Obasanjo Warns against Handover to Military

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo Tueday warned the President Goodluck Jonathan-led government against handing over to the military, saying  he was happy that Nigeria had gone beyond the rumour of an Interim National Government (ING).Obasanjo stressed that military intervention would undermine the integrity of Nigeria among comity of nations.

The former president, who spoke while welcoming wife of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, explained that the intentional community, especially the African Union, would not accommodate or recognise any government that emerges without the constitution of the country.
“Nigeria has all it takes to dictate pace for other countries in Africa adding that Nigerians should blame themselves for where it is today,” he said.

Speaking further, he 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.

“And the international community will not condone it, particularly AU where we have a situation, we have said and it is part and parcel of the constituting act of AU, 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 backward, 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 Brack Obama talking about our constitution, I watched our brother from Ghana, the current Chairman of ECOWAS talk about our constitution, they are all interested, they all wish us well, should we wish ourselves anything less?”

According to him, for anyone who is interested in the future of this country, issues of insecurity, economy, employment, among others should form the focus of the campaigns of political parties.

He, however, called on women to take active role in a better Nigeria, adding that they would be the greatest victim should anything go wrong in Nigeria.

Obasanjo said: “I am happy to hear directly from you, Mrs. Buhari,  that the campaign so far, from the assessment has gone very well. May be I should say one or two things about campaign, I do hope that whatever happens at the elections, the one coming this week and the one coming couple of weeks after that, would have taught the right lessons from what has taken place this time around.

“Unfortunately, issues that should have been the main items of our campaign, were not taken seriously. 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 the 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, what are we going to do, not trivial issues of certificate, no certificate, not trivial issues of when somebody are talking about someone is a Nigerian and not a Nigerian.

“I said it, this is what they had in Cote d’ Ivore and it 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 campaign 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.”.