Metro
Buhari trying to implicate me – Obasanjo cries out
Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of planning to frame him and consequently kill him.
Obasanjo in a statement by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, on Friday said the Buhari-led administration intends to use fake documents and witnesses against him.
He stated that he has been informed that his name has been included in the government’s “watch-list”, and that the security of his life can no longer be guaranteed.
The former president explained that he would not have reacted to the information as provided by the top security sources, but for the fact that those who obliged him with the information, were not known for ‘frivolities and flippant talks.’
He added that the desperation of the present administration to blackmail him, could be linked to his State of the Nation Special Statement on January 23, 2018.
The Statement reads in part,”Impeccable security sources have alleged Chief Obasanjo’s name is on their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be guaranteed. According to these informants, many of who are in the top echelon of the Nation’s security management and close to the corridors of power, the operatives are daily perfecting how to curtail the personal liberties of the former President and hang a crime on him.
”Ordinarily, we would not have dignified these reports with a response but for the fact that many of these informants are not known for flippant and frivolous talks. Secondly, this Government has demonstrably exhibited apathy, and in some cases, encouraged by its conduct, daily loss of lives and property in many States of the country, the office cannot be indifferent.
“We are currently in a nation where the Number Three citizen is currently being harangued and the Number Four citizen is facing similar threat within the same Government they serve. There is a groundswell of our nationals that live in fear that they could be hounded, harassed, maimed or even killed as the battle for 2019 takes this worrisome dimension.
“For Chief Obasanjo, this is a joke carried too far and being someone who do not act on unofficial information, he had cautioned all informants and adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the bestial propositions allegedly being contemplated to cow, cage and embarrass him.
“The content of the alleged beastly designs, it was learnt are two-fold for now. One, to seize his International Passport and clamp him into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further expressing angst on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of governance, economic management and in the protection of lives and property by the Government.
“But, since that could expose the Government to a swath of international condemnation, embarrassment and outrage, it is said that another plot being hatched is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to re-open investigation into the activities of Chief Obasanjo’s administration using false witnesses and documents. This will be a re-enactment of the Abacha era in which Chief Obasanjo was one of the principal victims.
”The same EFCC that had conducted a clinical investigation on the activities of Obasanjo in and out of Government, it was said, would now be made to stand down the existing report that gave Chief Obasanjo a clean bill of health on the probes are now to get him indicted, fair or foul for possible prosecution and persecution like it is being done to real and perceived opponents, enemies and critics of this Government.
”Dissent is a fundamental principle on which liberal democracy is predicated. A true democrat must be ready to live with and accommodate dissent and opposition. While it is regrettable how the Government has sunk in its shameless desperation to cow opposition, a resort to blackmail, despotism and Gestapo-tactics being employed by the goons of this Government would not hold water. And no government ever remains in power forever.
”For the record, Chief Obasanjo reiterates his readiness to face probe again after that of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the ICPC, and the EFCC, but before an independent, objective and credible panel of enquiry to account for his stewardship in Government and beyond.
”Chief Obasanjo reiterates that he has taken a principled position to ensure that the ship of the Nigerian State does not capsize and he remains steadfast in his resolve to turn the tide of maladministration, poor economic management and rudderless governance model that has tore Nigerians apart on account of religion and ethnicity which is a great threat to our democracy’.
”We would like the Government and its supporters to understand that no amount of campaign of calumny, no matter how well contrived, orchestrated or marketed would deter Chief Obasanjo from calling a spade by its name. Chief Obasanjo is a patriot whose sole agenda is to ensure that the country’s unity, progress and democracy are not negotiated on the altar of incompetence and provincialism and mediocrity.
”It is important to point out that Chief Obasanjo is one former President and Head of State who has engaged the current administration privately and in a bilateral manner on several issues of direct interest to the government and other matters of national concern. That channel of private engagement remains open and continues. However, should there be the need for public engagement, the right to free speech will always be exercised and jealously guarded, again in the best interest of Nigeria and the government.”
No fewer than four passengers sustained varying degrees of injuries in an auto crash on the Ibadan, Omi-Adio-Abeokuta Expressway, according to reports from Mega Icon Magazine.
The incident, which unfolded on Monday, involved a Volkswagen Golf car and a tricycle, commonly known as Keke Marwa, colliding at the Command area along the road, in the Ido local government area of Oyo state.
Eyewitnesses recounted to our reporter that the Volkswagen car, driven by an individual with mobility impairments or difficulties with his legs, suspected to be from an accident, was traveling from Apata to Omi-Adio when it veered off the road and collided with the tricycle heading towards Apata shortly after 6:00 p.m.
Four individuals, including the tricycle driver, were injured in the accident, while three occupants of the Volkswagen Golf, including a one-year-old baby, escaped unharmed.
Promptly responding to the scene, officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) swiftly took action, transporting the injured victims to an undisclosed hospital at the time of press.
In a devastating incident along the Ibi-Mango area in Ore, Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, two siblings met a tragic end as they were reportedly crushed to death by a truck.
The fatal accident occurred at 10:25 am on Saturday when the victims, riding on a motorcycle, collided with a truck loaded with sand.
According to an eyewitness at the scene, the siblings lost control of their motorcycle, leading to a collision with the oncoming truck along the Okitipupa route. The impact of the crash resulted in the untimely demise of the siblings.
Confirming the incident, Ezekiel Son-Allah, the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Ondo State, attributed the cause of the accident to overspeeding by the victims.
Son-Allah urged motorists and motorcyclists to prioritise safety on the highways by avoiding overspeeding and dangerous overtaking maneuvers.
The bodies of the victims were swiftly transported to the General Hospital Mortuary in Ore, as disclosed by the FRSC boss.
Also, the vehicles involved in the tragic collision were handed over to the police of the Ore Division for further investigation.
Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus Monday, Syrian and Iranian officials said, with a top Revolutionary Guard commander among seven members the force said were killed, amid worsening regional tensions.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps named Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and another high-ranking officer, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, as among seven of its members killed.
Britain-based war monitors the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people, including several Guards members, were killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annexe to the Iranian embassy”.
The toll includes “eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters, none of them civilians,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory with a network of sources in Syria, told AFP.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, giving a lower toll, told Iranian state TV that “at least five people were killed in the attack which was carried out by F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building.
AFP reporters saw the annex building had caved in, and emergency services were rushing to search for victims under the rubble as sirens wailed in the upscale Damascus district of Mazzeh.
Security personnel shielded the site where earth-moving equipment was brought in to clear the debris and remove charred vehicles from the road outside, watched by a crowd of onlookers.
Syria’s defence ministry said “the attack destroyed the entire building, killing and injuring everyone inside, and work is underway to recover the bodies and rescue the wounded from under the rubble”.
– Regional tensions –
Iranian state TV said Zahedi — a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force — was among the dead.
The Observatory said Zahedi served as the leader of the Quds Force for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, adding that he was killed along with his deputy, his aide, and the Quds force chief of staff for the same three countries.
Two other members of the Guards and two Iranian advisers were also killed in the strike, the Observatory said.
The targeted building is next to the Iranian embassy, the front of which is decorated with a large portrait of Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s military operations in the Middle East, killed in January 2020 in an American drone strike in Iraq.
The Damascus strikes were the fifth in a week to hit Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is supported by Iran, Israel’s long-time arch foe in the region.
Syria’s state news agency SANA had earlier reported that “our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.
Iran’s ambassador, Akbari, vowed the attack “will lead to our decisive response”, adding “the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate shows the reality of the Zionist entity which recognises no international laws and does all that is inhumane to achieve its goals”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called for a “serious response by the international community”.
– ‘Heinous attack’ –
Only the gate of the building was left standing after the attack, with a sign mentioning “the consular section of the embassy of Iran”, an AFP journalist said.
Window panes in buildings within a 500-metre (550 yard) radius had been shattered, and many parked cars were damaged by the blast.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also denounced the attack after visiting the site, calling it a “heinous terrorist attack… killing a number of innocent people”, in a statement carried by SANA.
The Gaza war, which started with the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, has devastated the coastal territory and also seen Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah exchange near daily cross-border fire.
Israel has also struck targets in Syria, mostly army positions as well as those of Iran-backed combatants.
Hamas condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack which it called a “dangerous escalation.”
Moscow, a Damascus ally along with Tehran, blamed “the Israeli Air Force” for the “unacceptable attack against the Iranian consular mission in Syria.”
The Damascus strike came three days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that had killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of Hezbollah.
It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began, said the monitor.
“Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP after the Friday strikes.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war erupted with the Palestinian militants’ unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,845 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
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