Ohanaeze, PANDEF React To Obasanjo’s Attack On Buhari

More reactions have trailed the former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s attack on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

Pan-Igbo cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, in a statement, accused President Buhari of having “ulterior motives” ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

The statement issued in Abakaliki by the National Publicity Secretary of the body, Uche Achi-Okpagha said such motives vindicated Obasanjo’s statement.

Recall that Obasanjo in a 16- page address titled ‘Points for concern and action,’ accused Buhari and his party of “going about his own self-succession project. They have started recruiting collation officers who are already awarding results based on their projects to actualise the perpetuation agenda in which the people will not matter and the votes will not count.”

Obasanjo also expressed worry over the integrity of the present Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, saying, Nigerians should be prepared for the worst after citing Osun election as an instance.

Ohanaeze, in the statement, said, “Every indication testifies to Obasanjo’s vindication. President Obasanjo (as he then was) appointed a South-Easterner, GEJ appointed a northerner, but apparently, owing to his ulterior motives seemingly playing out now, he appointed a northerner as lNEC Chairman.

“The bleeding issues are the latest appointment of Amina Zakari who has been an age long close confidant of Buhari and the callous and blatant move to remove the Chief Justice of Nigeria. The majority fear and alarming opinion are to the fact that the presidency wants to remove the CJN and plant a northerner, as usual, who would play to the political gallery and instruct appointed judges to make electoral decisions favourable to the APC.

“I sincerely identify with Obasanjo in his fears and posit that a four-year-old government should be able to tell Nigerians that ‘l did this and that’ not that ‘l will do this and that.”

Similarly, the Pan Niger Delta Development Forum, PANDEF, said Presidential Buhari was resorting to the tactics of Abacha as alleged by Obasanjo because he wants to tamper with the 2019 presidential elections.

Obasanjo had said, “What is happening under Buhari’s watch can be likened to what we witnessed under Gen. Sani Abacha in many ways. When Abacha decided that he must install himself as Nigerian President by all means and at all costs, he went for broke and surrounded himself with hatchet men who on his order and in his interest and at high costs to Nigeria and Nigerians maimed, tortured and killed for Abacha. Buhari has started on the same path in mad desperation.”

In a statement by its National Secretary, Dr. Alfred Mulade, PANDEF said: “The truth of the matter is that the country is more aware now that it is a question of rigging of elections, which former president and statesman, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has drawn the attention of the world to.

“PANDEF is saying that if there is any form of rigging, the people will resist it because Nigerians are tired of the present regime.

“The issue of rigging is a matter everybody should put his eyes on and ensure that it does not repeat itself like what happened in Osun State during the gubernatorial election where there ought to have been a clear winner, but the course of victory was reordered to suit the ruling party,” he said.