The Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has dismissed claims by a former presidential spokesman Dr. Doyin Okupe that northern leaders frustrated former president Olusegun Obasanjo from recognizing June 12 as Democracy Day.
Okechukwu said yesterday in Abuja that Obasanjo was rather more preoccupied with his plan to actualise his third term project.
He said, “It is arrant nonsense to say that northern leaders frustrated Obasanjo from recognizing June 12. Baba was solely engrossed with his pet project – the third term. He loathed MKO Abiola from their childhood days in Abeokuta. He was busy weaving his life president project.
“How can somebody revise the history of a former autocratic president who captured the National Assembly, was changing senate presidents like rapper? Obasanjo held the governors under bondage, muscled the press and used the EFCC as an attack dog. Who on earth could have stopped him if he wanted to declare June 12 Democracy Day?” he asked.
The APC chieftain added: “Whereas I agree with our big brother, Omoba Doyin Okupe, that Nigerian politics is so intricate, however one disagrees that Obasanjo only avoided the controversy and furore that would have greeted recognising June 12 as Democracy Day while in office. Nobody could have stopped him, he ran an imperial presidency. I doubt if he was not in league with the annulment. Abiola narrated to us at Aba how Obasanjo envied his capacity to pay his primary school fees from the local entertainment band he used in raising money. Abiola slept with us that night at Aba after the campaign.”
