PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Nigeria: Obasanjo accuses President Jonathan of planning to rig election
Abeokuta, Nigeria (PANA) - Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, on Saturday accused President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the candidate of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in next month's rescheduled presidential election, of planning to rig the vote.
"I will say this, we must all feel concerned before democracy is killed.... What would appear to be happening is that the president has a grand plan, a grand plan to ensure that by hook or by crook, he wins the election or if it all fails, he scuttles it and creates chaos, confusion and unpleasantness in the whole country,” Obasanjo told journalists at his residence in the ancient city of Abeokuta, southwest Nigeria.
He accused President Jonathan of forcing the postponement of the poll on the electoral body and planning to plunge the county into chaos in the event of a loss, as was done by the former Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo.
The former Nigerian leader described as "strange" the claim by Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Security Adviser to the President and the Service Chiefs, that they cannot guarantee security if the polls were held on 14 February and 28 February.
Obasanjo said the excuse of insecurity in the northeastern parts of the country did not hold, because the Boko Haram activities had been on in the past five years and even countries with similar security challenges like Afghanistan conducted their polls.
"It is the duty and function and responsibility of the security officers to provide security. The President is the chief security (officer) of the country and he is the Commander-in-Chief and if security is required anywhere, anytime, it is his duty to provide it. Failure to provide it is dereliction of duty; pure and simple.
"Either the President is following his own grand plan or his aides and associates are working a script; they are playing a script which must have got his endorsement, if not initiated from him. What again it looks to me is that the President is trying to play Gbagbo.”
Obasanjo said President Jonathan was nursing strong fear that he might lose the election and that the opposition candidate General Muhammadu Buhari, might investigate his government.
"I believe people would have been telling him that Buhari is a hard man, he would fight corruption and you may end up in jail if not in the grave. I believe people must have told him all sorts of things and he is not the only one, there are other people who may be afraid of Buhari but why?"
The government in a statement by Presidential media aide, Ruben Abati, on Saturday night has described the remarks of Obasanjo as "uncharitable and odious".
The decision to postpone the elections has attracted mixed reactions locally and internationally.
-0- PANA SB/MA 15Feb2015
"I will say this, we must all feel concerned before democracy is killed.... What would appear to be happening is that the president has a grand plan, a grand plan to ensure that by hook or by crook, he wins the election or if it all fails, he scuttles it and creates chaos, confusion and unpleasantness in the whole country,” Obasanjo told journalists at his residence in the ancient city of Abeokuta, southwest Nigeria.
He accused President Jonathan of forcing the postponement of the poll on the electoral body and planning to plunge the county into chaos in the event of a loss, as was done by the former Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo.
The former Nigerian leader described as "strange" the claim by Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Security Adviser to the President and the Service Chiefs, that they cannot guarantee security if the polls were held on 14 February and 28 February.
Obasanjo said the excuse of insecurity in the northeastern parts of the country did not hold, because the Boko Haram activities had been on in the past five years and even countries with similar security challenges like Afghanistan conducted their polls.
"It is the duty and function and responsibility of the security officers to provide security. The President is the chief security (officer) of the country and he is the Commander-in-Chief and if security is required anywhere, anytime, it is his duty to provide it. Failure to provide it is dereliction of duty; pure and simple.
"Either the President is following his own grand plan or his aides and associates are working a script; they are playing a script which must have got his endorsement, if not initiated from him. What again it looks to me is that the President is trying to play Gbagbo.”
Obasanjo said President Jonathan was nursing strong fear that he might lose the election and that the opposition candidate General Muhammadu Buhari, might investigate his government.
"I believe people would have been telling him that Buhari is a hard man, he would fight corruption and you may end up in jail if not in the grave. I believe people must have told him all sorts of things and he is not the only one, there are other people who may be afraid of Buhari but why?"
The government in a statement by Presidential media aide, Ruben Abati, on Saturday night has described the remarks of Obasanjo as "uncharitable and odious".
The decision to postpone the elections has attracted mixed reactions locally and internationally.
-0- PANA SB/MA 15Feb2015
Tags Politics
