Igbo youths warn Obasanjo against anti-Jonathan comments

The youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo , has warned ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo over his reported remarks on President Goodluck Jonathan.

Media reports had quoted Obasanjo as saying that Jonathan shifted the election dates because he was afraid of defeat and that perhaps the President had been listening to aides telling him that he stands the risk of being jailed for corruption should the opposition All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) wins the poll.

The former President also alleged that Jonathan was engaging in “the do-or-die” politics played by the former President of Cote d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo.

But the Ohanaeze Youth Council warned Obasanjo to stop inciting Nigerians against the President, who, according to the group, “has dwarfed the achievements of all former Nigerian leaders.”

Speaking with our correspondent in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, the National President of OYC,   Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said “Obasanjo should stop fanning the embers of war through his unguarded utterances against a sitting President.”

Isiguzoro accused Obasanjo of plotting, in connivance with some undemocratic elements, to topple Jonathan’s government through inciting comments, warning that any attempt to derail Nigeria’s democracy would be resisted.

“Obasanjo is a disappointment to democracy. He should not plunge Nigeria into another civil war through his hate remarks against Jonathan,” he said.

Isiguzoro said Jonathan had “by all standards proved to be a core democrat, otherwise the likes of Obasanjo should be cooling his feet in the jail by now because of his evil deeds while in office.”

The OYC leader said corruption was institutionalised during Obasanjo’s administration and wondered when the former President overnight turned into the vanguard of democracy.

He said, “Obasanjo should know that he has expired politically and Nigerian youths cannot allow him and other spent forces that belong to the past to ruin our future.

“Nigeria cannot buy his belated and selfish idea of Interim National Government, and all those plotting to put Nigeria backwards will be disappointed because the youths are now wiser.”

Isiguzoro further argued that “if anyone should be afraid of going to jail because of corruption and illegality, it is Obasanjo who superintended over the destruction of Odi town while he was in office.”

He said that President Jonathan deserved the right to seek re-election and should not be deprived of that right by “members of a self-serving cabal who think that Nigeria is their private estate.”