Chief Obasanjo says he also helped to facilitate return of Abacha’s loot and blasted those asking him to account for it – He insists President Buhari is doing the right thing by travelling
Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed anger at those asking him to account for the
loot recovered from former head of state, Gen Sanni Abacha. The Swiss
government confirmed that $723 million (about N142.43 billion) so far out of
the stolen loot seized from the family of the late Abacha, has been returned to
the Nigerian government over the last 10 years.
However, most of the returned
money cannot be accounted for. Vanguard reports that the former president said
his role as the president was to facilitate the recovery and return of the
money to the country and not how it is used. READ ALSO: Okurounmu calls on
Buhari to probe IBB, Abacha’s ministers “They said the money recovered from
Abacha, I should account for it. What stupidity!
The man who asked for it, the
man who gave the judgement or who answered them are all stupid, with due
respect. “I don’t keep account, all Abacha loots were sent to Central Bank of
Nigeria, CBN, and every bit of it was reported to Minister of Finance. My job
was to write where we can get help to recover the money. “Every penny that
comes out of it went to CBN, so if they want to know what happened to the
money, they should call CBN governor or call the Minister of Finance. “But
again, it shows ignorance, total ignorance, which is lacking and you wonder,
are these people educated? They can also approach the man who helped us in
recovering process to give the list of money recovered and where he took it.”
He said the current price of oil that was a worry in the President Muhammadu
Buhari’s administration was actually worse when he was in government. He said:
“When I assumed office in 1999, I inherited $3.7 billion in reserve, while
Buhari met $30 billion, almost 10 times of what I met then, and the price of
oil then was $9. When it got to $20, I was dancing. “I know the price is down
now and with time, it will jump up again. What Buhari is doing currently is
preparing ground for Nigeria to take advantage when it goes up again.”
On President Buhari’s
frequent travels which has been criticised by some people, Obasanjo said the
trips were justified as the world needed to be familiar with him.
He said: “He
needs to be known and to know people. How do you make friends and influence
people except you know them and this cannot happen if he sits in Aso Villa,
especially in a situation that we found ourselves, a situation where we have
bad image in the world, a situation where we need to play leadership role,
especially in Africa, because during Jonathan’s administration, Nigeria was not
on the table.” However, Ayodele Fayose, the governor of Ekiti State asked
President Buhari to stay at home and govern the country instead of traveling
from one country to the other
No comments:
Post a Comment