Just when you thought you had either seen or heard it all, something even more hypnotising suddenly pops up and you’d be dead stupefied. A recent report by the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory, that former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded an Abuja rail project without a design, let alone an MOU is not the kind of allegation anyone can easily gloss over even on personal recognition.
Not just that, it was also allegedly discovered that the project was inflated in excess of $10 million per kilometre, an arrangement said to have been done with the understanding of the loquacious former FCT minister and now Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai.
Whilst el-Rufai may not haste to clear his name if he thinks it does not matter anymore or alternatively, maintain the “siddon look” posturing since they are the ones in power, the former president cannot afford to because, how can anyone possibly condone the fact that Obasanjo with his age, experience and name recognition the world over would tread in such an ignoble path? It had better remain a dream it looks like.
Oh, just maybe it’s an attempt by the legislature, the senate especially to get back at Obasanjo, having dealt them some serious blow a couple of weeks ago over allegation of corruption. Remember it was the chairman of this same Senate Committee on FCT, Dino Melaye, who replied Obasanjo and fired back that the former president institutionalised corruption through his third term agenda.
But could such a counter-attack have been mooted in vacuum or rooted in sheer vendetta? Is it possible that the senate committee actually sat down to conjure such lies against the person of Obasanjo just to get back at him? The more the allegation is argued or debated for or against, the more impossible it seems. Yet, it cannot be left unattended.
The former president must respond to this. It is grave; it is damning; it is potentially destructive of any hard earned reputation. Obasanjo cannot afford to dismiss this as another joke taken too far, because el-Rufai’s involvement notwithstanding, the buck stopped at his table as president. He therefore owes Nigerians the side of his own story and the truth must be situated without any colouration. Fingers crossed!
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