Obasanjo Passes No Confidence Vote On Buhari, APC, PDP

Tells President: ‘Don’t Be Deceived That Without You There’ll Be No Nigeria’

Both Buhari, Obasanjo Are Expired Products- Fayose

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo came out hard on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, accusing it of dragging Nigeria into mire of poor performance.
This, he wrote in a special press statement on Tuesday, has become visible as Nigerians groan under the weight of “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.”

Others, he continued, while passing a no-confidence vote on the President, the ruling party- the All Progressives Congress and Nigeria’s main opposition- Peoples Democratic Party, include a “lack of national cohesion and poor management of internal political dynamics and widening inequality,” which he stressed “are very much with us today.”

The ex-President while muting the idea that Nigerians go for a third-force to take the nation out of the woods, he expressed strong belief that “God has endowed Nigeria so adequately that no Nigerian should be either in want or in despair. I believe in team work and collaborative efforts.”

For Africa to move forward, he stressed: “Nigeria must be one of the anchor countries, if not the leading anchor country. It means that Nigeria must be good at home to be good outside. No doubt, our situation in the last decade or so had shown that we are not good enough at home; hence we are invariably absent at the table that we should be abroad.
“All these led me to take the unusual step of going against my own political Party, PDP, in the last general election to support the opposite side. I saw that action as the best option for Nigeria. As it has been revealed in the last three years or so, that decision and the subsequent collective decision of Nigerians to vote for a change was the right decision for the nation.”

The decision, he continued, is not personal as it is in the best interest of Nigeria, Africa and humanity at large, lamenting: “The situation that made Nigerians to vote massively to get my brother Jonathan off the horse is playing itself out again. First, I thought I knew the point where President Buhari is weak and I spoke and wrote about it even before Nigerians voted for him and I also did vote for him because at that time it was a matter of “any option but Jonathan” (aobj).

“But my letter to President Jonathan titled: “Before It Is Too Late” was meant for him to act before it was too late. He ignored it and it was too late for him and those who goaded him into ignoring the voice of caution. I know that praise-singers and hired attackers may be raised up against me for verbal or even physical attack but if I can withstand undeserved imprisonment and was ready to shed my blood by standing for Nigeria, I will consider no sacrifice too great to make for the good of Nigeria at any time. No human leader is expected to be personally strong or self-sufficient in all aspects of governance.

“I knew President Buhari before he became President and said that he is weak in the knowledge and understanding of the economy but I thought that he could make use of good Nigerians in that area that could help. Although, I know that you cannot give what you don’t have and that economy does not obey military order. You have to give it what it takes in the short, medium and long-term. Then, it would move. I know his weakness in understanding and playing in the foreign affairs sector and again, there are many Nigerians that could be used in that area as well. They have knowledge and experience that could be deployed for the good of Nigeria.

“There were serious allegations of round-tripping against some inner caucus of the Presidency which would seem to have been condoned. I wonder: If such actions do not amount to corruption and financial crime, then what is it? Culture of condonation and turning blind eye will cover up rather than clean up. And going to justice must be with clean hands.
“I thought President Buhari would fight corruption and insurgency and he must be given some credit for his achievement so far in these two areas although it is not yet uhuru!

“The herdsmen/crop farmers issue is being wittingly or unwittingly allowed to turn sour and messy. It is no credit to the Federal Government that the herdsmen rampage continues with careless abandon and without finding an effective solution to it. And it is a sad symptom of insensitivity and callousness that some governors, a day after 73 victims were being buried in a mass grave in Benue State without condolence, were jubilantly endorsing President Buhari for a second term! The timing was most unfortunate. The issue of herdsmen/crop farmers’ dichotomy should not be left on the political platform of blame game; the Federal Government must take the lead in bringing about solution that protects life and properties of herdsmen and crop farmers alike and for them to live amicably in the same community.”

He frontally accused President Buhari of glaring nepotism and even clannishness in the area of bringing discipline to bear on errant members of his inner circle, with “grave consequences on performance of his government to the detriment of the nation.
“It would appear that national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest.”
For example, he wonders what to “make of a case like that of AbdulRasheed Maina: collusion, condonation, ineptitude, incompetence, dereliction of responsibility or kinship and friendship on the part of those who should have taken visible and deterrent disciplinary action? How many similar cases are buried, ignored or covered up and not yet in the glare of the media and the public?
Besides Buhari’s poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics, which has made the nation more divided with widening inequality, affecting general national security.

The Buhari government also got a knock over its penchant for passing the buck, like his blaming the Central Bank Governor for devaluation of the naira by 70% or past governments for it, rather than accepting responsibility.
“Let nobody deceive us, economy feeds on politics and because our politics is depressing, our economy is even more depressing today. If things were good, President Buhari would not need to come in.

“He was voted to fix things that were bad and not engage in the blame game. Our Constitution is very clear, one of the cardinal responsibilities of the President is the management of the economy of which the value of the naira forms an integral part. Kinship and friendship that place responsibility for governance in the hands of the unelected can only be deleterious to good government and to the nation,” he stressed.
Sympathising with the president over his health issues, he warned him to neither “over-push his luck nor over-tax the patience and tolerance of Nigerians for him, no matter what his self-serving, so-called advisers, who would claim that they love him more than God loves him and that without him, there would be no Nigeria.”

He called for drastic and positive change, progress and involvement that “will give hope and future to all our youth and dignity and full participation to all our women.
“Our youth should be empowered to deploy their ability to learn, innovate and work energetically at ideas and concepts in which they can make their own original inputs. Youth must be part of the action today and not relegated to leadership of tomorrow which may never come… change that will mean enhancement of living standard and progress for all. A situation where the elected will accountably govern and every Nigerian will have equal opportunity not based on kinship and friendship but based on free citizenship.”

Reacting to Obasanjo’s letter, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State twitted on Tuesday evening: “Obasanjo (the accuser) and Buhari (the accused) are both expired people that Nigerians are desirous of getting rid of. They both don’t know when they were born and have outlived their usefulness in the political life of Nigeria.”

http://investdata.com.ng/2018/01/obasanjo-passes-no-confidence-vote-buhari-apc-pdp/