Obasanjo Calls Those Asking Him To Account For Abacha’s Loot Stupid
SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, (THEWILL) – Former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has described those asking him to account for the recovered Abacha loot as illiterates and stupid people, explaining that the role of his office was to facilitate the recovery process and not how repatriated funds were expended.
The former President, who spoke in an interview with Vanguard over the weekend, said “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.”
While justifying the frequent foreign trips embarked upon by President Muhammadu Buhari, Obasanjo reasoned that Nigeria, through its President, needs to be in touch with important centres of the world and get involved in the world.
“He (Buhari) 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,” he said.
Obasanjo, who said he feels good about facilitating the emergence of former President Goodluck Jonathan into Nigeria's most exalted political office, said his objective had been achieved by making a minority group to produce the president of Nigeria.
According to him, “I believe that Nigeria politics will be strengthened even more if we have the opportunity to allow the minority in its own right to emerge as President, and I do not have any apology for anybody because the purpose I wanted Nigeria to achieve had been achieved.
“That any Nigerian can become president, it is not a regret for Nigeria and for me because Nigeria gave him that opportunity, he used, abused, misused as he wished and at the appropriate time, Nigerians said thank you for what you have done and what you have not done and Nigeria said bye bye, which is the beauty of democracy.”