“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,” Obasanjo said in an interview over the weekend.
“I don’t keep account, all Abacha loots were sent to the 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,” the former president said.
Commenting on the current low prices of oil, Obasanjo described President Muhammadu Buhari as lucky. “When I assumed office in 1999, I inherited $3.7 billion in reserve, while Buhari met $30 billion, almost 10 times of what I met then, and the price of oil then was $9. When it got to $20, I was dancing.
“I know the price is down now and with time, it will jump up again. What Buhari is doing currently is preparing ground for Nigeria to take advantage when it goes up again,” Obasanjo said.
He also said he sees nothing wrong in Buhari’s frequent foreign trips. “He 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.”
However, he says he has no regret putting Goodluck Jonathan forward as President, saying his objective had been achieved by making a minority group to produce the president of Nigeria.
“I believe that Nigerian 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.”
