FORMER president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Tuesday, denied writing a secret letter to President Goodluck Jonathan, recommending candidates for the office of the Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and four other key agencies, just as he vowed to sue The Nation newspaper over the publication.Obasanjo, in a sharp reaction to the allegation, which was reported in the newspaper on Tuesday, said that he had never written any letter to President Jonathan since his inauguration about five months ago.The former president, though agreed that he wrote to President Jonathan last year, he said contrary to what The Nation reported, he only wrote to the president on honours and awards for some Nigerians.When further quizzed by journalists at the presidential wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, on Tuesday morning, Chief Obasanjo asked: 'The Nation newspaper and those who manage it, are they well' Are they sane, because that must be a tissue of lies. I've not written to the president since his inauguration.' I think probably I wrote to him last year on honours and awards for some Nigerians. So, if any paper has written that, it's a figment of their imagination and I will refer them to my lawyers.'The newspaper, on Tuesday, alleged that there was anxiety among some key strategists of President Jonathan over a 'curious secret' letter written to their boss by ex-President Obasanjo.Besides the allegation that Obasanjo recommended candidates for the office of the Executive Secretary of the PTDF and four other key agencies, the newspaper also reported that the former president, in the letter, advised President Jonathan to remove the heads of the agencies to avoid what he called unnecessary lobbying and distractions.While some of the president's strategists were reported by the newspaper to be querying the motive of Obasanjo's letter, they reportedly accused Obasanjo of seeking to replace some northerners who are heading the agencies with his candidates.Following the alleged secret letter, some emirs said to have worked for Jonathan's victory in the April elections were said to be unhappy with Obasanjo's alleged plans to remove northerners in the agencies.According to the newspaper, the former president, in the letter, was quoted to have observed his concern over 'what he called the continued public outcry over the grossly poor performance of some Federal Government interventionist agencies,' which he named.'Some of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of these agencies are currently being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on allegations of corruption and their integrity in office has been tremendously eroded.'These mentioned agencies are critical to the realisation of the transformation agenda of your administration and their poor performances and low public ratings have (sic) the capacity to undermine the transformation agenda, hence the need to effect leadership changes in these agencies in order to achieve their target goals.'In this connection, I am to strongly advise Mr President to consider and approve the names of individuals earlier nominated for appointment as CEOs of these parastatal agencies to take over from the existing CEOs,' he was quoted as written by the newspaper.Meanwhile, Obasanjo used the occasion to talk on the security situation in the country, saying that peace and security were needed for the development in Nigeria.'Well, I don't think anybody needs to be an oracle to make any pronouncement on the security situation. It must be the concern of all of us. It is my own concern as a Nigerian because without security in the country, then, there is no much we can do. So, there is a need for peace and security for development progress in the nation,' he said.
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