You destabilized Nigeria’s democracy, Presidency attacks Obasanjo

Tamarauemi Ebimini

Nigerian Presidency on Monday accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of destabilizing the country’s internal democracy while in office between 1999 and 2007.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman Garba Shehu in a statement said Obasanjo’s administration “represented the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to a slew of assaults on the constitution.”

The Presidency’s attack on Obasanjo was preceded by the former president’s address to Nigerians in the new year.

Obasanjo described Buhari’s tenure as president from 2015 to December 2022 as “seven and half of stressful years” and “hell on earth” for Nigerians.

Shehu, Buhari’s spokesman however disagreed with the former Nigerian president and said the criticism against the current government was borne out of “jealousy” of being beaten to “a new record in the nation’s development process.”

“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,” Shehu said.

The presidential spokesman recalled the impeachment of some governors during Obasanjo’s tenure and claimed that the former president “deployed federal machinery” to remove elected state executives like Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja, Peter Obi, Chris Ngige and Ayo Fayose from office. They were the then governors of Plateau, Oyo, Anambra, Anambra and Ekiti, respectively, “unjustly removed using the police.

He said Buhari’s promise of completing the Second Niger Bridge and its fulfillment makes one of the differences between the current president and Obasanjo who “lied to the Southeast to get their votes.”

Shehu said Obasanjo laid the sod for the bridge in his first term as elected President and work never started till he left office in 2007.