[size=18pt]If sporting performance is an indication of good governance,
well guess what?[/size]

Nigeria won two Olympic gold medals (only olympic golds in our history) in 1996 during Abacha reign.

Coincidence?

Well, we also won:

Africa Nations cup in 1994

11 commonwealth gold medals in 1994 (our biggest GOLD medal haul)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_at_the_Olympics


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_at_the_Commonwealth_Games


Not surprisingly Obasanjo's government performed badly given he enjoyed record levels of revenue from high oil prices 

[size=18pt]Gen Abacha In The Eyes Of Late Prof Sam Aluko[/size]

Thu, 04/08/2011 - 12:37am | UMARU MOHAMMED Opinion Comment & Opinion

http://www.leadership.ng/nga/columns/3196/2011/08/04/gen_abacha_eyes_prof_aluko.html



In a recent interview with a national daily, Professor Sam Aluko, the chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Committee under the late General Sani Abacha, said he had no regrets serving the administration of the demised military ruler. According to him, General Abacha deserves more credit to his memory than his hate-laden critics would have the humility and courage to admit. The erudite scholar argued that the late Abacha had a clear vision of leading Nigeria to progress and prosperity.

In particular, he noted that General Abacha was never a know-all dictator that could dominate discussions at a cabinet session and that, once he was convinced that an idea was in the interest of Nigeria, he wouldn’t hesitate to endorse it.
Professor Aluko recalled Abacha’s patriotic commitment to encourage the local production of bitumen on exportable scale and that he set Nigeria on the path of achieving the objective. According to him, Abacha never hesitated to release the funds for the purpose to avoid the needless costs of importing what Nigeria could abundantly produce locally.

The professor of Economics also explained how the Abacha administration was able to stabilise the value of the naira and contain inflation. As far as most objective and fair-minded Nigerians are concerned, the professor was preaching to the converted. It is on record that the Obasanjo administration raised fuel price per litre to 75 naira while, throughout his tenure, the late General Abacha maintained it at 25 naira per litre. In fact, General Obasanjo was so determined to kill Nigerians with “love” that he introduced excruciating economic reforms, including the decision to increase value added tax (VAT), which left ordinary Nigerians with the albatross of indirect taxes through hard-hitting inflationary spiral. Ironically, while the former Obasanjo administration was busy increasing value added tax, it was at the same time granting reckless import waivers to his cronies in the private sector. Worse still, his so-called economic reforms strangulated small and medium scale businesses and industries.

According to the Nigerian Manufacturing Association (MAN), about 430 industries had to fold up as a consequence of decaying national infrastructure and the hostile operating environment created by Obasanjo’s economic reforms. Nigerians cannot also forget in a hurry how NITEL was cruelly killed in the name of privatisation, leaving Nigerians at the mercy of the new GSM telecom operators.

The Obasanjo administration threw the ordinary Nigerians to the sharks while at the same time enriching his cronies under the cover of reforming the economy.

Despite these so-called reforms, which were insincerely implemented, are the majority of Nigerians better off or worse off as a result of Obasanjo’s economic “magic”? Obasanjo promised to increase power generation to 10,000 megawatts by 2007 and as from the time he left office and today, Nigeria is still hovering between 2,500 and 3,000 megawatts of electricity generation. While Obasanjo was frequently quoting the economic success story of the former Singaporean prime minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, his insincerity didn’t let him achieve the same results in Nigeria.

Despite the alleged corruption of the Abacha administration, Nigerians could still see the concrete evidence of where the proceeds of subsidy withdrawal were being beneficially invested. Who could deny that we had remarkable changes in the conditions of public roads, hospitals, water supply systems and other critical areas of social service? The scrapped Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was able to achieve results within a relatively short space of time, thanks to the sincerity of the Abacha administration to apply subsidy withdrawal proceeds to the practical improvement of the quality of life of Nigerians.

Do we need a reminder from professor Aluko to acknowledge that Abacha’s record was by far brighter than his enemies want the world to believe? The best public relations is good performance. Despite the $18 billion debt relief granted Nigeria in 2003 and a foreign reserve level of $63 billion did Nigerians count their blessings as a result of this extraordinary good luck? In fact, despite the vilification of Abacha’s memory by Obasanjo’s fans, the facts of the military ruler’s achievements cannot be easily obliterated even with the dynamite of hate and prejudice!

When he criticised the performance of the Obasanjo administration, the former president openly described professor Sam Aluko as “senile”. But then did Aluko’s alleged senility change the reality of Obasanjo’s record of unimpressive performance? At one point, the former president publicly admitted that he was ashamed of the conditions of federal roads, despite the billions allocated to that sector. Wasn’t Obasanjo’s mischief responsible for halting the progress of Nigeria’s railway rehabilitation and modernisation projects, which were started by Abacha? He deliberately frustrated the projects to spite Abacha. He forgot, however, that you should not undermine the wider public interest for the sake of private vengeance against a leader because you don’t want to associate him with anything good.

Thanks to Obasanjo’s pettiness, these projects could have covered a lot more ground today. Should any wise leader destroy good policies and projects merely because he hates the man who initiated them? Unfortunately, that was exactly the case under Obasanjo. Whether Professor Aluko said it or not, the memory of Abacha’s performance cannot be dismissed. Memories of good performance are stubborn and every leader will have to face the verdict of history. And in Obasanjo’s case, the verdict is coming faster than he imagined because insincerity is his middle name.

Umar sent in this piece from Federal Housing Estate, Gwiwa, Sokoto

GenBuhari: Abacha never looted

Obasanjo and IBB deliberately claimed that the money returned by Foreign banks belonged to Abacha. The money they claimed to have recovered had nothing to do with Abacha and till this day nobody can account for what happened to that money.

You are officially A fuckatrd.

useless illiterate.

OBASANJO WAS IN JAIL WHILE THIS WAS GOING ON,WHILE OUR SAVIOUR IBB,FOUND A WAY TO TO GET RID OF THAT BAST ARD (YOUR FATHER) ABACHA.

miss-sweety86:
We are not encouraging anything. In fact, Switzerland has now agreements with several countries regarding disclosing information regarding tax evasion. As for money that might come from suspicious sources, I believe there are some mechanisms to investigate, especially when the assets and bank accounts are frozen. But all these procedures take time.

Seriously, I am not about tax evasion measures Switzerland provided to curb the menacing transfer by private individuals. The reason the country took those measures was because the big countries where mostly involved in the tax evasion thing. But, I am talking about the poor countries stolen money stacked in your country's banks vaults.!

www.nairaland.com/attachments/891882_Sani_Abacha_jpgfd7fdeaba85a5580ed8bf8c028ce026c
Gen. Sani Abacha

[size=18pt]29th November 1996 - The New York Times
Abacha announces launch of Vision 2010 - to raise living standards of Nigerians [/size]

LAGOS, Nigeria, Nov. 28— In the face of widespread skepticism from Nigeria's domestic opposition, Nigeria's military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha, is pushing ahead with an effort to spur economic change and enhance his political image.

This week, the Nigerian Government announced formation of a 170-member committee set up to raise the living standards of Nigeria's 100 million people. The program, known as Vision 2010, was first announced at a conference in September in the capital, Abuja.

Opposition groups immediately criticized the makeup of the panel, which consists almost entirely of establishment figures. The chairman is Ernest Shonekan, head of the short-lived interim Government of 1993 that gave way to the current military rulers. Its members include prominent politicians, traditional rulers and business executives, all culled from among Nigeria's elite.

''We intend to capture the imagination of our people,'' General Abacha said this week.

Abacha
www.nairaland.com/attachments/706815_General_Sani_Abacha_jpg81fc6b794ebb7c0a38571ed59a064b8d

Evidence that the money that was supposedly returned from Swiss banks was not owned by Abacha:

http://www.mcswisslaw.com/pages_e/2008%20Monfrini%20-%20The%20Abacha%20Case.pdf

"
The existence of a system of confiscation orders that is independent from a criminal conviction is therefore a necessity in grand corruption cases. In this context, reversing the burden of proof or imposing procedural consequences on the failure of the asset holder to cooperate regarding the origin of the assets, appear to be best legislative practice. The presumption of innocence does not necessarily apply to confiscation proceedings and ‘presumptions of fact or of law operate in every criminal-law system and are not prohibited in principle’ and therefore do not breach the right to a fair trial.28"


[size=18pt]This is 21 page document but the above extract is very revealing indeed.

Basically, by qualifying Abacha's family members together with PDP stooges claiming to be Abacha's business associates as a 'Criminal Organisation', Nigeria Government does not need to prove that the funds in the foreign accounts belonged to Abacha, The Onus was on Abacha to proof that he was innocent of the charges.
Of course a deceased man could not do that.
Abacha's son Mohammed could not fully challenge the allegations as he was locked up by Obasanjo.[/size]

@GenBuhari

Sort your political issues and get out of here!

^ please clarify what you mean .

GenBuhari: ^ please clarify what you mean .

Your political undertone to issues on Nairaland precedes every topic. Can't you express yourself without posting long old biased political news?

I see what you are trying to say.

I got involved with trying to dispel the lies about Abacha, when hie name is invariably (unjustiably) brought up in threads such as this, about looting

all4naija: Your political undertone to issues on Nairaland precedes every topic. Can't you express yourself without posting long old biased political news?

GenBuhari: I see what you are trying to say.

I got involved with trying to dispel the lies about Abacha, when hie name is invariably (unjustiably) brought up in threads such as this, about looting

IT IS YOUR FATHER WHO IS ROTTING IN HELL(abacha)THAT IS LYING. BAS TARD

[size=18pt]Abacha: Legacy of a great leader [/size] -by OLIVER OKPALA, a political analyst
ON June 8,1998, one of Nigeria’s erstwhile Heads of State and military chief, General Sani Abacha, passed away in Abuja, the nation’s capital. General Abacha passed on whilst still in office as Head of State. The place of Gen. Abacha in Nigeria’s military and democratic history can scarcely be over-emphasized. He was one Nigeria’s finest military officers.

He was immensely popular and highly respected among his peers in the military and among the civilian populace.

General Abacha came into national prominence in the heady days of the second democratic republicanism in Nigeria which spanned from October 1, 1979 to December 30, 1983. It was General Abacha, then a Brigadier-General, who announced the military take-over of the reins of power from the civilians. It was this coup which brought the regime of Major-Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbor to being.

This military putsch was most celebrated and welcomed across the country. The civilian-to-civilian elections had just taken place. The elections were marred by a lot of irregularities. The elections were massively rigged. There were cases of ballot box snatching, illegal thump-printing of ballot boxes, and declaration of false results and outright manipulation of electoral results.

Victors in the elections were turned into losers in broad daylight. Verdict ’83 became magic ’83. Hell was let loose. There was arson, murder, looting, rampage and brigandage, especially in the Western part of the country. The country was literally at the edge of the precipice. Then the military struck. Abacha was the harbinger of this news. The politicians were all sent packing.

The military, with Buhari and Idiagbon as the helmsmen, held sway. When Buhari and Idiagbon derailed from the charted course, it was again General Abacha who announced their removal and the constitution of the Armed Force Ruling Council with General Ibrahim Badamasi Babahgida, IBB, as the military president.

General Abacha played a key role in saving Nigeria from ruin. He came to the rescue of Nigerians together with other military officers to truncate the prevailing political, economic and social rot and decay on the side of the people and to halt the descent of the Buhari-Idiagbon regime to autarchy.

Whilst the Babahigda government mooted the idea of return to civilian rule, General Abacha stood by that resolve and respected the wishes of generality of Nigerians for a quick return to democratic republicanism. General Abacha played a key role as the Chief of Army Staff and later Chairman Joint Chief of Staff. He helped immensely to stabilize the Babangida administration, especially at its inception.

As Chief of Army Staff, General Abacha introduced a lot of reform in the army. The military were carried along in the government. During his tenure as Chief of Army Staff and later as Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, a lot of reforms were introduced in the military as an institution. Many barracks, office blocks and senior staff quarters were established across the military formations in the country. The welfare of the military men and their families were enhanced.

The military began to have a sense of belonging and well-being. General Abacha contributed greatly to the restoration of the lost glory of the military in Nigeria.

Even when the Babangida regime was being roundly castigated, General Abacha kept faith with the government and the Nigerian people. After the June 12 debacle and its attendant hullaballoo and political log jam, General Abacha did not lose faith in the Nigerian people.

When General Babangida stepped aside, General Abacha agreed to stay on to help to bring stability, credibility and a sense of purpose to the Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government,ING.

There is no gainsaying the fact that General Abacha played a major role in giving the ING a distinctive feature of credibility and acceptance among the wide spectrum of the Nigeria political class and the international community.

It was due mainly to General Abacha’s sagacity, acumen and professionalism that Nigeria was able to weather the storm of the June 12 political commotion. Abacha acted as a mediator between the civilian populace and the political class on the one hand and the military on the other hand.

Perhaps, at no better time than when the storm of the cancellation of the 1993 presidential election was raging did General Abacha show the great stuff he was made of and his statesman-like leadership and dexterity. In a sense, Nigeria remained an indestructible, corporate entity after June 12, thanks to General Abacha’s mature leadership, great skills and prodigious sense of judgment.

As the Shonekan-led ING was subjected to a barrage of criticisms, nationally and internationally, for its lethargy and lack of direction, General Abacha was the Moses who led Nigerians out of the bridge and an uncertain and bleak future. He took the driver’s seat from Shonekan, infused a sense of direction and business to governance and halted the palpable drift to hopelessness.

As Head of State, General Abacha assembled a wonderful cabinet of experienced men and women from the political class. He also enlisted the services of technocrats. His cabinet was a rich blend of the old and young, the politician and the statesmen, the captains of industry and the bureaucrats. General Abacha tried to assuage the feeling of the political class and the section of the country who felt short-changed by the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election.

His government reached out to all shades of opinion in the country in order to move the country forward.
General Abacha believed so much in deliberation and discussion with the political class on the way forward for the country. He set up a Constitution Review Committee. He also constituted the Constituent Assembly. This Assembly attracted a wide array of both old-breed and new-breed politicians.

The Constituent Assembly brain-stormed and deliberated extensively on democracy in Nigeria. It was in the course of the deliberations at the Constituent Assembly that the idea of the six geo-political zone structure which later represented the basis for zoning and geographical spread in the post-1999 political parties and the Federal Government.

During the Abacha regime, many political parties and associations flourished without let or hindrance. Like-minded politicians held meetings freely and formed a plethora of associations. After the Constituent Assembly, Abacha’s government democratised the local government by conducting peaceful and credible elections of councilors and chairmen. Abacha’s government also conducted House of Assembly and National Assembly elections in the country.

Abacha was so popular that politicians who were eyeing the presidency dropped their ambition and openly called on him to continue his good works. All the political parties adopted him as their presidential candidate. Rallies and conferences were held to persuade Abacha to run for the presidential election.

General Sani Abacha’s legacies are there for all to see. His legacies cannot be obliterated. This great son of Nigeria, nay Africa, deserves the nation’s respect and honour. As a worthy leader and compatriot, Abacha’s place in the Nigeria political pantheon should be assured. This great leader’s place in Nigeria’s history cannot be denied.

As we mark the 13th anniversary of General Abacha’s departure from planet earth, it behoves all men of goodwill and history to immortalize this distinguished Nigerian, selfless leader, fine officer, great reconciliator and consummated administrator.

Sleep on, fearless General, for the labours of our past heroes shall indeed not be in vain. And their memories shall be evergreen. Surely General Abacha’s good works keep his memory well alive.

Mr. OLIVER OKPALA, a political analyst, wrote from Abuja.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/sani-abacha-legacy-of-a-great-leader/

Bizarre