Mr. Sam Nda Isaiah, pharmacist-turned publisher of the Leadership Newspapers, was 50 on May 1. He used the occasion to field questions from journalists on his encounters with the political class. NKECHI ONYEDIKA and KARLS TSOKAR report from Abuja.How Tinubu Stopped Obasanjo From Capturing Southwest'YOU are one of the people who sounded Chief Olusegun Obasanjo out for the presidency in 1998; what informed the suggestion'We, members of the group that wanted to start the Blueprint, formed another group called 'The Millennium'. We were the first to write Obasanjo, to contest for election in 1998.Obasanjo himself was wondering why we were promoting him because he was not eligible to hold public office. By the time Generals Danjuma and Ibrahim Babangida convinced Obasanjo, we spoke once or twice on phone.What we wanted was somebody that would bring back the system that we knew because there were structures before it started crumbling. Obasanjo had led the military, he had become a statesman and went into agriculture successfully, gone to prison and came out.We thought there was no better candidate than Obasanjo and we started promoting him. Some people abused us and said we were intellectuals for some people.However, very early in his administration, we started seeing some funny things. He started collecting gifts; it's very abnormal. You are the president and you don't see anything wrong with collecting gifts from people, something that's a total departure from what it used to be'There were some things we knew then that we couldn't say; we thought we were in real democracy; so, let's wait till 2003. I was one of those who encouraged (General Muhammadu) Buhari to join the presidential race. I didn't even know that he would get the kind of support that he eventually got, and we didn't see it coming at all.Obasanjo was so scared that instead of planning for election, they were planning how to rig. We got information from an insider of how they were planning a mass-thumbing ballot papers inside the Aso Rock.It was alarming, the information I got during the time I was the spokesman to Buhari. There were some villages in the Southeast where people were killed. Chuba Okadigbo was the vice presidential candidate to Buhari under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).Obasanjo wanted to get the Southwest but Bola Tinubu did not allow him. We saw photographs of people killed in Ogun State that didn't appear in any newspaper. The level of desperation was too much and I concluded that if any man could be this desperate, he would not leave power without a fight.I did not write for some time; I later started my column in Daily Trust and in the first article I wrote, I made it clear that Obasanjo would not leave power without a fight.When IBB heard about the 'Third Term' agenda, he called me and said, 'I think some of us should start apologising to you.' We wrote against 'Third Term' to an extent that people started saying that after 'Third Term' we would not have anything to write (about).'The Problems We Have Today Are 100% Traceable To Obasanjo'Anybody that had followed your column would think that you hated Obasanjo. Did you hate him'Do you think I hate him' Is there anything I have said about him that is not true' I don't like the fact that Obasanjo was given an opportunity to come and change the country and due to where we found ourselves, he took advantage of the system.Obasanjo was the president during the time we had the biggest oil boom in Nigeria. Oil went up to more than $100 per barrel and all oil producing countries developed further. Saudi Arabia built new cities; Angola and Equatorial Guinea developed further; Nigeria was the only country where there wasmore poverty.Everything I said about him was true. In fact, there were so many things we knew about Obasanjo that we didn't report because it would make us look like a very unserious country and could trigger security problems.The problems we have presently are 100 percent traceable to Obasanjo. Obasanjo deliberately did not want elections to hold, and deliberately brought out a sick president.Do you regret being one of the people that urged Obasanjo to come and become president'I remember that one day, when I was with the late Sunday Awoniyi, I brought the issue up and I said I regretted it. But Awoniyi said, 'no, don't regret it.' He said that the only way to judge a presidential aspirant was to look at his antecedents. We did that; there was nothing in his (Obasanjo's) antecedents that showed that he would do what he did.One day, I went to see T.Y Danjuma and I told him that, 'some of us can say that we don't know Obasanjo and we can be forgiven but people like you, who came out to say that if this man (Obasanjo) didn't win, you (Danjuma) would leave the country and because we trusted you, we thought it was a good choice.'He kept quiet for sometime and said, 'Look, I think I did know him, but I suspect that Shehu Musa Yar'Adua knew the kind of person he is.''Yar'Adua Lost Patience When I Told Him He Didn't Win Election'Why did you also fight Yar'Adua'NO, I did not. People always use the word 'fight.' When Yar'Adua was campaigning, and he came to the Leadership Newspapers twice or thrice, the first thing I told him was that people didn't have any problem with him, but that his main problem would be Obasanjo, who was seen as his godfather and Obasanjo was a serious election rigger.Yar'Adua told me that he would win. I said, 'Fine. If you want to win and really enjoy the fruit of victory, make sure that your people don't rig.'When the election came ' that remains the worst in the history of the country. Of course, we didn't mince words, we didn't pretend about it; we continued saying that the elections were rigged.When Yar'Adua was sworn-in, he made reference to that very politely. The same day, the Chairman of the Editorial Board wrote an editorial. Unusually, he came to clear it with me. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I don't see the editorial but he just insisted I should read this one.I read it; it was a departure from our policy. As I was reading it, I noticed that he and others were looking at me. I said, 'Please, hold on first.' I think I was in good mood that day. I now fixed an appointment to see President Yar'Adua and he was very happy to see me.The first thing I told him was, 'Sir, congratulations.' He laughed. I said, 'Sir, you didn't win, but we are going to support you because that is what some of our staff (members) are saying.' He didn't say anything. But I never knew he didn't like the fact that I said he didn't win.By the time I said it three times, he lost his patience and said, 'You have said it severally that I didn't win; so, who won' Buhari or Atiku'' I said, 'No sir. Nobody won; there was no election.' He just shook his head and said, 'well, that is your business; I am already in.'I told him again, 'Nobody won. (The) Buhari group believed that they won and your people also believed you won; the only way to have known was for you and Obasanjo to have conducted the elections well.'He (Yar'Adua) never liked my column at all. I was with him for two hours; I told him some of the things he should do. I complained to him that even though he was already the President, everybody was going to Otta (Obasanjo's country home).He looked at me and said, 'Sam, whoever wants to go to Otta can go but I know who the President is.' I told him that Obasanjo had sold off the Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries to Dangote and his group. I told him that it must be revoked. We argued it for a long time.Before he (Yar'Adua) fell sick, he was alert. I told him that I would write a piece (article) on that issue the next day and he said, 'Well, I will like to see it.' I went back, got all the facts and the article came out.The following day, at about 2pm, I got a call that my piece was causing problem in Aso Rock. At about 4pm, the sale of the two refineries was revoked.HOW did you get into trouble with the law'One day, we got a very credible report that Yar'Adua was ill. We carried the story. It is an issue when a president is ill because of things that would happen. The kind of money they stole because he was ill, which he (Yar'Adua) would not have allowed was huge! People even forged his signature for the budget.When the story came that Egyptian doctors had come to Aso Rock, the story was true. Don't also forget that it was two weeks after they (then FEC) had their funny 'Oath of Secrecy'; that thing tied them.An insider gave us the story. There was no way one could confirm the story but I did my own little investigation and asked a senior Editor to handle the story, who, for some very strange reasons, went and added his view very irresponsibly. He added that the President didn't attend the Friday prayers, which wasn't true.That period, the German President visited the country; I even saw it on television but this Editor also added that the President did not see the German President.I was sleeping and the then Minister of Information, Mr. John Odeh, woke me up with his call. He asked, 'What are your boys writing; that the President is sick and that he didn't see the German President'' I said, 'No, I saw it on TV.'But Odeh said, 'No; see (look at) your paper now.'I started sleeping again because I thought it was just one of those calls. I later got another call from the Personal Assistant to the President on the same matter. I now took the paper and read. I was very angry. I asked the Editor who wrote this'In that same paper, I read a story that the President received German President. I said, 'What is this'' That Editor was just resuming with us. I then asked him to go and write an apology to the President, highlighting those two areas that were wrong.We carried it boldly on the front page the next day. In the afternoon, Segun Adeniyi (Yar'Adua's spokesperson) released a statement angrily about it and said they would go to court.I think Segun said they would go to court just to calm down nerves within the Aso Rock but the then Minister of Justice, (Michael) Aondoakaa saw it as an opportunity. He called me one day and said that he would like us to meet; that he had not forgotten how I helped them in the past.When I got to his house, I cracked a joke, saying, 'Blessed are the peacemakers.' He told me, 'No, what you wrote wasn't an apology.' That we must apologise for everything! I said, 'No, we wrote about what happened. The story about the Egyptian doctors coming to Aso Rock is true.'But Aondoakaa insisted that we should send the apology to AIT and the rest. He wanted to use it as evidence in court.I think we did what he said and he took it as part of evidence and went to court. I was the target. I told them that the government was illegal (and) the government was very corrupt.You don't rejoice that somebody was sick; we felt for him (Yar'Adua). We reported that he was sick but the truth is that the country is bigger than anybody. I am not saying that for you to be president, you must be 100 percent healthy. But there are some sicknesses that are terminal that affect your concentration. You can have hypertension and be president; you can manage it or diabetes.So, the issue wasn't his sickness, but if you are sick and you are lying about it, especially if it is terminal and it takes you off your job as a president, the country then is in danger. The Constitution was very clear about the state of health of anybody that would be the president and gave powers to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the matter. The Constitution assumed we were going to have responsible FEC members, who would put the nation above individuals but we knew what happened.
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