Former Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo has been accused by President Muhammadu Buhari of of his administration representing the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy.
He also accused the former president of destabilizing Nigeria’s internal democracy during his tenure in office.
The accusation was contained in a statement released by Garba Shehu, the spokesman to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Part of the statement of the accusations termed Obasanjo’s administration as the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to his several attacks on Nigeria’s constitution.
Buhari’s accusation was in response to Obasanjo’s new year’s message to Nigerians, where he accused President Buhari’s government of lack of performance and being responsible for the dwindling economic and security situation in the country, resulting to widespread deaths, poverty and hardship.
Buhari refutes Obasanjo’s accusations against the current government and term his actions as “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.
“Moreover, he damned the Supreme Court and unlawfully held back Lagos State revenues due from federal sources on account of his pettiness against Governor Bola Tinubu.
“On the other hand, in Washington a few weeks ago, the US President Joe Biden at a meeting with African Heads of States and Government described President Buhari as a champion of democracy and role model for the leaders of African states.
“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.”
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.
“Obasanjo’s vengeful attitude towards President Buhari is the height of selfishness and little short of moral squalor.”
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was Nigeria’s democratically elected President from 1999 and 2007.
