Nobel Laureate and playwright, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, knelt down to beg his Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, not to contest against him ahead of the 2003 presidential election.

The playwright further said that Obasanjo’s denials that he had no hand in the failed 3rd term bid in 2007 were untrue.

Soyinka spoke on how genuine efforts by Chief Bola Ige to reposition the energy sector as Power Minister between 1999 and 2000 were sabotaged by Obasanjo, noting that the ex-president did not only frustrate Ige but also humiliated him

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Soyinka said this on Friday during the presentation of his latest book, “Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?: Gani’s Unfinished Business”, at the Freedom Park, Lagos.

Asked by Mr. Louis Odion, one-time Edo State Information Commissioner and The Nation columnist, if he believed Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State’s claim that he witnessed Obasanjo going down on his knees in Tripoli before the late President Muammar Ghaddafi – a younger man – in a bid to secure the Libyan strongman’s support for an extension of his chairmanship of the African Union, Soyinka replied that he had no reason to doubt Fayose’s account of the Libyan event.

The  said Obasanjo had done the “unthinkable”, kneeling before Atiku, when his aspiration for a 2nd term in office was similarly threatened in 2003.

He said,

“Before the PDP primaries in January 2003, Obasanjo got everyone he knew could reach me on the surface on the earth including Yemi Ogunbiyi and my son, to get me to help him intercede when it was clear that (Abubakar) Atiku was in a position to take his job. He knew Atiku had a lot of regard for me and calls me ‘Uncle’.”

“The pressure was intense. Of course, I could not have knelt before Atiku not to embark on a course of action that would lead to his boss’ disgrace. But I can confirm to you that Obasanjo as President knelt down before Atiku so that he would not lose his job.

“But I warned Atiku that for making Obasanjo kneel down for you, be sure you would have to pay heavily for that. I guess my warning came to pass if you remember Atiku’s dramatic change of fortune once Obasanjo was sworn in for a second term of office.”

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Soyinka added that Obasanjo’s denial that he did not have a hand in the third term agenda in 2006 were not true.

He said,

“I remember I was invited to a conference in Germany around the time the third term game was unfolding in Nigeria. Then, I received this frantic call from officials at the Nigerian embassy who confided in me that they had been told to prepare for Obasanjo’s third term in office. They expressed fears that should it succeed, the country might be plunged into a serious crisis. They were of the view that I could use my leverage to talk to him or help mobilise public opinions to dissuade him.

“At the conference proper, I made sure I continually made poignant innuendos in the direction Obasanjo sat that day. But, typically, he kept shrugging his shoulders and looking the other way.

“But when the opportunity came for a closer interaction at the dinner, I pointedly told him that ‘Obasanjo, you know you cannot try third term’. Suddenly, he charged back at me, saying, ‘Wole, you only have one vote!’ I remember the Nigerian envoy then to Germany, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, jovially remarked that, ‘Ah, Mr. President, Wole Soyinka has more than one vote o. You know when he says anything, people listen across the world.’

“As soon as Obasanjo left the venue, I told Adeniran that ‘with what you’ve just said, be sure you’ve lost your job’. True, soon afterwards, Adeniran lost his job.”

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On the parlous energy situation in the country, Soyinka accused Obasanjo of sabotage and dared the ex-president “to meet me one on one on any podium to debate the power project”.

He said:

“This was a man who said after Bola Ige died that we put somebody there, Bola Ige who did not know his left from right. He owes Bola Ige for maligning him, after humiliating him after sabotaging his genuine efforts to transform the power sector. It was sabotage and nothing less than a terrorist act against the electricity supply of the country.

“Bola Ige was frustrated and his works sabotaged. In fact, he had done his homework before he took office. He summoned a group of experts and mapped out the transformation of the sector. But, he was sabotaged from the inside. Bola Ige asked Obasanjo to remove one Suleman Bello, who was the managing director of the corporation then. The consequences we are suffering today. Obasanjo collaborated and protected the system headed by Mr. Suleman Bello. I dare Obasanjo to meet me one on one on any podium to debate the power project.”

SOURCE! THE NATION