The youth wing of the
apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo , has warned
ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo over his reported remarks on President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Media reports had quoted
Obasanjo as saying that Jonathan shifted the election dates because he was
afraid of defeat and that perhaps the President had been listening to aides
telling him that he stands the risk of being jailed for corruption should the
opposition All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) wins the poll.
The former President
also alleged that Jonathan was engaging in “the do-or-die” politics played by
the former President of Cote d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo.
But the Ohanaeze Youth
Council warned Obasanjo to stop inciting Nigerians against the President, who,
according to the group, “has dwarfed the achievements of all former Nigerian
leaders.”
Speaking with Punch’s
correspondent in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, the National President of
OYC, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said “Obasanjo should stop fanning the
embers of war through his unguarded utterances against a sitting President.”
Isiguzoro accused
Obasanjo of plotting, in connivance with some undemocratic elements, to topple
Jonathan’s government through inciting comments, warning that any attempt to
derail Nigeria’s democracy would be resisted.
“Obasanjo is a
disappointment to democracy. He should not plunge Nigeria into another civil
war through his hate remarks against Jonathan,” he said.
Isiguzoro said Jonathan
had “by all standards proved to be a core democrat, otherwise the likes of
Obasanjo should be cooling his feet in the jail by now because of his evil
deeds while in office.”
The OYC leader said
corruption was institutionalised during Obasanjo’s administration and wondered
when the former President overnight turned into the vanguard of democracy.
He said, “Obasanjo
should know that he has expired politically and Nigerian youths cannot allow
him and other spent forces that belong to the past to ruin our future.
“Nigeria cannot buy his
belated and selfish idea of Interim National Government, and all those plotting
to put Nigeria backwards will be disappointed because the youths are now
wiser.”
Isiguzoro further
argued that “if anyone should be afraid of going to jail because of corruption
and illegality, it is Obasanjo who superintended over the destruction of Odi
town while he was in office.”
He said that President
Jonathan deserved the right to seek re-election and should not be deprived of
that right by “members of a self-serving cabal who think that Nigeria is their
private estate.”
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