No hiding place for Obasanjo, says Buhari

Details: Category: Politics; Published on Thursday, 07 April 2011 09:14; Written by Compass; Hits: 1696

The presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), declared that if elected on April 16 and sworn-in on May 29, he would not waste too much time probing Obasanjo on his alleged misdeeds while in office.

Buhari, former Head of State between December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985, said all the evidence of corruption were there “for all to see” on how the country’s wealth was mismanaged between 1999 and 2007 when Obasanjo was president.

Buhari spoke in Lagos at a special rally to mobilise support for all CPC candidates in the National Assembly elections in the Centre of Excellence.

With him were his running mate, Pastor Tunde Bakare, and others.

At the event held at the Skypower Playing Ground, Ikeja, Bakare urged Lagos voters to reject the candidates of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other parties “and only vote for the CPC.

Buhari, who thanked the crowd for staying in the sun for more than three hours, said the corruption in the country was so deep that those involved will always escape any investigation.

He said: “The society is so corrupt because the elite is rotten. Because of this, we cannot trust them again. Between $10 billion and $16 billion was spent on power during the Obasanjo administration. Today, where is the money? When we get to power, we have no time for a special investigation at all. It has gone beyond that. We know what to do.

“At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we know where we were in 1999. We know how much we earned since 1999 and now. What Obasanjo earned was more than what we earned from 1914, when Nigeria came into being, and the time Obasanjo came in 1999. Where is the money? Corruption is killing Nigeria and we have to halt this dangerous drift.

“And don’t allow them to steal your votes. We did it in Kano in 2003 and Bauchi in 2007. We must do it again by ensuring that we protect our votes. Make sure you vote out the bad rulers, their backers and supporters. Vote for CPC because I have promised that I will remove corruption from the country. I will do it.”

Bakare, who also spoke with the same passion, revealed that Buhari built all the refineries in the country “and yet, he has no petrol station.”

He said Buhari was the only candidate who could clean up the country.

“You must vote for CPC candidates from the House of Assembly to the presidency. Don’t let anybody intimidate you,” he said.

Although he said he had nothing against the ACN, he, however, declared that ACN could not give Nigerians and Lagosians the needed liberation.

“I have nothing against the ACN but their symbol is too old and archaic. They are using brooms but vacuum cleaners have been invented so, broom is useless now. The corruption in the country is too deep, too high to be swept by the ordinary broom of ACN. There is nothing ACN can do. Vote them out and PDP,” he added.

He then started singing in Yoruba: E le won jade o, e le won jade o, awon to ba ilu eko je, e le won jade, Asiwaju, e le won jade (Chase them out, those who destroyed Lagos, Asiwaju, chase them out).