The Presidency on Monday reacted to the New Year open letter released by former President Olusegun Obasanjo wherein he formally endorsed the Labour Party Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi for president.
President Obasanjo, who in the said letter, had told Nigerian youths that the forthcoming presidential election ‘is their turn to take their destiny in their hands by voting for Mr. Obi’, also made negative remarks about the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Reacting to the former President’s description of Nigerians living in hell under Buhari , the Presidency described Chief Obasanjo as a frustrated person ,who is morally dirty and not qualified to criticize the Buhari administration.
A statement issued by Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said:
‘As we said sometime back, Mr. Obasanjo’s tenure, 1999-2007, represented the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to a slew of assaults on the constitution.
One is that the former President will not stop attacking President Muhammadu Buhari because he won’t stop being jealous of anyone who beats him to a new record in the nation’s development process.
President Buhari is ahead of Chief Obasanjo in all fields of national development and to do that is cardinal sin to Obasanjo whose hallucinations tell him that he is the best ever to lead Nigeria and there will never be another one better than him.
President Buhari just completed the world class edifice that is the Second Niger Bridge after three decades of failed promises. It is now awaiting inauguration.
Obasanjo laid the sod for the bridge in his first term as an elected President and work never started.
When he sought re-election for his second term in office, he returned to the site to turn the sod for the bridge the second time. When the Obi of Onitsha, forthright and scholarly, reminded him that he had done this in the past, Obasanjo told the foremost Southeast traditional ruler that he was a liar, in the full presence of the Chiefs and Oracles in his palace.
Obasanjo lied to the Southeast to get their votes. President Buhari didn’t get their votes but built the bridge because he believed it is the right thing to do’ the statement said.
The presidency also said the former President was frustrated because of the global recognition and accolades President Buhari has gotten especially, his insistence that the nation’s constitution should be respected as regard tenure of government.
‘Two, President Buhari had been receiving awards and encomiums for trying to do that which the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria says a leader should do: serve one, or a maximum of two terms and go.
President Buhari has been stating and restating that he will supervise a better election than the one that brought him to office and to leave as and when due.
Having tried tenure elongation and failed, Obasanjo’s fictitious mind must be telling him that he is the one under attack.
But he is not on President Buhari’s radar because experience has shown, especially lately in West Africa where there have been at least three successful coups and many other failed attempts, that third term or tenure elongation is a recipe for political instability.
Furthermore, the totality of African leaders appointed President Buhari the Anti-Corruption Champion of the continent.
You can’t be an anti-corruption champion if ‘you meddled and bent the rules’ , carrying the putrid responsibility of what happened to national assets in the name of privatization as documented by the Nigerian Senate in 2011.
As an insight, the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria, ALSCON, which was set up with $3.2 billion, was sold to a Russian firm, Russal, for a paltry $130million. Delta Steel, which was set up in 2005, at a cost of $1.5billion, was sold to Global Infrastructure for just $30million.
ALSCON got back $120million for the dredging of the Imo River, which was never carried out.
Three, which is linked to the one above is the growing profile of President Buhari as the Champion of Democracy not only at home and in the West African sub region but the African continent as whole.
As President, Obasanjo destabilized internal democracy by orchestrating impeachment after impeachment of governors who were not compliant with his highly imperial administration.
As we said sometime back, Mr. Obasanjo’s tenure, 1999-2007, represented the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to a slew of assaults on the constitution.
The former president deployed federal machinery to remove governors Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja, Peter Obi, Chris Ngige and Ayo Fayose from office. They were the then governors of Plateau, Oyo, Anambra, Anambra and Ekiti, respectively, unjustly removed using the police and secret service under his control’ the statement added.
In another development, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state has submitted that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo choosing to endorse Obi for president should be a cause for concern.
Speaking during the flag off of a road project in Emouha Local Government, Wike noted that a bad product ‘is always difficult to sell’, arguing that the former president ought to have recommended Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to Nigerians having worked with him, but Obasanjo rather chose to endorse Mr Peter Obi for president.
Obasanjo’s refusal to recommend Alhaji Atiku according to him showed that something must be fundamentally wrong.
The PDP presidential candidate should therefore be more concerned about the loss of confidence from his former boss, and the upcoming presidential election Team@orientactualmags.com Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980. Thank you
