National News IS OBASANJO AN ORACLE? One of the most interesting riddles in the realm of paradoxes is unravelling the difference between lying, and telling a lie. Yet the difference is not much beyond what we make out of truth and veracity on one hand and the counter world of untruth, fallacies, falsehood and mendacity on the other hand. Not surprisingly, many people do not immediately realize how much the world is run on wheels that hardly operate on truth and integrity. Indeed much of the information that is availed the public including some advertisements and words of the rich and powerful need to be reassessed before swallowing hook, line and sinker. As enamoring as his personal credentials may be, Nigeria’s former Head of State, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has degraded to a level where his public utterances, especially as concern governments after his time, qualify to taken with discretion. His utterances in and out of office have never been devoid of the element of controversy, even if it is not for the proper reason. That should be a consolation to any victim of his verbal assaults. While in office, most of his listeners ordinarily assumed that he was speaking from the authority of proper briefing from aides and allowed him the liberty of aggrandizement over their sensibilities. Hence he enjoyed unalloyed loyalty and unquestioned subservience from his subordinates and the rest of the country. However his conduct and words out of office, clearly betray him as a personality who may have developed a questionable mindset that is asymmetrical with the nation’s contemporary aspirations. Just as time changes everything so the Obasanjo Nigerians knew as a war time hero and the man who succeeded General Muritala Mohammed in 1976, proved different from the politician who served as president between 1999 and 2007. Likewise are many Nigerians realizing a marked (?) degeneration in the former President, who is now consoling himself with launching occasional salvoes at the seat of power, which he remains ill at ease to have vacated, especially whenever he feels like re-asserting his relevance on Aso Rock. Within the past week alone Chief Obasanjo has castigate President Goodluck Jonathan twice in the public domain. Firstly was before a ‘hired crowd’ at his private library in Ota, which he contrived solely for the purpose of bringing Jonathan down and before whom he unleashed unguarded comments that were laced with an assessment of the current administration as below average. When did he, in all his wisdom become an oracle with the capacity to grade administrations and award marks for their performance? The second instance was the public presentation of two books on the revered self-effacing Justice Mustapha Akanbi, in Lagos, which he nearly ruined by hijacking the event to launch another session of excoriation of the Jonathan administration. Of course he did not escape a befitting reaction this time around as the Oba of Lagos, a man upright in his ways, calmly reminded the former Head of State of the lessons of allowing hindsight to guide our present disposition to issues. In the context of the African tradition where age is deservedly a subject of respect, any occupant of Aso Rock should be inclined to sway to the whims and caprices of a predecessor, provided such enterprise does not compromise national interest or vitiate the integrity of the incumbent. In this respect the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan qualifies to be showered with plaudits, in the light of his traditional guarded responses incendiary comments and letters from Obasanjo; who is only one of his predecessors in office. Many have argued that Jonathan’s rise to power is solely at the instance of Obasanjo, and that is why the former president expects docile subservience from the former. Rightly or wrongly as that may be, it does not hold water, as Jonathan was not expected to crown himself as Nigeria’s president. If Obasanjo happens to be placed by providence to pave the way for the incumbent to rise, did it also determine that Jonathan should serve as his errand boy? If Jonathan succumbs to the swaying to the whims and caprices of Obasanjo, would it not tantamount to compromising the sovereignty and integrity of the nation? In fact it is in the interest of the nation that Jonathan shakes off the shadow of any godfather or influence and be a man of his own as Nigerians legitimately expect. To assist Obasanjo in appreciating how far his ranking has plummeted in the Nigerian public space, a recall of some past instances will be helpful. Beyond his failed self centred third term bid and questionable dalliance with the power sector reforms, are his misguided attempts to discredit the legislature. It was Obasanjo who launched into the public domain the satanic lie that it cost the Federal Government as much as N200 million to maintain a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This was even as a former president he was fully aware that the emoluments and benefits of the legislators are determined statutorily by the Fiscal Allocation and Revenue Mobilisation Commission. Expectedly campaign of calumny through the lie has spawned a complement of uncountable salacious spins about the nation’s legislative establishment which have no bearing with reality. Even in the recent attack from the book launch of Justice Akanbi, Obasanjo could not help rubbing in some opprobrium on the National Assembly, whom he publicly called corrupt. -Daily Trust. #InternationalTravelGuides #LetsBuildTheWorld #TankGod #CharlesAstore #CashCode #UnitedAfrica #Tuale #BlowTheMind #hs #Toc #KillEbola #MakingUrWay #OverNow #Eazy #Oworld #Nworld #got #nba #Mashable #obamacare #wwdc #agchat #Megaupload #Prism #grk #aac #MaryShallReign #RawCash #ChopMoni #AdsMoni #FMMS #NowSelling #NewDawn #grk #InsuranceForAllCars #MoniMoni #Manual4Wisdom #AwesomeGod #UpToU #UrDream #CashCow #CashLinks #FuelYourPassion #BrandNewSecondHand #SecretOfSuccess #AriseNshine #MOREVALUE #WonderfullyGood #AllYours #NoSettle4Less #BetterLife #HiddenTreasure #GlobalHotel #NoOption #BetterLife #SeverityWithOutSympathy #CisternOfLove #gok #YourAd #idol #npr #nwf #BigBangTheory #Parksandrec #walkingDead
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 14:40:41 +0000
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