Obasanjo fires back at Awujale over Adenuga’s EFCC ordeal

The Awujale of Ijebu land, Oba Sikiru Adetona, has become the latest recipient of the wrath from the ink of Nigeria former president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Obasanjo wrote to distance himself from the investigation of billionaire business man and Chairman of Globacom Telecoms Limited, Chief Mike Adenuga, by the EFCC in 2006 when he was president.

The letter from the former President and elder statesman dated December 30, 2016, was made available to newsmen in Abeokuta on Wednesday.

Obasanjo’s letter was in response to the recently published autobiography of the Awujale where he made sundry allegations against the former president including influencing the travails of Adenuga in the hands of the economic and financial crime agency in 2006.

According to Obasanjo, the EFCC was given free hand to carry out its operations without any form of undue interference. “On no occasion did I guide, lead or direct him on what to do.” He said.

Writing further, the former President noted “On several occasions, the then EFCC Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, had asserted that under my watch, he was a free agent to do his work as he deemed fit.

“Where it was necessary, he reported the outcome of his work to me and the subsequent or follow-up actions he intended to take.”

On a certain meeting with Mike Adenuga at the birthday of one Chief Olapade as mentioned in Kabiyesi’s book, Obasanjo wrote,  “If the EFCC was investigating anybody, I did not consider it right for me as the president of Nigeria to be undermining EFCC by hobnobbing with that person.

“Even if such a person was my child, the best I could do would be to secure a good lawyer to handle the matter before the EFCC for that child.”

Taking further swipe at the monarch, the former President threw another salvo, “Kabiyesi, the total sum of what you have put down in those pages of your book is that I dislike Mike.

“May be I need to remind you that if there was any iota of truth in such a position or mindset, Mike would not have been granted the mobile telephone licence which made him a billionaire.

“It was my prerogative as the president so to do.

“You may also be reminded that in the first round of the auction which Mike did not make, the country earned US$285 million for each licence.

“The country earned only US$200 million from the licence transaction with Mike and in the subsequent transaction with Etisalat, the country earned US$400 million.”

He noted that it was a deliberate action on his part that a Nigerian should own one of the licences.  “Anybody else but Mike could have been that Nigerian,” Obasanjo said in the letter.

On a section of the book that claimed Obasanjo performed woefully during his second term in office and lost the enormous goodwill that earned him the presidency office, Obasanjo disagreed and wrote to defend his continuous good name.

“I probably have greater goodwill today internally and externally than I had in office.”

Despite describing the monarch as being petty, the former president concluded that inspite of the allegations, he would continue to accord the Kabiyesi the respect due to him as a monarch.