Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has described the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway project which is estimated at about N15.6 trillion as “wasteful and corrupt.”
He also criticized the President Bola Tinubu administration for lavishing N21 billion on a new vice presidential residence for Kashim Shettima, calling it a “misplaced priority” and a “conduit designed to embezzle public funds.”
Obasanjo stated this in the sixth chapter of his new book, “Nigeria: Past and Future,” where he discussed the characters and portraits of chief executives at both the federal and state levels.
The book was launched to mark Obasanjo’s 88th birthday.
Minister of Works, David Umahi, had disclosed that the 700km Lagos-Calabar Highway will cost N4.93 billion per kilometer, also adding that the contract was awarded on a counterpart-funding basis and not a Public-Private Partnership.
Reports revealed that about N1.06 trillion has been released for the pilot phase, which begins at Eko Atlantic and is expected to end at the Lekki Deep Sea Port.
Many prominent Nigerians, including the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general elections, Atiku Abubakar, have raised concerns about the Federal Government’s decision to award the contract to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech Construction Company without visible competitive bidding.
However speculations have it that Chagoury is President Tinubu’s long-time business partner and friend.
In a bid to assess Tinubu’s two years in office, Obasanjo stated that the pattern of exploiting millions of Nigerians is likely to continue since “Everything is said to be transactional and the slogan is ‘It is my turn to chop.'” Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, declined to react to Obasanjo’s criticism of his principal when contacted.
Obasanjo further stated that the most of people who have been privileged to hold leadership offices in the country at varying levels such as governors, presidents, ministers, commissioners, and even local government chairmen are ill-prepared, satanic, and self-centered, emphasizing that they are all out to enrich themselves turning a blind eye and allowing the nation to wallow in abject poverty and underdevelopment.
Obasanjo further added that many lobbying to be governors or lead the country in one capacity or the other are only interested in using their offices to enrich themselves and their cohorts and eventually leaving the country in a more deplorable state than they met it.
He pointed out that most office-seekers in the country can go as far as getting loans running into billions of naira, with the intention of paying back from the public funds after being elected.
He said, “How do you explain the situation of a chief executive, a governor, whose business was owing the banks billions of naira and millions of dollars before becoming a governor, and within two years of becoming governor, without his company doing any business, he paid all that his businesses owed the banks. You are left to guess where the money came from.”
“Having got away with that in the first term, he consigned to himself almost half of the state resources in the second term. He was a typical example of the goings-on at that level almost universally in the country with only a few exceptions.”
Obasanjo emphasized that state resources are often captured and appropriated by those in power, with only a small portion allocated to staff and associates to prevent them from speaking out against the corruption. Obasanjo described this as a common practice among chief executives in the country.
He stated âState resources are captured and appropriated to themselves with a pittance to staff and associates to close the mouths of those that could blow the whistle or raise alarm against them while in office and when they are out of office.ââ
Obasanjo further added that “The ones that are criminally ridiculous are the chief executives that deceive, lie, and try to cover up on the realities and truth of action and inaction on contract awards, agreements, treaties, borrowings, and forward sales of national assets. Such chief executives are unfit for the job they find themselves in.”
âTypical examples of waste, corruption and misplaced priority are the murky Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road on which the President had turned deaf ears to protests and the new Vice-Presidentâs official residence built at a cost of N21bn in the time of economic hardship to showcase the administration hitting the ground running and to show the importance of the office of the Vice-President. What small minds!â
He stated that in order to address some of the challenges facing the country, the Western liberal democracy should be revisited and reviewed to accommodate African uniqueness. He suggested the development of an “Afrodemocracy” that takes into account African history, culture, and values.
In his words, âIf the West, from where the liberal democracy started should complain about it not working well for them, we should be wise enough at this stage to interrogate, carry out introspection, internal analysis and realise that Western liberal democracy is not working for us and is not delivering apart from the shortcomings of the operators.
âWe should seek democracy within African history, culture, attributes and characteristics, one that will take necessary African factors into consideration. Until we can get a better word or description for it, let us call it Afrodemocracy.
Obasanjo concluded that âIt is from Afrodemocracy that we will draw up an African peopleâs constitution for any African that chooses to go the way of Afrodemocracy, which will avoid most, to all, the faults we have found in Western liberal democracy,â he suggested.
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