Nigeria: Becoming Nigeria's President Was Tormenting Experience - Obasanjo

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo says becoming president in 1999 was a tormenting experience for him.

He also said he was granted pardon for an offence he did not commit by the administration headed by the former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the man he succeeded as elected president.

The former president was granted pardon over a military coup allegation by late General Sani Abacha and incarcerated before Abdulsalami who succeeded Abacha pardoned him.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Niger State Investment and Economic Summit yesterday in Minna, Obasanjo said he was innocent of the allegations. He also said General Abdulsalami tortured him by 'conniving' with some like minds to effect his release from prison and to make him president.

"I was going on with my life jeje in the prison when General Abdulsalami Abubakar decided to get me out. He did not stop at that but also decided to grant me pardon and conspired with others to send me to the presidency," he said.

Obasanjo stressed that administering the country at that troubled moment was tormenting.

Obasanjo who was the chairman of the occasion was pulled onto the podium by Abdulsalami when it was the turn of the later to deliver a goodwill message, a move which elicited applause.

He said the former head of state was fond of torturing him, saying when he was settling down to discussion with the Acting President, the former head of state dragged him to the podium.

Speaking on the summit, Obasanjo expressed the belief that agriculture was a sure way of improving Nigeria's revenue earning and addressing the lingering unemployment problem.

He however said double digit interest rate by commercial banks and lack of access to low credit by farmers were stultifying efforts by the Federal Government at divesting the nation's economy through agriculture.

He urged the federal and the state governments to collaborate in providing necessary infrastructure to encourage agric business across the country but warned that such projects should not be allowed to be hijacked by the legislators as constituency projects.

"Roads must not be turned into constituency projects because constituency project is corruption," he maintained.

Source: AllAfrica