigerians demand to know why our refineries have continued to remain redundant even though ex-president released about 120 million dollars for their maintenance in the year 2000. Nigerians demand to know the extent of the president’s culpability in the Willbros, Siemens and the Haliburton bribery scandals. Nigerians demand to know the source of Obasanjo’s purchase of 200 million shares in Transcorp.
Nigerians would like to know how a man said to have just about twenty thousand naira in his account by 1999 has come to own a University, several multi-million naira landed properties, companies, state-of-the-art automobiles and many other choice properties all over the world by the time he left office in 2007. Where did Obasanjo get the money to purchase thousands of hectares of land in Badagry, Ogun State, Oyo State, and other States in the country? At the level of CACOL, we are still investigating some of his properties in neighbouring Republic of Benin, other parts of Africa, Europe, America and other parts of the world.
Anyway, it is gratifying to note that Obasanjo conceded in that interview that officials in his government were corrupt and that he was ready to face trial if found culpable on corruption charges. However we find it both laughable and preposterous the ex-president’s claim that he had been cleared by anti-corruption agencies in the country. If that is true, then it must have been a silent clearance by the EFCC and ICPC in secret correspondence between them. And if that if the case, we accuse the two anti-corruption bodies of being accomplice after the fact of massive and destructive corruption that is threatening continued existence of Nigeria as a national entity. We submitted petitions against Obasanjo to both EFCC and ICPC in the full glare of the Nigerian public. So, if Obasanjo’s claim is true by any possibility then any clearance of such serious allegations must be a public document.
To this extent we challenge the EFCC and ICPC to either refute Obasanjo’s claim or make public their clearance and justify such in a comprehensive report to the Nigerian public who are the worst victims of the endemic corruption of the ruling elite.
Finally, we wish to use this medium to inform the EFCC and ICPC that the ultimatum we gave concerning the Obasanjo case has expired. We will hit the streets in massive protests nation-wide against both agencies any moment shirking their responsibility and shielding the former President.
Debo Adeniran
Chairman, CACOL
08037194969
