Why FG Should Take Over Obasanjo’s Library — Sagay SAN | Nairalaw

Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), Chairman of the Presidential Advisory
Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), has recommended that the
Federal Government should take over the management of Olusegun
Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) located in Abeokuta, the Ogun
State capital, in order to sustain it and preserve it as a national
monument.

The library whose donation was made during the twilight of
Obasanjo’s presidency in 2005 was finally launched in 2017. A lot
of civil society organisations and lawyers have petitioned the
Federal Government to probe the funding of the library, claiming
many of the donors were public officials and contractors.

Speaking on calls by some Nigerians that the library should be
managed by the Federal Government, Sagay said he does not support
the way Obasanjo was treating the library as his personal property
when it should be a public institution.

While asking the Federal Government to persuade Obasanjo to hand
over the major aspect of running the library to the government for
better management, Sagay argued that while the library will still
be in Obasanjo’s name, it should be supervised by the Federal
Government so that it will not lose its value even after Obasanjo’s
demise.

He said, “Obasanjo is a very unique type of person in many ways.
He doesn’t follow laid down standards, conventions and practices.
He takes control and personalises everything. To start with, that
library was not built by private donations.

“It was built with public funds from heads of various Nigerian
public institutions whose arms were twisted to produce huge sums of
money. Some even donated in billions. So, it is not something done
by Obasanjo through persuasion or private donors, it is built by
public funds. So, really, this is the best case why it should be
supervised by the Federal Government even though it was built in
Obasanjo’s name.

“So, I don’t agree with the way Obasanjo is treating it as a
purely personal property. But that is his nature. He is an
authoritarian person.

“My suggestion will be that the Federal Government should not
forcefully take it over from him. But Obasanjo should be gently
reminded that institutions belong to the country, not him
personally and that he should gradually arrange to handover the
major aspects of the running to the Federal Government.

“And if he doesn’t agree, maybe after his demise, the Federal
Government should just take it over after passing some legal
provisions. The library will still be in his land and in his name
but it will be managed by the Federal Government.

“In fact, it enhances the status of the library if it becomes a
state-owned property rather than privately owned. Otherwise, I
don’t wish him to pass away soon. May he live long much longer….
But when the inevitable comes, the library may suffer if it is not
a public library.

“We have seen so many families where they fight over even little
property when the founder passes away and at the end, it is either
abandoned or desecrated and they are in court for decades. That
won’t be appropriate for such an institution as the presidential
library”, he said.

However, speaking on the issue, Prince Tony Momoh, a former
Minister of Information, argued that the Federal Government has no
business with the library as it was a private project owned by
Obasanjo, though he requested and got donations for it while in
office as president.

Momoh, one of the national leaders of the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC), also cautioned the government against
carrying vendetta too far.

Rather than take over Obasanjo’s library, Momoh advised the
Federal Government to focus its attention on thousands of public
libraries littered across the country that are in dilapidated
state.

“The library is Obasanjo’s personal property and he asked people
to donate and they donated. He then built the library which is
highly patronised today, people hold meetings there and so on. How
can anybody deny what the library was meant to be? Was it meant to
be public or private? If it was public, which government set it
up?

“Let us not carry our preoccupation with vendetta too far. That
is a library pioneered by Obasanjo which is for public use. The
motive for setting up the library is what we should be looking at.
I am sure it is not a Federal Government property and it is not an
Ogun State or any state’s property.

“I think it is a private and personal property that he used his
position as president to influence the donations to that library.
But that is a moral issue. I remember that even Fayose said he was
forced to donate N10 million and he asked Obasanjo to refund it to
Ekiti State.

“You will discover that after he left office, the donations
fell. A lot of the large donors did not even show off after he left
office. If he had waited till after his tenure as president to
collect that money, maybe he couldn’t have collected 10 percent of
it.

“So, he acted smart by asking for donations while he was still
in office as president and got them. So, I don’t think anybody
should be talking about anybody running Obasanjo’s library. There
are lots of public libraries established. Go there today, many of
the roofs are leaking. Government should go and focus on that”, he
said.

When contacted, Obasanjo’s spokesman, Kehinde Akinyemi, said he
will give our correspondent the number of the managing director of
the library so as to speak on the issue but he couldn’t do so as at
the time of going to press.