Political associates of President Muhammadu Buhari have asked him to extend his ongoing probe to the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
They are not also comfortable with Obasanjo’s increasing romance with the president and have therefore initiated moves to scuttle Obasanjo’s perceived hijack of the Buhari Presidency.
Investigation by The AUTHORITY revealed that the president’s allies are not happy with Obasanjo’s growing closeness to Buhari, considering that he either caused or contributed largely to most of the problems facing the country.
According to them, even though Obasanjo claimed that he was fighting corruption during his eight-year tenure, the current rot in the polity was largely caused by him.
Consequently, they have appealed to Buhari to distance himself from Obasanjo and extend the current probe to his administration’s privatisation exercise and funding of power projects.
A top member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) disclosed the growing discomfort in the party over Obasanjo’s perceived influence on President Buhari to The AUTHORITY.
Between 1976 and 1979, Buhari served as Secretary (Minister) of Petroleum Resources in a military regime headed by Obasanjo. Both men are retired Generals.
The AUTHORITY checks revealed that top APC leaders are worried that aside the fact that both men are Army Generals, Obasanjo’s “last minute” support for Buhari in the build-up to the last general elections may work in favour of Obasanjo.
Said the chieftain: “We don’t want Obasanjo near President Buhari. The same Obasanjo who on three occasions stopped Buhari from becoming president, now wants to play political godfather,” exclaiming, “God forbid!”
The AUTHORITY gathered that APC chieftains opposed to Obasanjo’s return to political reckoning have commissioned agents to unearth documents on financial transactions capable of embarrassing the former president.
The anti-Obasanjo elements, it was also gathered, have been piling pressure on Buhari to extend his probe of previous administrations to May 1999 when Obasanjo took over as president.
In the reckoning of the anti-Obasanjo elements in APC, an inquest into the tenure of the former president would “make all the allegations against the Goodluck Jonathan presidency pale into insignificance.”
Argued one of the APC chieftains: “I don’t understand what all the noise about probing Jonathan is about. To me, it is like removing the speck from our eyes while ignoring the log called Obasanjo.
“Obasanjo is the reason Nigeria is in a mess today, not Jonathan. Were Jonathan like Obasanjo we wouldn’t have the kind of credible election that ushered Buhari in as president. Obasanjo, who denied Buhari the presidency thrice is now trying to posture as the man who made us. This we reject in its totality,” submitted the APC chieftain.
Another APC leader irked by Obasanjo’s romance with Buhari advised the president to be wary of his predecessor.
He said: “Obasanjo’s stock-in-trade is to install puppets. The moment the puppet begins to have a life of his own, Obasanjo picks up a fight. We saw this happen between him and the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, then, Goodluck Jonathan.”
According to the party chieftain, it was unfair to continue to hound former president Goodluck Jonathan whilst treating Obasanjo like a sacred cow.
He queried: “How much did Obasanjo spend on power? And how many megawatts did that add to the national grid? How much did he spend on education, roads, security, water supply and the rest?
“Had Obasanjo played his part well, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and then Jonathan would have found a firm foundation to build on. As far as we are concerned, the failure by Obasanjo to lay a solid foundation is the reason we are suffering today, so he (Obasanjo) should be made to account for his stewardship,” the party chieftain declared.
