Obasanjo keeps attacking Buhari out of frustration, jealousy – Presidency

The Muhammadu Buhari presidency has replied former President Olusegun Obasanjo over his New Year letter to Nigerians where he decried that Nigeria is going from fry pan to fire under the current administration.

The Buhari government noted that the reason why Obasanjo was full of jealousy and attacked Buhari out of frustration was because he (Obasanjo) was displeased that his records had been surpassed and to him, he (Obasanjo) remained Nigeria’s best leader.  

Obasanjo, who was in charge of the country between 1999 and 2007, had in the letter in which he endorsed Peter Obi of the Labour Party for the 2023 presidential election, chided the administration of Buhari, accusing him of promoting nepotism and division along the country’s fault lines.

“I was pained that most of them do not realise that the Nigeria of today had been dragged down well below Nigeria of the beginning of my Presidency in June 1999.

“Although at that time, Nigeria was in very bad shape and was tottering on the verge of collapse and break-up. Even then, Nigeria was not faced with the level of pervasive and mind-numbing insecurity, rudderless leadership, buoyed by mismanagement of diversity and pervasive corruption, bad economic policies resulting in extremes of poverty and massive unemployment and galloping inflation…”

He added, “I pray not to be proved right again in the bad sense but rather to be proved right in the positive and glorious sense of Nigeria becoming what God had created it to be – a land of plenty and prosperity united for common purpose of inclusive society, common security, shared prosperity, equity, egalitarianism, justice, and equal stake in the Project Nigeria with leadership role of Nigeria for the black race and fair share of global division of labour.

“One ridiculous point that has been touted to justify unjustifiable appointments and selections is ‘competence’. In truth and in reality, genuine competence can be found in any region or section of Nigeria through track record and performance if only people will honestly and sincerely look hard for people with such attainment and attribute. Most of us in good conscience can testify to competence when we see any anywhere. What is masqueraded as ‘competence’ is self-interest and nepotism.

“We have a unique opportunity to correct ourselves by ourselves for the good of ourselves. Those who are preaching division, segregation, separation, and want to use diversity for their own self and selfish interest are enemies of the nation, no matter what else they may disguisedly profess or proclaim.”

Reacting in statement titled: “Morally Squalid Obasanjo Attacks Leaders Out Of Frustration,” the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said that Obasanjo was well known to all that no one needed to describe who he was.

Pointing on four things it considered as a point of reply, the Presidency said, “One is that he will not stop attacking President Muhammadu Buhari because the former President won’t stop being jealous of anyone who beats him to a new record in the nation’s development process.

“President Buhari is ahead of Chief Obasanjo in all fields of national development and to do that is cardinal sin to Obasanjo whose hallucinations tell him that he is the best ever to lead Nigeria and there will never be another one better than him.

“President Buhari just completed the world class edifice that is the Second Niger Bridge after three decades of failed promises. It is now awaiting commissioning.

“Obasanjo laid the sod for the bridge in his first term as elected President and work never started,” the statement read.