Former President of Nigeria Obasanjo Endorses Buhari

Former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, has declared his support for All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.

Obasanjo, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) made his perspective known during an interview with Financial Times at the launch of his autobiography, My Watch, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya according to Punch.

He stated that he believes that Buhari is fully capable of ruling the country.

“The circumstances he (Buhari) will be working under if he wins the elections are different from the one he worked under before, where he was both the executive and the legislature – he knows that. He is smart enough. He is educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?”

Obasanjo also expressed confidence that Buhari would effectively tackle insecurity and corruption.

In addition, he noted that Buhari had the ability to restore the morale of the military.

“It is a question of leadership – political and military. I think you need to ask Jonathan how he let the army go to this extent. Many things went wrong: recruitment went wrong; training went wrong; morale went down; motivation was not there; corruption was deeply ingrained; andwelfare was bad.”

The former president also expressed displeasure about what he described as the rapid rate at which the nation’s resources are dwindling. He stated that when he left office, Nigeria had $45 billion in its reserve but the resources had since dwindled by more than half despite the hike in oil prices.

He also expressed concern about the postponed elections, stating that he hoped the government was not trying to manipulate the electoral process.

“I sincerely hope that the President is not going for broke and saying ‘look dammit, it’s either I have it or nobody has it’. I hope that we will not have a coup. I hope we can avoid it,” he said.