Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday warned against
handing over the reins of government to the military.
Obasanjo said the speculation that the
government was planning an Interim Government had been substituted by
speculations that President Goodluck Jonathan was plotting to hand over
to the military. He said that doing so would undermine the integrity of
the country.
The ex-President, while hosting Aisha
Buhari, wife of the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate,
Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, said, “I do hope we will get things more
right. A lot of rumours are flying around; I think we have gone away
from the rumour of Interim Government because that is not in our
constitution.
“I hope we will soon go away from the
rumour of handing over to the military because the military is not meant
to run the affairs of a nation in terms of running government.”
Obasanjo, who said that he was happy
that the country had gone beyond the Interim Government rumour, added
that he hoped the nation would also survive the rumour of handing over
to the military.
He said, “The international community
will not condone it, particularly the African Union where we have a
situation, we have said and it is part and parcel of the constituting
Act of the African Union. Any government that is brought about not on
the basis of the constitution will not be accepted; will not be
tolerated and will not be a member of the AU until that government is
dismantled.
“It shouldn’t be. We are the largest
country in Africa; we should be a model, setting examples, we shouldn’t
be drawing Africa backwards. I hope we will not. I hope at the end of
this exercise, we would be where we should be, leading Africa and
showing examples for the rest of Africa and indeed the rest of the
world.
“We have the goodwill of many people. I
watched last night, President (Barack) Obama talking about our
constitution; I watched our Brother from Ghana, the current Chairman of
ECOWAS talking about our constitution. They are all interested, they all
wish us well; should we wish ourselves anything less?”
Recently, the former President had
warned the current administration not to plunge this country into chaos
by following the footsteps of the former President of Cote d’lvoire,
Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to hand over to the winner of the
presidential election in his country.
Obasanjo also bemoaned hate campaigns
among politicians, advising that they should focus more on what united
the country as opposed to what divided the country.
According to him, for anyone who is
interested in the future of this country, issues of insecurity, economy
and unemployment, among others, should form the focus of political
campaigns.
He said, “Unfortunately, issues that
should have been the main item of our campaign, they did not. We have
serious issues of security, we have serious issue of our economy, we
have issue of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, we have
serious issues of infrastructure.
“These are issues among others that I
believe campaign of those who are interested in the present and the
future of this country should be directed at.
“How are we going to get them and what
are we going to do? Not trivial issues of certificate or no certificate,
not trivial issues of somebody talking about someone is a Nigerian and
not a Nigerian.
“I said it, this is what they had in
Cote d’Ivoire and led them into almost a very serious problem, not issue
of religion, not issue of tribe, not issue of section but issues of
unity of this country and the hate campaigns that we have embarked upon
now, I hope this will be the last time in the history of this country
that we will have this type of campaign of hatred or division.”
Obasanjo commended Buhari’s wife, stressing that women had a role to play in politics and enthronement of good governance.
Source:Punch Newspaper.
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