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Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Thursday, replied former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, on the latter's comment that his (Obasanjo's) eight-year civilian rule lacked focus and was visionless, saying Babangida is a fool at 70.
Obasanjo said this while speaking with newsmen after the inspection of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta by a team from the United States of America, which was on a visit to the site of the multibillion naira project.
The ex-president, clad in blue guinea brocade and a cap to match, was short of words when asked on his reaction to Babangida's statement, saying he did not believe his ears when the news got to him until he read it in some national dailies.
It will be recalled that Babangida, while fielding questions from newsmen during a press conference at his Hill Top Villa in Minna, Niger State, a day to his 70th birthday, had said that his "senior" in the Nigerian Army wasted a whopping $16 billion to build power plants without anything to show for it.
Obasanjo, who quoted from the Book of Proverbs, chapter 26 verses 4 and 5 in the Holy Bible, justified his reason for referring to Babangida as a fool, contending that the statement ascribed to the former military president was not well thought out.
He said: "Well, normally when I read these things, I don't believe them. Yesterday, when somebody phoned me and said this was said, I said I didn't believe it. He asked me to check all the papers and I said they should get me all the papers. They got me the papers and I read them. It's a little bit unlike Babangida.
"But if Babangida had decided, on becoming a septuagenarian, that he will be a fool, I think one should probably do what the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 26, verse 4. It says 'don't answer a fool because you may also become like him.'
"When you go to the same Proverbs chapter 26, verse 5, it says 'answer a fool so that he will not think he's a wise man.' So, I am now torn between which of the two verses I should follow in this respect. Some of the things he said unfortunately were not well thought out."
Obasanjo lamented that no successive government after he left as military head of state in 1979 built any new dam to complement the ones at Jebba and Shiroro, built under him except the Egbin Plant that was already on and later completed by the Shehu Shagari administration.
He wondered why Babangida would describe his eight-year rule as a waste, explaining that he (Babangida) had the opportunity to build more power plants and dams when he was president considering the amount of money the nation had in its coffers then.
Tribune