Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has slammed President Muhammadu Buhari over worsening insecurity in Nigeria, saying his regime is respo...
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has slammed President
Muhammadu Buhari over worsening insecurity in Nigeria, saying his regime is
responsible for banditry and terrorism plaguing the country.
“And you talk about
security and people ask me about it and I say I know that we can put all
insecurity in Nigeria behind us within a space of two years,” said Mr Obasanjo
in Abeokuta. “That we have not done or that we are still in the situation is a
choice that has been made by our leaders, not the way God wants us to be.”
President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
of the All Progressives Congress vowed during their 2015 and 2019 presidential
campaigns that they would solve the security crisis that bedevilled
then-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Almost seven years in the saddle, insecurity has
deteriorated under Messrs Buhari and Osinbajo’s watch.
While receiving Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, a PDP presidential
aspirant, Mr Obasanjo agreed that the nation is “decomposing and dissolving”
under the present regime who has sunk it to new depths.
“I believe, like you (Hayatu-Deen) have rightly said, this
period is not like any other period in the history of Nigeria and you used two
words, decomposing and dissolving. I can’t find any better words to describe
the situation we have found ourselves (in),” said the erstwhile president.
He asserted that Nigeria could surmount its present economic
and security challenges if leaders were willing to make the right decisions.
“I want to emphasise the point that the Nigerian situation,
bad as it is, will only be put right by Nigerians at the forefront of our
situation. So, Nigerians have to brace themselves up to do what needs to be
done to put Nigeria back on the right path,” Mr Obasanjo explained.
Listing knowledge, vision, passion and innovation as
mandatory requisites for the next president, Mr Obasanjo admitted “Nigeria is a
complex country,” albeit “not a difficult country to rule or to manage.”
The ex-president reaffirmed his passion for Nigeria and
vowed to continue clamouring for good governance.
“And when you said
you are involved in this with a passion, and I was telling some people this
morning that passion means madness; that you are mad about Nigeria. I am and I
have no apologies for that, because I have no other country I can call my own
and I have no other country I can go to and say, yes, I have come to live
here,” Mr Obasanjo declared. “Passion means being mad about Nigeria, having a
touch of madness and I look at you (Hayatu-Deen) and say, yes, you are mad
about Nigeria, too.”
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