Buhari Planning To Hang Phantom Crime On Me- Obasanjo
Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo has cried out that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has placed his name on the watch list but also planning to frame him up with phantom crime and jail him because of his recent frank comments
The former president, in a statement issued on Friday in Abeokuta by his media aid Kehinde Akinyemi, said impeccable sources within the nation’s security system had informed him that his name is on the Watch List.
According Obasanjo, he would not have reacted to the information as provided by the top security sources, but for the fact that those who obliged him with the information were not known for frivolities and flippant talks.
Obasanjo stated that he cried out because of the fact that the present administration had allegedly exhibited apathy which had resulted in the loss of lives and wanton destruction of property on a daily basis around the country.
The former president alleged that there were plans by security operatives to hang the crime on his neck, saying that the Buhari administration was bent on blackmailing him because of his State of the Nation Special Statement on January 23, 2018.
The statement read in part: “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.
“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.
“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 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.
“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.
“But, since that could expose the government to a swath of international condemnation, embarrassment and outrage, it is said that another plot being hatched is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to re-open investigation into the activities of Chief Obasanjo’s administration using false witnesses and documents. This will be a re-enactment of the Abacha era in which Chief Obasanjo was one of the principal victims.
“The same EFCC that had conducted a clinical investigation on the activities of Obasanjo in and out of Government, it was said, would now be made to stand down the existing report that gave Chief Obasanjo a clean bill of health on the probes are now to get him indicted, fair or foul for possible prosecution and persecution like it is being done to real and perceived opponents, enemies and critics of this Government. Dissent is a fundamental principle on which liberal democracy is predicated. A true democrat must be ready to live with and accommodate dissent and opposition.
“While it is regrettable how the Government has sunk in its shameless desperation to cow opposition, a resort to blackmail, despotism and Gestapo-tactics being employed by the goons of this Government would not hold water. And no government ever remains in power forever.
“For the record, Chief Obasanjo reiterates his readiness to face probe again after that of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the ICPC, and the EFCC, but before an independent, objective and credible panel of enquiry to account for his stewardship in Government and beyond.
“Chief Obasanjo reiterates that he has taken a principled position to ensure that the ship of the Nigerian State does not capsize and he remains steadfast in his resolve to turn the tide of maladministration, poor economic management and rudderless governance model that has torn Nigerians apart on account of religion and ethnicity which is a great threat to our democracy.
“We would like the Government and its supporters to understand that no amount of campaign of calumny, no matter how well contrived, orchestrated or marketed would deter Chief Obasanjo from calling a spade by its name. Chief Obasanjo is a patriot whose sole agenda is to ensure that the country’s unity, progress, and democracy are not negotiated on the altar of incompetence and provincialism and mediocrity.”
