Nigeria’s former president Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 – 2007) has spoken on a number of national issues including the oncoming 2019 presidential elections, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Boko haram crisis in the country.
Obasanjo who appeared in an online programme aired on a YouTube Channel, Voice of the People said the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar who was his vice president should have succeeded him in 2007.
The former president also said he didn’t know the position Asiwaju Bola Tinubu currently holds in the ruling APC when he was asked to identify the designations of certain political figures in the country.
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Obasanjo went ahead to identify Muhammadu Buhari and Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as the President and Vice President respectively, while he also identified Senator Bukola Saraki as the Senate President.
When he was asked about Tinubu however he said;
“Oh, Bola? Bola is supposed to be the leader of the APC. I don’t know the position of his leadership as you and I are talking.”
In the interview, the former President said he had hoped that Atiku would succeed him as President in 2007 which was why he gave the former vice president a lot of responsibilities .
“Atiku didn’t want to become even a Vice President (in 1999). He was elected as a governor,” he recalled.
Obasanjo then added further;
“My plan was that he would be given a lot of work to do domestically and Atiku even used to complain that I gave him too much work to do, which was intentional because I wanted him to get to know things.
My second term was that having prepared him for domestic issues, I would want him to represent Nigeria for one year at the African Union, Economic Community of West African States and the United Nations for a year so that he would be fully prepared, but the first thing I found out was that his judgement was not right on many occasions.”
The former President also scored the present government led by Buhari very low insisting that Buhari had not done well in government.
He said there was the need for Nigerians, especially the youth, to elect leaders that could fit into a “digital 21st century post-modern era rather than electing analogue personalities.”
Obasanjo also spoke on the Boko Haram crisis saying his successor late President Umaru Yar’Adua mismanaged the issue, which caused the group to become terrorists.
Obasanjo said had he been President at the time, Boko Haram would not have become what it is today.
He recalled that in 2011, with the permission of former President Goodluck Jonathan, he visited the family of Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf, and other aggrieved persons in the terrorist group and they explained why they were carrying out attacks.
“In 2011, I went to Maiduguri. This was after Boko Haram had attacked the UN building in Abuja and I just wanted to know who they were and if they had leaders and what their grievances were.
I found out that these elements of Boko Haram had been there even while I was in government. And they, through their intermediary, said they were there and I didn’t disturb them so they didn’t disturb me.
They were preaching Sharia and that was what they wanted. But, according to them, when I left government, they were being