The Presidency has reacted to the open letter released by ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, endorsing the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections in February. The reaction came through one of the spokespersons to the President of Nigeria, Garba Shehu.
Reacting to Obasanjo’s letter, Garba Shehu stated that the former head of state attacks leaders out of frustration. In a lengthy press release posted on his verified Twitter account, titled ‘Morally squalid Obasanjo attacks leaders out of frustration,’ Shehu highlighted four things he perceived about Obasanjo.
He wrote, “Former President Obasanjo is so well known to all that no one needs to describe who he is. But, four things we will like to say. One is that he will not stop attacking President Muhammadu Buhari because the former President won’t stop being jealous of anyone who beats him to a new record in the nation’s development process.”
Reeling out some of the achievements of his principal, Buhari, the president’s media aide tweeted, “President Buhari is ahead of Chief Obasanjo in all fields of national development and to do that is a cardinal sin to Obasanjo whose hallucinations tell him that he is the best 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 commissioning. Obasanjo laid the sod for the bridge in his first term as 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.
“Two, President Buhari had been bagging 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.”
Moreso, he noted that President Muhammadu Buhari has assured Nigerians of a free and fair election.
He said, “President Buhari has been stating and restating that he will supervise a better election than the one that brought him to the 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.”
Shehu further alleged that 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,” Shehu stated.
He added that the former president deployed federal machinery to remove governors Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja, Peter Obi, Chris Ngige and Ayo Fayose from office, who were the then governors of Plateau, Oyo, Anambra, Anambra and Ekiti, respectively.