Obasanjo chide President over media chat comments

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo fired a broadside at Dr. Jonathan over his comment on his administration’s military action Obi in 1999. The ex-President Obasanjo defended his administration’s deploymentof troops in Odi, a Bayelsa State community, in 1999, saying it achieved the purpose, which was to “uproot” the operational base of a terrorist group. He said President Jonathan was wrong to have claimed during the Presidential Media Chat that the invasionwas a failure. Jonathan was Bayelsa’s Deputy Governor during the military action. Obasanjo also justified the use of force in Zaki Biam, Benue State, following the killing of 19 soldiers by suspected terrorists. In a statement issued through his former spokesman, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, Obasanjo said Jonathan must have forgotten the facts about Odi or was misinformed. To him, the President shouldrather learn lessons from the actions on how to deal with terrorists. Jonathan had said: “We sawsome dead people, mainly old men and women and also children. None of those militants was killed. None was killed. So, bombarding Odi was to solve the problem but it never solved it. “Of course if the attack of Odi had solved the issue of militancy in the Niger Delta, the Yar’Adua government, which I had the privilege of being the Vice-President, wouldn’t have come up withthe amnesty programme.” But Obasanjo said Jonathan was wrong in the assertion,which he called “a serious charge” against him. According to him, the operation, which he ordered in response to the killing of five policemen and four soldiers by suspected Niger Delta militants, was carried out with military precision and efficiency. Contrary to Jonathan’s statement, the objectives of the soldiers’ deployment “were fully achieved”, Obasanjo said. The former President claimed it was “factually incorrect” for Jonathan to say that all he saw in Odi after he went there on an official visit as deputy governor were the bodies of old people and children. Obasanjo urged Jonathan’s administration to cultivate the courage and the politicalwill to tackle the security challenges posed by the Boko Haram sect. While in power, the former President said, he handled such matters “decisively, with vigour and with the utmost urgency”. He said: “With the greatest respect to Mr. President, thisis factually incorrect. He has either forgotten the relevantfacts or he has been misinformed. Whichever way, he is mistaken and it isimportant for those of us that proudly served the Obasanjo administration to respond to him in order to clarify the issues, clear the air and set the record straight for the sake of history and posterity. “I had the privilege of beingbriefed about all the facts byPresident Olusegun Obasanjo himself and Col. Kayode Are, the former DG of the SSS, immediately after the Presidential Media Chat and I believe that it is appropriate to share some of those facts with members of the Nigerian public, given the grave assertion and serious charge that President Jonathan has made. Those facts are as follows. “Five policemen and four soldiers were killed by a group of Niger Delta militants when they tried to enter the town of Odi in Bayelsa State in order to effect their arrest. This happened in 1999. “After the brutal killing of these security personnel, President Olusegun Obasanjo asked the then Governor of Bayelsa State, Governor Alamiyeseigha, to identify, locate, apprehend and hand over the perpetrators of that crime. “The Governor said that he was unable to do so and President Obasanjo, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, tookthe position that security personnel could not be killed with impunity under his watch without a strong and appropriate response from the Federal Government. “Consequently, he sent the military in to uproot and kill the terrorists and to destroytheir operational base, which was the town of Odi. The operation was carried out with military precision and efficiency and its objectives were fully achieved.” Fani-Kayode said the militaryoperation led to the dislodgment of the terrorist group. The statement added: “The terrorists were either killed and those that were not killed fled their operational base in Odi, were uprooted, were weakened, were demoralised and were completely dispersed. That was the purpose of the whole exercise and that purpose was achieved. “The truth is that the killing of security agents and soldiers with impunity by the Niger Delta militants virtually stopped after the operation in Odi and remained at a bare minimum right up until the time that President Obasanjo left power eight years later in 2007. I advise those that doubt this to go and check the records.