2019: Don’t seek re-election, Obasanjo tells Buhari

Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has told President Muhammadu Buhari not to stand for re-election next year.

ROYAL NEWS learnt that this is contained in a blistering and excoriating 13-page statement released on Tuesday entitled, “The Watch Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement”.

The ex-president made it clear that Buhari has performed far below expectation and should honourably “dismount from the horse” to join the league of the country’s former leaders whose “experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the sideline for the good of the country.”

He wrote: “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’,” he added.

Obasanjo admitted that he is disappointed by Buhari, whom he supported during the 2015 election over Goodluck Jonathan and also explained why he stood against the incumbent three years ago.

“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,” Obasanjo said.