Obasanjo lashes out at president Jonathan again...

Former Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo today took
another swipe at the administration of Pres.
Jonathan, accusing him and his government of
depleting Nigeria's oil savings which according
to him was at $45billion when he left office and
had depreciated over time to $30billion. He
made the accusations while receiving some
South-West women leaders at his residence in
Abeokuta, earlier today
"Our economy should not have been this
bad. When I was leaving office about eight
years ago, I left a very huge reserve after
we had paid all our debts. Almost
$25billion we kept in what they called
excess crude. The excess from the budget
we were saving as reserve for the rainy
days. When we left in May 2007, the
reserve was said to have been raised to
$35billion. But today, that reserve has been
depleted!

Today, that reserve has been depleted. The
reserve we left when we finished paying all
our debts, our debts that was about
40billion dollars, that is including debt
forgiveness, the remaining debt was not
more than $3billion. Our reserve after we
had paid off this debt was about $45billion.
As I said, they continued till the end of
2007, I heard that the reserve increased to
almost $67billion before the end of the
year. Our reserve now, learnt is left with
around only $30billion. That is why the
Naira has been falling against the dollar.
What would now happen, I learnt if you
want to buy a dollar now, it’s about N192
or N195. What it means is this, what you
have been buying at N150 to a dollar, now
you need N192 or N195 to buy it. That is
the real situation. Is there any remedy?
There is, but it does not come overnight
because it means we have to give up all
the bad things we have been doing. I know
that God did not create Nigeria not to be
rich or great. Is it that the people he
created in Nigeria are not knowledgeable
enough or not intelligent enough? Or is that
they don’t know their rights? Our problems
in Nigeria, let’s look at the foundation of
our leadership. In the profession I know
very well, the military, what we normally
say is that there are no bad soldiers but
bad officers. If you see a situation where
the soldiers are not doing well, we need to
examine the officers in charge. So it is in
the family, the community, the town and
the country,” he said.
President Obasanjo said his remarks about the
state of the nation was not in any way an
expression of a personal grudge with the
President
"I have no grudges against Jonathan and I
think Jonathan equally has no grudges
against me. I’m not quarrelling with
Jonathan but all I know is that whatever is
good for Nigeria, that I’m ready to die for. I
emphasize that whatever is good for
Nigeria, is what I’m ready to defend with
my life. Whoever, I emphasize, whoever
says he would not do anything good to
Nigeria, even if he says he’s ready to go
‘konko below’, I’m ready to square it up
with such a person. I say again, whoever
that person may be, I want you to get that
correctly. If this country is going to change
for the better, it would start from the top
and if it’s going to be otherwise, it would
start from the top, too,” the former
president stressed.