Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo,
has publicly endorsed the APC presidential
candidate Muhammadu Buhari. The former
president was in Nairobi to launch his 1,500-
page autobiography, “My Watch”, a book that has
been banned in Nigeria following libel hearings
brought by Mr. Buruji Kashamu. Obasanjo
launched the book in Nairobi on Monday, 9th
February 2015.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Obasanjo 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?”
On the crisis the Nigerian Army is currently
facing, Obasanjo added, “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.”
In another interview with eNCA, when Obasanjo
was asked if he’s supporting Buhari’s candidacy,
he said, “I didn’t go on record, its 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. Well
somebody said to me that even Buhari had an
interview on Aljazeera yesterday, I didn’t watch
it. This is some of the things I will look at. But
President Jonathan must have in mind what he
wants to achieve and I do hope whatever he has
in mind he has the interest of Nigeria at heart
and in mind, because that’s very important.
“I will still be looking at how things go,
especially now that the election is 7weeks away.
We will be waiting. Well, I think what happens in
the next 7weeks will tell that story better, for
four years or so now, we know what has been
achieved and what has not been achieved but if
there will be something different in the next 7
weeks, we will see and I don’t want to pre judge
the issue but let’s wait and see, time goes on.
My background is the military, it must be that he
knows and of course he is in a position to know
what many of us may not know.”
