Presidency replies Obasanjo, accuses him of jealousy, lying

The Nigerian presidency has said that sixteen-page letter the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari and released Sunday afternoon is the “last push by desperate politicians” who can’t handle the president politically and have resorted to subterfuge.

“Our first message to the former President is that he needs a good doctor for good treatment and to say to him, “get well soon”, the presidency said in a statement by spokesperson of Mr Buhari, Garba Shehu.

Mr Shehu said as repeatedly said of him, since he left office in 1979, Mr Obasanjo never let every succeeding leader of the country function freely, and that this “included the one he personally handpicked against all known rules drawn up by the party that put him in the office of the President”.

“But Chief Obasanjo is jealous because President Buhari has more esteem than him and the sooner he learns to respect him the better.
“It is a notorious fact that in dealing with any leader that he failed to control, he resorted to these puerile attacks.

“As the grand patron, more correctly the grandfather of corruption as described by the National Assembly, Chief Obasanjo released today’s letter purely for the reason of rescuing his thriving corruption establishment,” the statement said.

It also said the elections starting in February will be free and fair as promised the nation and the international community by Mr Buhari.

It said what Mr Obasanjo and his co-travellers in the PDP should expect is that from the outcome, “we will teach them a political lesson that they will never forget. This margin will be much bigger than we had in 2015”.

It said claims that Mr Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have embarked on the president’s “self- succession project, by recruiting collation officers who are already awarding results based on their projects to actualise the perpetuation agenda, in which the people will not matter and the votes will not count” is not only utterly false, but a copious note from the book on the failed third term agenda of Mr Obasanjo.

Mr Shehu said Mr Buhari, who has taken Nigeria’s reputation to a higher level internationally and is working hard to improve on the records of elections he found in place cannot descend to the level that Mr Obasanjo has himself sunk.

“As for his attacks of the administration’s records in fighting corruption, what the former President said is no more than evidence that President Buhari’s war against corruption is succeeding. They thought it is all a joke.