Obasanjo Again: Says, “Jonathan’s involved in Do or Die politics; he has a hidden agenda.”

''Obasanjo’s tirade on Jonathan has taken a racial undertone. Last week, I wrote about the constant barrage of attacks on the President by Obasanjo, now it seems, there’s no stopping Obasanjo. He now says Jonathan’s from a minority tribe''. Who will Stop Obasanjo?

Obasanjo, who in the last few weeks has increased his unrelenting attacks on President Jonathan, said in Ota yesterday, that Jonathan is involved in ‘do-or-die politics’. He compared Jonathan to former President of Cote d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo. According to the former President, the Buhari Certificate brouhaha was a grand plan by Jonathan and his men to discredit and disqualify him from contesting the election.
Speaking to newsmen at his Hilltop Mansion in Abeokuta, Obasanjo said:-
“I was away because I had a number of assignments abroad which took me to Morocco, Munich, Nairobi, London and New Delhi. Exactly a week today, we were in Munich for what they called `Munich security conference’ and all people who are in security community, normally, you found them there.
For this year, the Vice President of America was there, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, was there, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany was there, President of Ukraine was there and many othersI was there with Koffi Annan. Our side was to talk about peace and security in Africa. I was to handle the African perspective while Koffi Annan was to look at it from the global perspective.
And suddenly people started asking me questions about what was happening in my country:; Americans, British, Germans and every other person. Koffi Annan was particularly agitated. “While I was out, I refused to make any categorical statement on this issue because I wanted to come back home and learn, first hand, what actually transpired and what was going on. And it turned out to be a forced decision on the INEC because it was alleged that the Security Chiefs were unable to provide security and, as a result, the Chairman of INEC had to postpone, in accordance with the dictates of the so called Security Chiefs.
I thought that was bad precedent for democracy in Nigeria, it meant it doesn’t matter what preparation or lack of preparation any electoral body could make in Nigeria, the final decision whether election will take place on the day scheduled for it lies in the domains of the security, it is a sad day for democracy in Nigeria.
“And I will say this. We must all feel concerned before democracy is killed. The observable and what would appear to be happening is that the President has a grand plan, a grand plan to ensure that, by hook or crook, he wins the election or if it all fails, they scuttles it and create chaos, confusion and unpleasantness in the whole country”.
According to him, it is the duty of the security officers to provide security. “The President is the Chief Security Officer of the country and he is the Commander-in-Chief and if security is required anywhere any time, it is his duty to provide it, failure to provide it is dereliction of duty, pure and simple”.
What again it looks to me is that the President is trying to play Gbagbo. Gbagbo was the President of Cote d’Ivoire and Gbagbo made sure he postponed the election in his country until he was sure he would win and then allowed the election to take place. He got an inconclusive election in the first ballot and I believe this is the sort of thing Nigeria may fall into if I am right in what I observed as the grand plan and then, in the run-off, Gbgbo lost with 8% behind Ouattara and then refused to hand over. All reasonable persuasion and pleading was rebuffed by him and he unleashed horror in that country until nemesis caught up with him”.
I believe that we may be seeing the repeat of Gbagbo or what I call the Gbagbo saga here in Nigeria. I hope I am wrong.
“I believe the President’s concern of fear is not to live out of office per se, because he and I have occasions to talk about this both seriously and jovially. I believe the President would want an opportunity to disengage peacefully and have a nice, decent and a glorious exit, I believe the President’s fear is, particularly, motivated by the person he sees as his likely successor, that is General Buhari.
I believe people would have been telling him that Buhari is a hard man, he would fight corruption and you may end up in jail if not in grave. I believe people must have told him all sorts of things and he is not the only one, there are other people who may be afraid of Buhari, but, why? I would say that Buhari has learnt lessons; if he hasn’t learnt lessons, then he would be probably be the most unlearning human being.
If he has learnt lessons, he would know that you do not fight corruption by putting people in jail for 200 years and this has been done by my own predecessor in office, General Abdulsalam Abubakar; he recovered over $750 million from Abacha’s estate without putting anybody in jail, without hurting or harming anybody. When I took over, we recovered over $1.25 billion from the same Abacha estate without hurting anybody, without harming anybody and, in fact, what would be rather unfortunate is the fact that our lawyer, who is still alive, able, who was chasing this money all over the world, said to us that there’s still about $1 billion to be recovered from Abacha estate but the unfortunate thing is that my successor did not do anything about it even though it was in my handing over note.
While speaking on the role of the Security Chiefs on the postponement of the elections, Obasanjo said: “That is what I said; it was strange to me; it wasn’t the duty and responsibility of Security Chiefs and Service Chiefs to tell INEC, ‘we are not in the position to provide security for you’ because it is their job. When they have failed, they can as well go home, their job is to maitain law and order and provide security at any time, at any place, they said they could not do it, they have failed”.
The President and Boko Haram.
“You can give any excuse or you can rationalise anything. Boko Haram has been with us since 2009 and now if we said what we have not been able to achieve since 2009 would be achieved in six weeks, all I would say is that God is a God of miracle. God can do anything”. –
Speaking on Jega, Obasanjo said:-
“I believe that after Jega has been boxed to a corner, he had no choice but to accept the fait accompli and postponed the election. And I believe that like I have said before, it is unfortunate because in the past, this same Jega had changed the date of election when he found it that it was not suitable. So it is the duty, responsibility, function and jurisdiction of INEC to determine whether the situation allows or does not allow them to go on with the election. Nobody should either twist their arms, blackmail them or force them”.-Obasanjo said.

Obasanjo Again: Says, “Jonathan’s involved in Do or Die politics; he has a hidden agenda.”