FORMER Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has
accused incumbent President Muhammadu
Buhari of planning to frame him up.
Mr Obasanjo made the allegation on Friday in a statement signed
by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi.
Akinyemi dispatched the statements to journalists in Abeokuta, the
Ogun state capital.
The former president quoting his anonymous sources said his
name was on the Watch List of Buhari’s administration.
Obasanjo said the security of his life cannot be guaranteed with
the government’s latest move against him.
Obasanjo raising the alarm said since his State-of-the-Nation
Special Statement on January 23, 2018, “the Federal Government
had embarked on desperate efforts to frustrate, intimidate and
blackmail him into abandoning what he termed ‘divine mandate to
protect the rights of the people to better life and living’”.
The former Nigerian leader had urged the president not to seek a
second term in office, citing underperformance. His advise has
been waved away by Mr Buhari who has declared his intention to
run in the 2019 election.
Mr Buhari recently accused Obasanjo of frittering away $16 billion
on phoney electricity projects. Mr Obasanjo dismissed the claim
saying the president was ignorant.
READ OBASANJO’S STATEMENT BELOW:
“Since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo declared in his State-of-the-
Nation Special Statement on January 23, 2018, the desperation to
frustrate, intimidate and blackmail him into abandoning his divine
mandate to protect the rights of the people to better life and living
continued unabated and has even taken a bizarre dimension.
“Impeccable security sources have alleged Chief Obasanjo’s name
is on their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be
guaranteed.
“According to these informants, many of who are in the top
echelon of the Nation’s security management and close to the
corridors of power, the operatives are daily perfecting how to
curtail the personal liberties of the former President and hang a
crime on him.
“Ordinarily, we would not have dignified these reports with a
response but for the fact that many of these informants are not
known for flippant and frivolous talks. Secondly, this Government
has demonstrably exhibited apathy, and in some cases,
encouraged by its conduct, daily loss of lives and property in
many States of the country, the office cannot be indifferent.
“We are currently in a nation where the Number Three citizen is
currently being harangued and the Number Four citizen is facing
similar threat within the same Government they serve. There is a
groundswell of our nationals that live in fear that they could be
hounded, harassed, maimed or even killed as the battle for 2019
takes this worrisome dimension.
“For Chief Obasanjo, this is a joke carried too far and being
someone who do not act on unofficial information, he had
cautioned all informants and adopted a wait-and-see attitude to
the bestial propositions allegedly being contemplated to cow, cage
and embarrass him.
“The content of the alleged beastly designs, it was learnt are two-
fold for now. One, to seize his International Passport and clamp
him into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further
expressing angst on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of
governance, economic management and in the protection of lives
and property by the Government. But, since that could expose the
Government to a swath of international condemnation,
embarrassment and outrage, it is said that another plot being
hatched is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) to re-open investigation into the activities of
Chief Obasanjo’s administration using false witnesses and
documents. This will be a re- enactment of the Abacha era in
which Chief Obasanjo was one of the principal victims.
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