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Buhari planning to set me up, Obasanjo alleges

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6 years ago

June 8, 2018

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The ongoing rift between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari took a new twist on Friday, June 8, when the ex-president alleges plans by the government to frame him up on trumped up charges.

In a statement by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, Obasanjo claimed the plot against him would involve two stages among which is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to reopen investigation into the activities of his administration.

The former president who alleged that the Buhari administration was also planning to use fake documents and witnesses against him, said he had been informed that his name was on the government’s watch list, and that the security of his life cannot be guaranteed.

The statement read: “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’.

Akinyemi also said Obasanjo would not have dignified the 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, 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 propositions allegedly being contemplated to cow, cage and embarrass him.

He said 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 the Government would not hold water.

“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’.