Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in a 13 page epistle has asked President Muhammadu Buhari not to seek re-election in 2019. In a press statement tit
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in a 13 page epistle has asked President Muhammadu Buhari not to seek re-election in 2019. In a press statement titled, ‘The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement’ Olusegun Obasanjo said Buhari has performed far below expectation and should honourably “dismount from the horse” to join the league of the country’s former leaders whose “experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country.”
Olusegun Obasanjo, a former two-term president on the platform of People Democratic Party (PDP), said he feels disappointed by Mr Buhari, whom he supported during the 2015 election over then incumbent and candidate of his former party, Goodluck Jonathan. Obasanjo had written a condemnatory open letter in December 2013 titled ‘Before it is Too Late’ where he highlighted the numerous failings of the Jonathan administration, adding that former president Goodluck Jonathan has since come to realise his mistakes and regretted it publicly.
Likening the state of the nation to lice-invested clothes, he said the country’s fingernails is stained with blood as it tries to kill the lice by pressing them in-between two fingernails. According to him, in other to make sure that our fingernails remains blood-free we must do what it takes rid our clothes of lice.
“The lice of poor performance in government poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of duty, condonation of misdeed if not outright encouragement of it, lack of progress and hope for the future, lack of national cohesion and poor management of internal political dynamics and widening inequality are very much with us today. With such lice of general and specific poor performance and crying poverty with us, our fingers will not be dry of ‘blood’,” he said.
While thanking Buhari for the effort of his administration in rolling back the Boko Haram insurgency and his fight against corruption, Olusegun Obasanjo said Buhari has ultimately failed in other areas where he had thought he would be efficient. He admitted he knew Buhari was weak in handling the economy, he went ahead and voted for him because at the time “it was a matter of ‘any option but Jonathan’” and because he thought Buhari would appoint qualified Nigerians to help out in that area. He slammed Buhari for turning a blind eye to corruption within his government saying it amounted to condoning and cover-up saying whoever is “going to justice must be with clean hands.”
He also berated Buhari for allowing the clashes between herdsmen and farmers to go sour and messy saying the endorsement of the President by some governors to seek re-election barely 24 hours after 73 people who were killed by herdsmen in Benue State were given mass burial was a sad symptom of insensitivity and callousness. Olusegun Obasanjo reserved his harshest words for what he described as Buhari’s clannishness, lack of understanding of the dynamics of politics, and his tendencies to pass the buck of his government’s inadequacies to the immediate past administration.
“But there are three other areas where President Buhari has come out more glaringly than most of us thought we knew about him. One is nepotic deployment bordering on clannishness and inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotic court. This has grave consequences on performance of his government to the detriment of the nation. It would appear that national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest. What does one make of a case like that of Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action? How many similar cases are buried, ignored or covered up and not yet in the glare of the media and the public?
“The second is his poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics. This has led to wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided and inequality has widened and become more pronounced. It also has effect on general national security. The third is passing the buck. For instance, blaming the Governor of the Central Bank for devaluation of the naira by 70% or so and blaming past governments for it, is to say the least, not accepting one’s own responsibility. Let nobody deceive us, economy feeds on politics and because our politics is depressing, our economy is even more depressing today. If things were good, Buhari would not need to come in. He was voted to fix things that were bad and not engage in the blame game. Buhari and the APC do not have the answer.”
Olusegun Obasanjo thus argued that neither Buhari nor his party, the All Progressives Congress hold the solution to the country’s problems. He suggested that Buhari was not healthy enough to withstand the rigour associated with running a country like Nigeria neither does his party have the capability to providing the answer needed to sail the country through its difficulties. Obasanjo said Buhari should step down at the end of his first term with honour and dignity and attend to his health and should not listen to the his self-serving so-called advisers who would claim that they love him more than God loves him and that without him, there would be no Nigeria.
“Buhari needs a dignified and honourable dismount from the horse. He needs to have time to reflect, refurbish physically and recoup and after appropriate rest, once again, join the stock of Nigerian leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country. His place in history is already assured. Without impaired health and strain of age, running the affairs of Nigeria is a 25/7 affair, not 24/7. I only appeal to brother Buhari to consider a deserved rest at this point in time and at this age. I continue to wish him robust health to enjoy his retirement from active public service. President Buhari does not necessarily need to heed my advice. But whether or not he heeds it, Nigeria needs to move on and move forward.
