A former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo has spoken out on how another former President, Goodluck Jonathan thought the threat of Boko Haram was a ploy.
Obasanjo said that Jonathan was of the belief that Boko Haram was a creation of the North to stop him from being President and therefore he didn’t pay proper attention to it.
He said this in an interview with the BBC in which he said that even the kidnap of the Chibok girls was not believed by the President at the time and therefore the drive to rescue them came late.
He said; “I went out in 2011 to Maiduguri. I took great risk to find out what is really happening. Boko Haram, do they have grievances, if they have grievances, what are their grievances and I brought all that to Jonathan.
“Jonathan didn’t believe that Boko Haram was a serious issue. He thought that it was a device by the North to prevent him from continuing as president of Nigeria which was rather unfortunate.”
The former President went on to say; “Even when Chibok girls were abducted, it took a while for the government to believe. Now if that is the situation, you can understand why the right attention was not paid to the issue of Boko Haram when it should have been paid.”