ITS OFFICIAL: Obasanjo finally endorses Buhari

Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who has been openly fraternizing with the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in recent times, has now publicly endorsed the candidacy of APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.

Obasanjo endorsed Buhari in Kenya where he had gone to launch his new book, My Watch. Obasanjo’s book is banned in Nigeria pending the determination of a suit filed against him by a PDP stalwart from Ogun state, Buruji Kashamu.

Speaking about the recent postponement of the poll, Obasanjo said in an interview with The Financial Times that he sincerely hopes ”that the president is not going for broke and saying ‘look dammit, it’s either I have it or nobody has it’. I hope that we will not have a coup . . . I hope we can avoid it.”

Even though Obasanjo has been very critical of Pres. Jonathan in recent times, he has not openly voiced support for Buhari until now. In fact, in an earlier interview with eNCA newspaper while in Kenya, Obasanjo had this to say when asked whether he was backing Buhari: “I didn’t go on record, it’s Nigerians. Nigerians call me OBJ for short, that’s how they call Obasanjo and somebody decided to turn ABJ, so He turned OBJ to ABJ and when he was asked what does ABJ mean, he said, ANYBODY BUT JONATHAN. So it was not from me, it was from people who were genius enough to use the short form of my name, as I am being popularly called and make something out of it. As I said when I get back home at the end of this week, I will look at the situation.”

But in the FT interview, he was more direct about his support for Buhari.

He said: “The circumstances [Buhari] will be working under if he wins the election are different from the one he worked under before, where he was both the executive and the legislature — he knows that. He’s smart enough. He’s educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?”

Obasanjo also gave Buhari the upper hand on the issue of tackling the Boko Haram scourge.

Speaking about Jonathan’s handling of the crisis, he said that, “It’s a question of leadership — political and military. I think you need to ask [Mr Jonathan] how has he let [the army] go to this extent . . . Many things went wrong: recruitment went wrong; training went wrong; morale went down; motivation not there; corruption was deeply ingrained; welfare was bad.”