babangida

Publisher of  Saharareporters.com, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, has told Againstbabangida.com the Obasanjo administration is jittery because the Andy Uba scandal, 'Ubagate', has exposed its hypocrisy on corruption, adding that Nigerians now need to donate towards buying General Ibrahim Babangida his future prison uniforms.

Sowore, whose web site had been brought down ostensibly through subterranean moves by Obasanjo's agents in America,  said at the right time, the problem would be reported to appropriate United States Government agencies.

He had no reason to belief things are going in the right direction in Nigeria, especially with the entry of former dictator, Ibrahim Babangida into the race. To him, Babangida's participation in the electoral process is the height of insult to which Nigerians are being subjected by the Obasanjo administration. " His declared run for office will not delay his day of judgment, you folks at AgainstBabangida.com should not forget to raise money for IBB's prison uniforms."

Here is the full interview with Tunde Odediran, a coordinator of this web site:

Have you had any contacts with any representative of President Obasanjo or his administration regarding this shut down?
Since his first attempt at us was through his so-called "International Counsel/Lawyer on Personal Issues" we have only retained a lawyer to lawyer contact with Obasanjo. 

Why are you so sure it has to do with the government in Nigeria? Could it not have been that the story drove too much traffic to your site?

We sought clarifications from the host company as to why there was a sudden shut down, but nothing concrete or structured came in terms of response, they only alerted us belatedly that our website was 'abusing' the server upon which it was co-located and they had to shut us down and out, no mention was made about traffic or overuse of bandwidth. And in looking back at our daily webstats, we did not notice any significant margin between the days we published the Andy Uba's story and the day of the shut down, but we were certain that going by the tone of Obasanjo's letter to us, the utterances of his aides in the local media in Nigeria, Akin Osuntokun actually referred to our publication as a "tendencious source (s)" when first confronted with the story, there was no doubt that we were being targetted in more ways than just the legal threat that preceded all of these. This was also the second time we will be shut down since the Andy Uba story broke

Did your hosting company give you statistics of site usage - as would be expected - to back up the claim that you overshot their resources?
We have transcripts of our communications with them, and the only request they made of us was to 'modify' our website, as they claim again and again that our site was using the "CPU at 100%" leading to all other websites so co-located on the same server "inoperable". We had to petition the CEO of the company to actually know why they suddenly breached our contract by interrupting our services for close to 20 hours, we are yet to get any concrete reply from them, but our site is back up now!

Have you reported the hosting company to any US government agency or consumer group?
 We will do so, as soon as we exhaust their internal mechanisms for seeking redress, in this case, hearing back from their CEO

Are you going to seek compensation from the hosting company for their action?
The most bizarre reason for all of these is that we were not warned in advance that they had problems with our website, and that is certainly grounds for seeking compensation.

Coming back to the issue that caused this problem, why do you think the Obasanjo people are so touchy on this, since you have done a lot of similar stories in the past?

We know that the revelations contained in the sworn affidavit first published on our site at Saharareporters put paid to the pretence and hypocrisy of the Obasanjo's regime on the question of his  so-called "war against corruption" it also puts a lie to the carefully deceptive banking reforms carried out in Nigeria, as you can imagine, if the president of Nigeria doesn't trust his 'reformed' banks to transfer and transmit cash to other parts of the world to the extent that he turns the presidential jet to a reverse WESTERN UNION money transfer, then who will?
Finally, it has revalidated the well known public suspicion that the presidency is the most corrupt dept of government in Nigeria, and above all the anti-corruption crusade was a facade and truly selective. After the Andy Uba story broke, the LA TIMES did a stinker of an editorial on Obasanjo saying that he is a savior as well as a menace to the Nigerian society -being a savior, I don't agree, but he is certainly a menace to our society.

What is your take on the political developments in Nigeria - including Babangida, 2007 election, Atiku, among others? What is your expectation come 2007?
Nothing in my life time had been more insulting than the intention of Babangida contemplating return to power. I had thought that by now, Babangida would be in a lockdown, jailed for life for his crimes against the local Nigerian and wider African humanity, but I also do not have much doubt, that he (IBB) is currently mobilizing for his public defeat and final humiliation and ultimately his judgment day in the hands of the people of the country he loves to abuse. His declared run for office will not delay his day of judgment, you folks at AgainstBabangida.com should not forget to raise money for IBB's prison uniforms...
On the question of 2007, I do not have any illusions that the period will bring any magic to Nigeria, as i often preach openly, only a revolution will save Nigeria, I don't care if the revolution is color-coded or not, I just hope it happpens so fast that it is not be televised. The signs are written all over that the electoral process, it can only produce another crook for Nigeria.

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