Why Nigeria Is Not Working

 By Ugo Onuoha

The safe thing to do is to say that Nigeria is not working at its optimal best. But that will amount to playing the ostrich. Because the reality is that our country is not working, not at all, not even for the ruling political and economic elites who currently think that they are having a swell time. If only they knew how much more they would be better if the right things were to be done to make this country work for the majority of its citizens. Sadly, the understanding of our elites (and this is a wrong label for them) is limited, warped, myopic, and parochial.

It has to be acknowledged that the roles of elites, whether political, economic, or intellectual, in nation-building anywhere can be a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The sad reality in our case is that the impacts of Nigeria’s elites on the country over time have gravitated between the bad and the ugly. Any semblance of the elites doing good to the society started and ended in the first republic, 1960-1966. 

I Left Prison Broke In 1998 – Obasanjo

*Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed that he left prison broke in 1998, after he was released by former Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubakar following the death of General Sani Abacha, then head of state on June 8, 1998. Obasanjo, who claimed he had no money by the time he regained his freedom after serving in Kirikiri, Jos and Yola prisons for about four years however revealed that the Ford Foundation and the founder of the Cable News Network (CNN), Mr. Ted Turner, surprisingly gave him a lifeline through the sum of $150,000 that was donated to him and which enabled him to settle the tuition fees of his children, whose studies were almost truncated by his incarceration.

The former president, who shared agonising memories of his prison experience at a recent programme organised by Christ The Redeemer’s Friends International (CRFI) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, however revealed how he became born again in prison and won souls for Christ. Obasanjo was sentenced to life jail in 1995 by the Abacha junta after he was tried by a military court on trumped-up charges of felony and conspiracy to overthrow the Abacha government, an allegation the former president denied with evidence.

But exactly one week after Abacha passed away on June 8, 1998 under unclear circumstances, Obasanjo was released from the Yola Prison by the administration of Abubakar.

Giving the testimony on how God rescued him from Abacha’s plot to inject him with viral poison at the fellowship recently, Obasanjo said he was broke immediately after he regained his freedom from the Yola Prison, revealing that he had no cash at that time to settle the tuition fees of his children, who were studying in the US.

Before he left the Yola Prison, Obasanjo said he resolved “to live a new life – quiet, peaceful and possibly private. But it was surprising when I got to the airport; a presidential aircraft was already waiting for me. I did not believe it. When I arrived Lagos, two cars with pilots were waiting to convey me to my residence. I held my peace.”
Shortly after he returned home, Obasanjo said he decided “to travel to the US for two reasons. First, I needed to see my children. When I was in prison, they could not pay their tuition. One of them was not allowed to continue because he could not pay his tuition.”