I’m Worried About Coup Rumours – Former President Obasanjo

FORMER president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has warned against any military coup that would undermine the democratic process the country had been enjoying since 1999.

He insisted that the rumour making the round about handing over to the military should not become a reality, adding that the international community, especially the African Union (AU), would not accommodate or recognise any government that emerged without the constitution.

This was as he lamented that Nigeria is not living up to its status as giant of Africa, by providing leadership qualities in the areas of politics, economic advancement, security, among other issues for other African countries.

He said this shortly after receiving the wife of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Mrs Aishat Buhari, who led the delegation of South-West women of the party to his Hilltop residence, in Abeokuta, on Tuesday.

Obasanjo said a lot of things had gone wrong in the country such as  insecurity, bad economy, unemployment, lack of basic infrastructure, among others.

He wondered why political parties and their candidates were not addressing all these challenges confronting the nation, rather than promoting trivial issues that were unhealthy to the development of the country.

“I am happy to hear directly from you, Mrs Buhari that the campaign so far has gone very well. Maybe I should chip in one or two things about campaign. I do hope that whatever happens at the elections, the one coming up this week and the ones coming up in a couple of weeks, we would have learnt our lessons from what has taken place this time around.

“Unfortunately, issues that should have been the main item of our campaign are not talked about. We have serious issues of security, we have serious issue of our economy, we have issue of unemployment, particularly for the youth. We have serious issues about infrastructure. These are issues amongst others that I believe should be germane in all our campaigns to those that are interested in the present and future of this country.

“How are we going to get them? What are we going to do? This is not time for trivial issues of certificate or no certificate, or when somebody is talking about someone is a Nigerian or not a Nigerian.

“We are the largest country in Africa. We should be role model, setting examples. We should not be drawing Africa backward. I hope we will not. I hope that at the end of the exercise, we would be where we should be, leading Africa and showing examples for the rest of Africa and, indeed, the rest of the world,” Obasanjo said.