The Presidency on Monday took a swipe at former President Olusegun Obasanjo for his latest attack on President Muhammadu Buhari.
Obasanjo had in an open letter on Sunday lamented that the last seven and a half years of President Buhari’s administration had “no doubt been eventful and stressful years for many Nigerians.
“We have moved from frying pan to fire and from mountain top to the valley. Our leaders have done their best, but their best had turned out to be not the best for Nigeria and Nigerians at home and abroad. For most Nigerians, it was hell on earth.”
Reacting, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement titled ‘Morally Squalid Obasanjo Attacks Leaders out of Frustration’, said the former president would not stop attacking President Buhari because of his jealousy of anyone who beat him to a new record in the nation’s development process.
“To say that ‘frying pan to fire’ is the situation in Nigeria at this time should be read to mean a personal experience to him and we know what that means.
“‘Hell’ for Obasanjo is when a President, any President that comes after him refuses to be his own puppet, to do as he wishes on all matters and at all times.
“He then keeps attacking out of frustration.
“Obasanjo’s vengeful attitude towards President Buhari is the height of selfishness and little short of moral squalor.”
He said President Buhari just completed the Second Niger Bridge after three decades of failed promises, recalling that Obasanjo laid the sod for the bridge in his first term as elected President and work never started.
He added, “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 presidential spokesman said having tried tenure elongation and failed, Obasanjo’s fictitious mind must be telling him that he was the one under attack when President Buhari restated that he would supervise a better election than the one that brought him to office and leave as and when due.
He added that as President, Obasanjo destabilised internal democracy by orchestrating impeachment after impeachment of governors who were not compliant with his highly imperial administration, adding that “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.”
In contrast, Shehu cited the growing profile of President Buhari as the Champion of Democracy not only at home and in the West African subregion but the African continent as a whole.
