Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua shouldn’t have stopped the privatisation of Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries because today those refineries can not properly function again.
In an interview on Channels TV, Obasanjo said “Aliko Dangote led a group that paid $750m for the privatisation of two of the refineries – 51 per cent privatisation – and my successor (Yar’Adua) came (in), he turned it down. In fact, he paid back the money because they (investors) had paid the money.
“And I went to him; I said ‘look, do you know…? And he said well, he did it because of pressure. I said ‘pressure?’, so to you what matters is pressure, not what is in the best interest of Nigerians. I said, but you know it will not work. Then I said in 10 years, if you continue, you would have spent two times the amount that these people had paid and it still would not work. And that is what happened.
“Today those two refineries, you can never make them work. And if we are going to sell them, we would be lucky to get $250m out of them because they have become a huge scrap. Now, why shouldn’t I explain that (in my book)?”
On the criticisms that trailed his book, Obasanjo said even people who haven’t read the book always seek to make conclusions about it.
He said “When I wrote a book, Braithwaite, it was My Command, he condemned my writing the book and they asked, have you read the book? He said ‘No. Once it is written by Obasanjo, it cannot be a good book. Now what do you say to that?
“People have invariably made up their minds (on) what they would do and what they would say. Why should that worry me? Why should I allow your own opinion, which you have formed, advertently or inadvertently, and wrongly to worry me? Your opinion which you have formed because you are being paid to write to castigate a book that you virtually didn’t read. So, why should I allow that to worry me?
“If I would read all the criticisms people write about me, most of which are not true, then I would not have time to do anything really useful and good for humanity. If I can be sent to jail wrongly, then anybody can do anything to me wrongly and I could jolly well have been killed wrongly.”