FEMI FALANA
Lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) has reacted angrily to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement that he created 25 Nigerian billionaires during his administration
Obasanjo at the 2016 Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum while reacting to claim made by Africa’s richest woman, Mrs Folorunsho Alakija earlier at the forum that he cancelled an oil block deal she had with the federal government.
“For you to come here and say that, for no cause whatsoever, you were denied what was rightfully yours, is not fair. “I do not know you from Adam and there is no reason I would have denied you what rightfully belonged to you. “So, you have struggled, and you have struck oil. God bless your heart.
“My delight is to be able to create Nigerian billionaire and I always say it that my aim, when I was in government was to create 50 Nigerian billionaires. “Unfortunately I failed. I created only 25 and Madam, you are one of them,” Obasanjo had said.
Speaking yesterday at a symposium organised by the Department of Political Science, University of Lagos, Falana lambasted Obasanjo over his comment.
He said, “despite the quest to know the rationale behind the fact that Africa is the richest continent, but yet it is the poorest, Obasanjo shamelessly expressed that he created 25 billionaires while he was in power.
“That statement would have been enough to impeach him if he were in power because the wealth of this nation is concentrated in the hands of the few.”
