FG Replies Obasanjo Over Claim Buhari Plotting To Jail Him

The Federal Government has reacted to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s claim of ongoing plot allegedly by President Muhammadu Buhari to “cow, cage and embarrass him”.

Obasanjo, in a statement by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, on Friday, had based his claim on information from reliable sources of plans by the Presidency to “seize his International Passport and clamp him into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further expressing anger on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of governance, economic management and in the protection of lives and property by the Government.”

The former president, who described the move as “a re-enactment of the Abacha era” in which he was one of the principal victims, also claimed that President Buhari intends to use the EFCC to falsify the commission’s previous investigations on him in order put him behind bars.

But reacting to Obasanjo’s allegations, Nigeria’s Information Minister, Alh Lai Mohammed, in statement in Lagos, said the Buhari government will not be distracted by “frivolous allegations from any quarter, especially those cleverly choreographed to divert attention from a widely-acclaimed presidential proclamation and to shore up support for a waning and egotistical cause”.

Mohammed said, the administration is “too busy trying to clear the mess of 16 years and build on its unprecedented achievements over the past three years to waste its energy and time on framing up anyone or dwelling on issues that are not grounded in fact”.

The minister said while “those who have skeletons in their wardrobes should be afraid, even of their own shadows, innocent persons need not worry about any investigation, whether real or imagined”.

He said, “This administration will never engage in a frame-up of innocent citizens. That is neither in the character of President Muhammadu Buhari nor in that of his administration. Only the guilty should be worried. To paraphrase an African proverb, a man who has no wife cannot lose an inlaw to the cold hands of death.

”The administration is also strongly committed to the tenets of democracy, including freedom of speech and the right to dissent. But we understand that those who, in their time, were untethered to those principles would find it hard to believe.

Mohammed described Obasanjo’s allegations as a deliberate attempt to distract attention from the accolades President Buhari has been getting since he conferred national honours on late Chief MKO Abiola for his presumed victory in the June 12, 1993, presidential election.

“Apparently, the impact of this proclamation was too much to bear by those who, through acts of omission or commission, helped to deepen the wounds inflicted by the blow of injustice that followed an election that was widely acclaimed to be free, fair and credible, hence they felt the need for a red herring that will distract the nation.

”Added to that is the frustration brought about by the fact that the contraption they have so much hyped as a freeway to power has failed to gain traction. Faced with this double tragedy, even the strongest of men may begin to succumb to a figment of their imagination. They may start crying wolf where there is none,”

The minister added that the “unprecedented achievements of the Buhari Administration are also enough to cause sleepless nights, with the attendant symptoms that include phantasm, for those who had better opportunities to make the country great but floundered on the altar of narcissism.”