By JACOB KUBEKA
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, Abuja
Twenty-two years after he was jailed for allegedly plotting to overthrow the military junta led by General Sani Abacha (of blessed memory), Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has raised the alarm, accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of planning to arrest him on trumped-up charges.
Obasanjo who came out of prison in 1988 to be sworn-in as the third democratically elected president of Nigeria on May 229, 1999, has on recent been very critical of President Buhari and his All Progressives congress (APC)-led government accused the Buhari administration which he vigorously supported during the 2015 elections.
In a statement issued on Friday through his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, the former president alleged that he had credible security reports Buhari was plotting to arrest him on false charges in order to pave the way for his (Buhari’s) smooth sail in next year’s presidential election.
President Buhari, himself a former military dictator, has signified his interest in seeking re-election on the ticket of the APC next year.
Early this year, Obasanjo released his now famous letter to President Buhari, asking him not to go for a second term on account of his poor performance in office since My 29, 2015.
He alleged on Friday President Buhari had concluded plans to have the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrest and prosecute him over charges of misapplication of public funds, in apparent reference to the President’s recent public statement querying how the Obsanjo administration expended $16billion on power project without any visible improvement in electricity generation in the country.
According to the statement by Akinyemi,“Since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo declared in his State-of-the-Nation Special Statement on January 23, 2018, the desperation to frustrate, intimidate and blackmail him into abandoning his divine mandate to protect the rights of the people to better life and living continued unabated and has even taken a bizarre dimension.”
The statement reads in parts:
‘Impeccable security sources have alleged Chief Obasanjo’s name is on their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be guaranteed. According to these informants, many of who are in the top echelon of the Nation’s security management and close to the corridors of power, the operatives are daily perfecting how to curtail the personal liberties of the former President and hang a crime on him’.
‘Ordinarily, we would not have dignified these reports with a response but for the fact that many of these informants are not known for flippant and frivolous talks. Secondly, this Government has demonstrably exhibited apathy, and in some cases, encouraged by its conduct, daily loss of lives and property in many States of the country, the office cannot be indifferent.
“We are currently in a nation where the Number Three citizen is currently being harangued and the Number Four citizen is facing similar threat within the same Government they serve. There is a groundswell of our nationals that live in fear that they could be hounded, harassed, maimed or even killed as the battle for 2019 takes this worrisome dimension.
“For Chief Obasanjo, this is a joke carried too far and being someone who do not act on unofficial information, he had cautioned all informants and adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the bestial propositions allegedly being contemplated to cow, cage and embarrass him.
“The content of the alleged beastly designs, it was learnt are two-fold for now. One, to seize his International Passport and clamp him into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further expressing angst on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of governance, economic management and in the protection of lives and property by the Government.