I am constrained to issue this special statement at this time considering the situation of the country. Some of you may be asking, “what has brought about this special occasion of Obasanjo issuing a special statement?” You will be right to ask such a question. But there is a Yoruba saying that ‘when lice abound in your clothes, your fingernails will never be dried of blood.
This is an excerpt from former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter to President Buhari where he clearly told the latter not to re-contest in 2019.
Obasanjo scored the Buhari administration low on economy, security and the anti-corruption war. He also accused Buhari of ‘condoning corruption’, nepotism and ‘inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotic court’.
Such scathing attack on a sitting president is not new to Obasanjo. In 2013, during the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, he criticized the sitting president in an open eighteen-page letter entitled ‘Before its too late’. Though the letter caused a huge setback to President Jonathan’s re-election bid, that didn’t stop the two former presidents to bond and relate as elder statesmen they are.
Just a few days after Obasanjo’s letter was widely circulated, Obasanjo and Buhari were seen in the company of Abdusalami Abubakar exchanging banters at the summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa.
What should we learn from all this?
That event should be a wake-up for citizens who idolize politicians and are ready to tear each other apart in defense of their ‘political gods’. It is a pity that citizens, especially the youths have become a willing tool of violence in the hands of politicians to perpetuate their selfish interest.
We need to have this at the back of our minds before risking our lives for any politician that there are no permanent enemies in politics, only permanent interests. Citizens shine your eye. Be wise!!!