Iyabo said I was going to die in office – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that his eldest daughter, Iyabo, told him he was going to die in office.

Obasanjo

The former President also said his daughter said if that should happen, she would not weep for him.

The former President said he, nevertheless, replied his daughter that such would not mean anything to him since he would not be there to appreciate it.

Obasanjo, who said this in his controversial book, MY WATCH, said that was Iyabo’s submission when he informed her and three of his other children about his desire to contest the 1999 Presidential election.

The meeting with the four children, which he said came after he had consulted almost all those that mattered before joining the presidential race, was held in New York.

He said it was ironic that Iyabo became a senator during his tenure.

Meanwhile, before being elected a senator, Iyabo was appointed a commissioner by Otunba Gbenga Daniel, while he was serving as governor of Ogun State.

Obasanjo said, “My mind was almost made up (to vie for the position of President) but I had to consult with my children. I got four of them together in New York.

“I told them I was going to decide whether to go into politics or not. Iyabo was the most antagonistic.

“She burst out loudly, ‘I know you will join and you will die there and if you die, I will not weep.’

“I told her ‘if I die and you weep, it is for yourself and others, not for me as I will not know you are weeping.’

“It is ironic that within 10 years, Iyabo became a Senator and I completed two terms of eight years without a scratch.”

The former President added that out of the four children in attendance when he spoke with them, it was only Segun who he said, had a few words of encouragement.

The son, according to Obasanjo, said, “Daddy, you have always said that we must serve God and humanity and if this is the way you have chosen to serve God and humanity, I will pray for you.”

With those words from his son coupled with the words of encouragement he said he got from those he had spoken with earlier, the Owu-born retired general said “the die was almost cast.”

In the book, Obasanjo also mentioned the names of his 21 children. He was however silent on the number of his wives or the mothers of the children.

Five of the children are holders of PhD in different fields.

The children are Iyabo (PhD), who is the eldest; Busola, Segun(PhD), Gbenga(PhD), Deboye, Muyiwa, Funke, Bola (PhD) and Seun (PhD).

Also listed were Dare, Kofo, Dayo, Biyi, Bisoye, Damilola, Jonwo, Bunmi, Funso, Dayo, Toyosi and Bukola.

The listing and mentioning of the names of his children was the first time the two-time President of Nigeria, would publicly talk about his children.

In the book, Obasanjo also extolled his late wife, Stella who he said had to contend with violent nature of his divorced wife.

He said he decided to bring Stella to his house after the dissolution of his first marriage in a Lagos High Court by Justice Dosumu. Stella, he added, was “one of the women who had children for me.”

The former President noted that in the course of his marriage to Stella, she handled four major issues most admirably.

The issues, according to him, included “constant harassment at home through telephone calls and name-calling, and physical and violent confrontation in the streets by my divorced wife.”

Obasanjo added that Stella tried to avoid exchange, but said that he got at least one report of close combat where both inflicted wounds on each other at his farm when he was not there.

He also commended his late wife for taking proper care of his other children and also visiting him on many occasions while he was in Jos and Yola prisons.

He regretted the death of the former First Lady, who he said was very close to him, but added that it was after her death that he got to know that the desire to celebrate her 60th birthday made her to embark on stomach operation without his knowledge.

Obasanjo said that it was after her burial that he decided to look into the circumstances that led to her death.

He said in the book, “After her death, I found out the circumstances of her death. I found out that part of her sixtieth birthday anniversary, which was unknown to me, was her operation for her tummy and her shape.

“This was carried out in Spain. The doctor was careless,” he said, adding that with the help of the Nigerian Embassy in Spain and the Spanish Authority, he was able to prosecute the doctor and the hospital.

Though he said he realised that once a life has been lost it life cannot be brought back. He said he was of the opinion that successful prosecution could prevent similar carelessness and loss of life in future.

The doctor, he said, was made to pay damages while his licence was withdrawn for a considerable period of time.

He said Olu, Stella’s son, collected “whatever damages were paid.”

The former president said he was however sad when he heard that some Nigerians were carrying rumours that he might have caused the death of his wife “to sacrifice her for success in my job.”

“That is how wicked and satanic some Nigerians can be in their rumours and mischief,” the former President added.

Iyabo said I was going to die in office – Obasanjo

Iyabo Obasanjo credits Boko Haram leadership with "more sense"

*Boko Haram more competent than Jonathan’s men

* Jonathan’s inner circle hinders crisis posed by Boko Haram

By Ehi Ekhator

Senator Iyabo Obasanjo, the daughter of Olusegun Obasanjo has said in a letter that the Boko Haram insurgents are more competent that President Jonathan’s men.

Iyabo Obasanjo and Olusegun Obasanjo

She accused the President’s inner circle of being a hindrance to ending the crisis posed by the Boko Haram insurgency.

She revealed this a letter she wrote to Boko Haram and credited its leadership with “more sense”. She then however lambasted the insurgents for betraying the true essence of revolutionary by attacking the lower class.

She in the letter stressed on the abduction of hundreds of school girls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, adding that their desperation for sex is not an excuse to abducting innocent girls.

She wrote:

“I am moved to write about the current state of affairs in Nigeria. My first inclination was to write to the President but since all letters to him seem to elicit only open derision and even more stupidity from his inner circle, I have decided to address my letter to a group also currently causing Nigerians a lot of pain and agony that may actually have more sense than the country’s leadership.

Dear Boko Haram

“The fact that you have taken arms against the Nigerian state is no surprise. The question should be why haven’t more young people organised themselves against the state?

“Even the fact that your motto, ‘Against Western Education’ is in a way reasonable given the fact that your leader, martyred by the Nigerian state had university education and found no reasonable employment but had to resort to thuggery for politicians to survive, as the story goes.

“He, like millions of Nigerian young people and college graduates, seeing a blighted future are doing anything to survive.

“They have become opportunistic desperados, almost sub‑human as the stepping on and trampling on each other to death at the Immigration employment debacle indicates.

‘Where you’re wrong’

“Where I think you have gotten it wrong are in two areas, if you can pardon my giving you some unsolicited advice.

“First, your victims are becoming more and more the people you should be attracting to your side. Take the Nyanya bus massacre.

“The people that live in Nyanya are usually the clerks, messengers and other lowly office workers that live out in relative slums compared to the rest of Abuja and take public transportation to work to receive monthly salaries they barely get by on.

“Consult any written work of successful revolutionaries be it French, Russian, Cuban or even the more recent uprooting of communism in Eastern Europe, to succeed you need the people to be on your side. Right now you are not achieving this.

“You are targeting the group you need most. This does not make for a successful revolution but you are making yourselves into nuisances to the people and in the end while the state, including its military machine may not be able to conquer you, your downfall will be alienating these potential allies, i.e. the oppressed and down-trodden.

“Secondly, the abduction of girls. It must be hard to stay in the bush as all male revolutionaries fending for yourselves with no sexual gratification.

Cuban example

“But again, reading up on past bush revolutionaries like the Cuban, for example, indicates that they were able to convince some women to go voluntarily with them into the bush.

“Somehow, revolutionary zeal does not include sexual abstinence and cooking and cleaning by yourselves.

“Reading must be hard for you since you hate education but the past is a good guide to the future and if you can’t read, you are done for in organizing or succeeding in most endeavours as most things have been done before and reading up on how it was done can only serve as good guidance.

“The parents of the girls you abducted are just trying to give their daughters a chance at having successful lives. Without an education there is very little anyone can achieve in this early 21st century.

“I know living in the bush; it must still seem like the dark ages but the truth is that even with the lack of jobs and opportunities for young people in Nigeria currently, it is still better to be educated.

“An educated university graduate who was selling food from a food cart ignited the Arab Spring which was spread by use of the internet which is hard to use if you are not educated.

“There are writings, videos and stuff you post on the internet which I haven’t seen. But think of it, you can only post and use the internet because some of you have some education.

“But in the end you have no control over the distribution of your advertising and recruiting information because as you may know, the internet is really part of the western system you despise.

Why you’re succeeding

“The truth is that you have succeeded because the Nigerian state has failed to provide jobs and opportunity for its young people who you can now easily recruit. By disrupting education, you are adding to the burden of the people.

“You may say, but how about our religious issue? Let the truth be told, just as there are indigenous southern Muslims, there are indigenous northern Christians even from your epicentre in Borno State and just as you are zealous for your religion, I don’t see them giving up their religion either.

“The reasonable solution to this impasse would be for you to advocate for everyone to be able to practice their religion as they see fit with respect for each other’s beliefs.

“Remember, a couple of centuries ago, all of our ancestors below the Sahara were all animists worshipping various ‘gods.’

“This ‘One God’ — us against them situation — is a relatively recent one in our human history and you will be advised to let the originators fight it out and let your people be.”

 

Iyabo Obasanjo credits Boko Haram leadership with "more sense"