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Don't think of contesting in 2019 - Obasanjo tells President Buhari

Nigeria's former president - Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on 23rd Jan, advised PMB - President Muhammadu Buhari against being re-elected come 2019 election because he is under pressure to do so.

In a statement; The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement, Obasanjo said President Buhari has performed far below expectation just as he added that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is not the solution to the country's challenges.

According to Premium, Obasanjo as asked Buhari to honourably dismount from the horse and join the league of former leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country. 

Obasanjo said he was not excited with the way Buhari, who he supported during the 2015 general elections against Goodluck Jonathan, had handled the country. 

He said even Jonathan had come to realise that he made some mistakes and had publicly regretted them. 

“Even the horse rider then, with whom I maintain very cordial, happy and social relationship today has come to realise his mistakes and regretted it publicly and I admire his courage and forthrightness in this regard."

“He has a role to play on the side line for the good of Nigeria, Africa and humanity and I will see him as a partner in playing such a role nationally and internationally, but not as a horse rider in Nigeria again".

 “The lice of poor performance in government - poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of duty, condonation of misdeed - if not outright encouragement of it, lack of progress and hope for the future, lack of national cohesion and poor management of internal political dynamics and widening inequality – are very much with us today. “With such lice of general and specific poor performance and crying poverty with us, our fingers will not be dry of ‘blood’,” Obasanjo said in the letter.

Obasanjo thanked Buhari for the contribution of his administration in dissimating the Boko Haram insurgency and tackling corruption, but added that the current president has ultimately failed in other areas where he had thought he would be efficient. Obasanjo admitted that he actually supported Buhari even though he knew the latter was was weak in handling the economy, but decided on him because the option was to have Jonathan out of the seat of power. He said it was lamentable that Buhari had turned a blind eye to issues of corruption within his government calling it a cover-up. He also blamed Buhari for allowing the clashes between herdsmen and farmers go out of hand. 

He also slammed governors who endorsed Buhari for a second term barely 24 hours after 73 people who were killed by herdsmen in Benue state were given mass burial. “But there are three other areas where President Buhari has come out more glaringly than most of us thought we knew about him. One is nepotic deployment bordering on clannishness and inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotic court. "This has grave consequences on performance of his government to the detriment of the nation. It would appear that national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest. "What does one make of a case like that of Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action? "How many similar cases are buried, ignored or covered up and not yet in the glare of the media and the public? “The second is his poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics. 

This has led to wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided and inequality has widened and become more pronounced. It also has effect on general national security. For instance, blaming the governor of the Central Bank for devaluation of the naira by 70% or so and blaming past governments for it, is to say the least, not accepting one’s own responsibility. Let nobody deceive us, economy feeds on politics and because our politics is depressing, our economy is even more depressing today. If things were good, President Buhari would not need to come in. He was voted to fix things that were bad and not engage in the blame game.” He continued: “President Buhari needs a dignified and honourable dismount from the horse. He needs to have time to reflect, refurbish physically and recoup and after appropriate rest, once again, join the stock of Nigerian leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the side line for the good of the country. Read more: