Olu Ojedokun    NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND    April 01, 2008

Dear Sir, I am extremely concerned that an article I wrote has been wrongly attributed to Prince Dickson, please can this be rectified and reflected that OLU OJEDOKUN, Ph.D. is the author of the article: In Defence of General Obasanjo.

Thank you.

Olu Ojedokun, LL.B, B.L., M.A., Ph.D.

Admin Note: Credits to the author (you) were included at the end of the article. The article was submitted by Mr. Dickson through his account and our system stores it that way.

In order to rectify this you will need to register an account as an author or send us an email address to enquiries (at) ngexmail.com

Osondu Onoh    Maryland, 20910, USA    March 25, 2008

Mr Dickson;Just as you intelligently stated in the content of your articule, it was not just a near suicidal misson but an absolute extingtion of your good attributes to defend OBJ.

Besides your poor analysis of Dr. Abati's opinion on the on going investigation of energy contracts, you have failed to convince me that OBJ is the contrary to every insinuations about his obvious involvement in corruption during his unfortunate years at the realm of power.

You rightfully called him the General, because it would be outragous to have called him "a democrat". It is unfortunate that you would criticise the Nigerian press for not doing enough under investigative journalism, making noncomparable reference to the US "watergate" scandal which was rightfully investigate and revealed by the press.

But let us draw a quick reflection on the records of your "General" with the press during his recently expired eight year rule. What did Obasanjo do with the "freedom of information bill" aimed at protecting investigative journalism? Can a journalist be protected by any court in Nigeria from revealing his source just as the Americans concealed and successfully withheld the identity of the so called "Deep throat", without any need for defiance to the authority?

I admirer your writing skills, very creative and interesting, however I completely detest your unnecessary obsesion with polemism and outragous comments. Attacking Dr. Abati is just one of the cheap games you and other "OBJ boys" know how best to play.

I also read Dr. Abati's articule where he couragously defended his opinion about the presumptious government's involvement in some kind of corrupt practices. It is not new for a journalist to suggest or predict a possible outcome of a notorious situation or scandal like the one presently under investigation in the house.

If you have known and admirered Dr. Abati, you would also know that he is not opinionated. Goodluck in your job as solicitor or whatever in the supreme court, enjoy the "lobby" on the despicable general.

OMOTAYO, J. A.    Lagos, NIGERIA    March 24, 2008

Thanks Mr. Dickson for bearing your mind on the work of Mr. Abati. But is there anything wrong in drawing an inference or a conclusion on an issue? I think otherwise. It is part and parcel of journalism to make inferences and draw conclusions. Otherwise the whole exercise becomes mere story telling, thereby losing almost all its values: excitement, education, entertainment, moral cleansing, etc.

You may be right that mistakes have been made to mention Gbenga as first child instead of second, third, fourth, etc as the case may be. This type of mistake is minor. Gbenga is still one of the children of Obasanjo. It would have been a major mistake to name Gbenga as a first child when in fact he was not among Obasanjo's children.

God bless Nigeria.

O. Sowande    lagos, Nigeria    March 24, 2008

Thanks Mr. Dickson for a wonderful write up. All what you wrote are exactly what i tell people whenever an opportunity comes. I saw parts of the on-going investigation on power supply, and you could not but observe that the panel and some of the people being investigated knew next to nothing on why they were there.

How could a member of the house accuse a past minister for not checking for contractor's registration. Projects that I knew were completed were still declared as outstanding. As someone who was actively involved on some aspects of the project, I daresay that in the history of this country, nobody and I mean nobody has ever tried to improve on the power problem in Nigeria as much as Obasanjo did. He actually declared the national emergency on power. We worked like mad on the sites, because it was like he had a cctv on all the sites. It is rather unfortunate that some where down the line, the efforts were being thwarted. If the press in Nigeria practice investigative journalism, some journalist would have investigated sabotage theories. All we hear is classroom analysis.

Have you realised that any time some issues on Obasanjo comes up, they die down, because nothing is ever substantiated. In trying to nail the president, real issues are left to degenerate. Lets assume for one minute that Obasanjo is bad news, can we leave him alone and concentrate on how Nigeria can move forward.

I wish they could put Dr. abati in a position of authority lets see what he will do.