{"id":31019,"date":"2021-02-02T16:43:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T15:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=31019"},"modified":"2021-02-02T16:43:49","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T15:43:49","slug":"video-obasanjo-explains-anger-at-american-insult-over-china-his-choice-of-yaradua-over-as-successor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=31019","title":{"rendered":"Video: Obasanjo explains anger at American insult over China; his choice of Yar’Adua over as successor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has flared up over what he described as insulting questions from his American friends over China’s new role as a colonial master in Africa.

He also explained on Sunday on “The Toyin Falola Interview” on Zoom why he preferred late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as his successor, despite knowing about his kidney ailment.

His words: \u201cI feel insulted when they ask me in America: How are your new colonial masters doing?

\u201cI should also ask you: how are your new Colonial masters? The amount of American treasury China is holding, if they unleash it on the world, America will feel it.

\u201cChina is making progress with its economy, buying our cocoa, etc higher than other parts of the world.

\u201cI am not really worried about that. I will be worried if China does not pay heed to what it should be paying to: Start training Africans. Africans are capable of being trained.

\u201cDon\u2019t make it an all Chinese affair. If the Chinese are ready to do business with us, why will you ask me not to?

\u201cAnd this will be with terms comfortable with me. They said the Chinese have taken over something in Zambia.

\u201cIt is the stupidity of governments that go on borrowing with nothing to show for it. For instance in Nigeria, I left government in 2007.

\u201cI left after settling a quantum of debt. Over $30 billion. Left only a debt of $3.6 billion.

\u201cBut the debt has mounted again to over $30 billion. What have we done with it? We should not continue to behave irresponsibly and believe we can get away with it.

\u201cIf we got $20 billion debt relief and we have not learnt a lesson from that, they should teach us the bitter way.

\u201cUS can\u2019t dictate to us who our friends should be.

\u201cIt is in our interest to keep our old friends, they should not teach us who our new friends should be.\u201d

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH INTERVIEW:<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv%3D8_ue5Hvi1vY&ved=2ahUKEwja5_LsxcvuAhUMmlkKHfLwBxQQuAIwAHoECAQQBA&usg=AOvVaw33IcFtPAPhCznHMCLf06jY<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

:On Yar’Adua, the former President said: \u201cLet me tell you the story of Umaru Yar\u2019Adua. I knew he was ill and before I put him forward, I asked for his medical report which he sent to me and I sent it to one of the best doctors of our time and a good friend of mine who died only last year \u2013Professor Akinkugbe.

\u201cI said look at it because it is confidential and he said to me that from this report, this man has had a kidney transplant and it is successful, he is no longer under dialysis.

\u201cAnd if you have a kidney transplant and it is successful, it is as good as if you didn\u2019t have a kidney transplant at all. I accepted that and Umaru Yar\u2019adua contested within the party and he contested within the country and came up.

\u201cIn the process of the campaign, I remember that he had to go for a medical checkup abroad and he was not around for a campaign here in Abeokuta.

\u201cI called him because the rumour was that he had died. I called him on my telephone and put it on speaker. I said, \u2018Umaru, are you dead or alive?\u2019 and he said, \u2018I am not dead, I am alive\u2019.

\u201cWithin a couple of days, he came back and reported that he was checked up and he was well. That was the position of Umaru Yar\u2019adua and if anybody in his right sense will think that what I have done in that position was not right, I leave him in the hands of God.\u201d

Explaining why he ditched former Rivers State Governor, Dr. Peter Odili for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Obasanjo said: \u201cNow, we needed a running mate for Yar\u2019Adua. There were two possibilities \u2013 the first possibility was Peter Odili.

\u201cPeter Odili was a much stronger personality than Goodluck Jonathan, but Odili had an EFCC issue, which made him to be dropped and once he was dropped, the next man was Goodluck Jonathan and Goodluck Jonathan had it all going for him.\u201d

\u201cHe was not a strong character as Peter Odili, I will admit that, but he was not a pushover; he had been a deputy governor, he had been a governor and his state was doing fairly well.

\u201cI don\u2019t know what else anybody will say because the vice president had to come from the South and we had agreed that it would come from the South South.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has flared up over what he described as insulting questions from his American friends over China’s new role as a colonial master in Africa. He also explained on Sunday on “The Toyin Falola Interview” on Zoom why he preferred late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as his successor, despite knowing about his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1651,440,973],"class_list":["post-31019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-america","tag-obasanjo","tag-yaradua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}