Obasanjo Lashes Out At President Jonathan on his handling of Boko Haram Insurgency...DEFENDS ODI INVASION

It was meant to be a lecture in honour of a distinguished pastor celebrating his 40th anniversary on the pulpit. But the forum turned out to be more; it became a podium for a blistering criticism of the President Jonathan administration. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo lashed out at Dr. Goodluck Jonathan's administration for what he called its slow handling of the Boko Haram insurgency. Obasanjo, who was instrumental to the enthronement of the late Yar’Adua and Jonathan, said the sect’s activities would have been nipped in the bud had drastic steps been taken at the initial stage of Boko Haram’s insurgency – as he did in 1999 when he deployed troops in Odi community, Bayelsa State. He spoke in Warri as the moderator of a public lecture by former External Affairs Minister Prof Bolaji Akinyemi in honour of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who is marking his 40th anniversary as a pastor. The former president accused his successors of allowing the Boko Haram scourge to become a national security problem. He said: “My fear is that when you have a sore and you don’t attend to it early enough, it festers and becomes very bad. Don’t leave a problem that can be bad unattended”. Reflecting on the crisis at Odi, Obasanjo said: “I attended to a problem that I saw; I sent soldiers. They were killed, 19 of them (were) decapitated. If I had allowed that to continue, I would not have the authority to send security anywhere again. I attended to it”. “If you say you do not want a strong leader, who can have all the characteristics of a leader, including the fear of God, then, you have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours”, he added. In his reaction to comments on rising corruption by public office holders in Akinyemi’s paper, Obasanjo blamed the weakened anti-corruption fight on his successor. “At one time, they said the fear of (Mallam Nuhu) Ribadu, former Chairman of the Economic and Economic Crimes Commission (EFCC), is the beginning of wisdom. Then, what happened to Ribadu? And there was no longer any wisdom”, he added. He hinted that the faltering fight against corruption had made it impossible to recover an outstanding $1billion from the cash stolen by the late General Sani Abacha and his family. TheNATION