Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has opened a can of worms involving the corruption lifestyle of his former deputy and New PDP leader, Atiku Abubakar.
Speaking during an interview with Zero Tolerance, a magazine designed to promote anti-corruption and owned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the former President revealed that his administration was written by the United States law enforcement agencies to investigate Atiku. The former President said this was why Atiku, who has substantial property and other investment in the United States could not travel to the country.
Obasanjo narrated, “We got a letter from America in June 2006, listing a number of people to be investigated; Atiku was one of them and that letter went straight to the EFCC.
“It was just shown to me because they will not be able to investigate my number two without my saying ‘ok’. So, I said if we got this letter from America, so be it.
“If we have agreement with FBI, Metropolitan Police and they are helping us and we are helping them and they write to us and say these are the people we want you to help us investigate, what do you think we should do? You as EFCC, what will you do, coincidence or no coincidence?”
He said Atiku had refused to travel to the United States since he left office because of alleged corruption.
He went on: “Well, I don’t know what the EFCC has found out about him, but I don’t know if he can go to America. Do you know? I am asking you, do you know?
“He travels? Travels to where? To Dubai? Let him go to America and return to Nigeria.
“Well, I don’t know what the EFCC has found out about him, but I don’t know if he can go to America. Do you know? I am asking you, do you know?”
Atiku’s media aide, Mallam Garba Shehu, told journalists: “Turaki (Atiku) is in China and the time difference is about eight hours. There is no way I could reach him. You can run your story, we will react later. Turaki will wish to personally react,” he said.
Speaking on allegations that former EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu was his attack dog used to witch hunt perceived opposition during his regime, Obasanjo said the allegations were untrue and that Ribadu even investigated him.
“He is an attack dog to those people who have run foul of the law, people like (former Vice President) Atiku! He is an attack dog to take down Tafa Balogun, my own Inspector General of Police? Is that what you call attack dog?”
Obasanjo said: “He brought a report to me and said these people are corrupt; how can I in my position receive a report that says these people are corrupt, and then I say ‘extol him as a governor’. Is that the type of leader you want me to be? I will not be that. So he brought a report; I didn’t ask him to carry out an investigation; he even came out and said he had found 28 governors as corrupt.
He said EFCC under Ribadu investigated him while in office to prove that nobody should be below board in the fight against corruption.
He said: “I was investigated. I told the EFCC to investigate me. I told EFCC to carry out a clinical investigation and they did it. They also did same with all the people on my farm. One of them was telling me the other day how Lamorde called him three times and took statements from him.
“The EFCC even made sure that they did not submit that report to me; they waited until I left and updated their report after going round the world and saying ‘look; this is the report’. Nobody should be below board in the fight against corruption.”
“I will say where I think Ribadu has gone wrong but where he is right, and he lifted that organisation, it should be acknowledged.
“He did very well until he lost his direction when he left. He did so well that he became a threat even to the incoming administration; that is what happened. He was so successful that his success began to be a problem for him.”