by Dolapo Adelana

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has said immediate past president, Goodluck Jonathan turned the Boko Haram insurgency as a means to pilfer the nation’s funds.

Obasanjo said this in a book, Against the Run of Play, written by Mr. Segun Adeniyi, Chairman of the Editorial Board of ThisDay Newspapers.

The book, an account of what happened in the 2015 presidential election, is due for public presentation in Lagos on Friday.

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On 15 June 2012, at a debate organised by the club De Madrid (an independent, non-profit organisation comprising 80 former democratic presidents and prime ministers from fifty-six countries) in Geneva, Switzerland, Obasanjo accused Jonathan of lacking the willpower to lead the country.

“I haven’t seen that will of persistency and consistency in Nigeria because the people that are involved in corruption, they are strongly entrenched and unless you are ready to confront them at the point of even giving your life for it, then you will give in, that is the end of it,” he told BBC

“This morning, on my way from Abeokuta by road, I was listening to the radio. I heard that the Jonathan administration said that they are going to set up an agency for pipeline protection. Now, what are the police there for? What are all the security agencies doing? This is another chop-chop,” Mr. Obasanjo said in Abuja during a thanksgiving ceremony to mark the 50th birthday of Dr.  Oby Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education.

Obasanjo said the Jonathan administration was not turned the Boko Haram insurgency as a means of making money.

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“Jonathan and his people turned Boko Haram into an industry for making money. Rather than seek for a solution, Boko Haram became an ATM machine for taking money out of the treasury. Take the issue of the Chibok tragedy. If he had acted within the first 48 hours, they would have found most of the girls. The CAN (Christian Association of Nigeria) Chairman of the local chapter in Chibok was here to see me and he explained how they were helpless with no reaction from the authorities for several days,” the book quoted Obasanjo as saying.