*We cannot join issues with Obasanjo, he has no new thing to say – Government
One of them said, “At least we continue to remember that Obasanjo started off his eight year’s administration of failure on slogan of ‘no longer business as usual’. How come the no longer working ‘corrupt business’ under Buhari administration is now a surprise to him? Obasanjo should tell us how businesses are not working under Buhari, what his findings about the cause are and what he could have done in that situation and we have experienced him before now and found out that left to him, he would have no solution better than Buhari has applied which has brought Nigeria out of recession that their corruption plunged it and has made the country strong and stronger now in the eyes of the globe. Is that why the former President is gathering Retired Christian Generals like TY Danjuma and corrupt PDP leaders who are calling Nigerians to arms conflicts against themselves so that they can collapse the country to prove a point that they hate President Muhammadu Buhari? They must be clamped down upon immediate, it is imperative government does that and heavens will not fall,” he said.
The presidency has said that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s failure tag on the current administration is not new.
Checks recent revealed that Obasanjo resorted to attacking Buhari and his government because the sitting President refused to hand over the control of nation’s economy to him.
“That is the reason Obasanjo suddenly turned against President Buhari and surprisingly began to be found with people he had, in the buildup to 2015 election, publicly attacked in support of the President under unregistered groups he spearheads with his Coalition of Nigerians Movement (CNM). He has got more reasons for doing all of these and the fear of how the ongoing anti-corruption fight will affect his ugly past is among,” a Respondent who chose to speak under condition of anonymity told The DEFENDER.
He continued that, “For Obasanjo to continue to shamelessly rain attacks branding Buhari as failure even doing that along the shameful denials by looters like Femi Fani-Kayode, Uche Secondus, Olisa Metuh, who are threatening hell against the Federal Government to remove their names from looters’ list or they take action, it shows that the former President has lost his credibility not only in Nigeria, Africa but also in the eyes of the world. This is because the world all over are watching the situation in Nigeria and they now know the hypocrisy of people who, instead of answering the summons of police to defend themselves against allegations of arms supply to criminals and coughing out the monies they have looted from the nation’s treasury, are crying to the International Communities to save them from Buhari,” he said.
In his own reaction, which it had avoided to do before now, the Presidency said, against Obasanjo’s branding of the sitting government as failure, that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari does not see anything new in the now repeated regular negative comments about it and that it would, therefore, not join issues with the former President over his comments and assessment.
Obasanjo had on Monday night, while addressing a group of youths, who visited him at his country home in Abeokuta, described the Buhari’s administration as a failure.
He also asked the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government to stop complaining about the challenges it met on the ground, saying, “What we have now is failure. Never you reinforce failure. Let failure be failure… Those of you who are in business, your business could have been better today if we have a competent and effective and performing government.’’
However, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, who responded to Obasanjo’s comments in a telephone interview on Channels Television on Monday, said the assessment was not new.
“Already, the statement issued few months ago by the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed, in response to the earlier criticism made against the government by Obasanjo had adequately addressed the issues raised”.
He maintained that the APC-led Federal Government would keep making reference to the failures of the past administration with a view to guiding against such mistakes in future.
According to Adesina, the Buhari administration has successfully tackled mismanagement of the nation’s economy, as Nigeria now has more savings in its foreign reserve than ever before.
Recall that the former President had earlier issued a 13-page statement, criticising Buhari’s performance and concluded that Buhari should not seek re-election in 2019.
Obasanjo’s 13-page statement attracted mixed reactions from cross sections of Nigerians, including politicians and opinion leaders from within and outside the country.
It is however surprising, according to some of the reactions, that Obasanjo keeps talking about “business not doing well” without stating clearly how.
One of them said, “At least we continue to remember that Obasanjo started off his eight year’s administration of failure on slogan of ‘no longer business as usual’. How come the no longer working ‘corrupt business’ under Buhari administration is now a surprise to him? Obasanjo should tell us how businesses are not working under Buhari, what his findings about the cause are and what he could have done in that situation and we have experienced him before now and found out that left to him, he would have no solution better than Buhari has applied which has brought Nigeria out of recession that their corruption plunged it and has made the country strong and stronger now in the eyes of the globe. Is that why the former President is gathering Retired Christian Generals like TY Danjuma and corrupt PDP leaders who are calling Nigerians to arms conflicts against themselves so that they can collapse the country to prove a point that they hate President Muhammadu Buhari? They must be clamped down upon immediate, it is imperative government does that and heavens will not fall,” he said.
