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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has accused the Buhari
administration of plotting to slam false charges on him, to pave the way
for his indefinite detention, Premium Times reports.

 

The former leader said the government was planning to use fake documents and witnesses against him.

 

Mr Obasanjo said this in a statement by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, on Friday.

 

The claim is the latest twist after weeks of bitter exchanges
between the two leaders, who fell apart after Mr Obasanjo accused Mr
Buhari or ineptitude and corruption, and advised him not to seek
reelection.

 

Mr Buhari responded recently by accusing his predecessor of
frittering away $16 billion on phoney electricity projects. Mr Obasanjo
hit back at the “ignorant” claim.

 

Speaking via his aide on Friday, the former president said plans to
silence him were in two fold, among which is a plot to cause the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to reopen investigation
into the activities of his administration.

 

He said the Buhari administration had also perfected a plan to use
fake documents and witnesses against him. He said this will be a
re-enactment of the Abacha era in which he ( Obasanjo) was detained on
trumped up charges.

 

The presidency could not be immediately reached for comments.

 

The former president said he had been told that his name was on the
government’s “watch list”, and that the security of his life cannot be
guaranteed.

 

He however said no amount of campaign of calumny, no matter how
well contrived, orchestrated or marketed would deter him from speaking
out.

 

“Since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo declared in his
State-of-the-Nation Special Statement on January 23, 2018, the
desperation to frustrate, intimidate and blackmail him into abandoning
his divine mandate to protect the rights of the people to better life
and living continued unabated and has even taken a bizarre dimension,” the statement said.

 

The statement said the first option to silence him was to seize his
international passport and clamp him into detention indefinitely, in
order to prevent him from further expressing angst on the “pervasive
mediocrity in the quality of governance, economic management and in the
protection of lives and property by the Government”.

 

Part of statement is below:

 

‘Impeccable security sources have alleged Chief Obasanjo’s name
is on their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be
guaranteed. According to these informants, many of who are in the top
echelon of the Nation’s security management and close to the corridors
of power, the operatives are daily perfecting how to curtail the
personal liberties of the former President and hang a crime on him’.

‘Ordinarily, we would not have dignified these reports with a
response but for the fact that many of these informants are not known
for flippant and frivolous talks. Secondly, this Government has
demonstrably exhibited apathy, and in some cases, encouraged by its
conduct, daily loss of lives and property in many States of the country,
the office cannot be indifferent.

“We are currently in a nation where the Number Three citizen is
currently being harangued and the Number Four citizen is facing similar
threat within the same Government they serve. There is a groundswell of
our nationals that live in fear that they could be hounded, harassed,
maimed or even killed as the battle for 2019 takes this worrisome
dimension.

“For Chief Obasanjo, this is a joke carried too far and being
someone who do not act on unofficial information, he had cautioned all
informants and adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the bestial
propositions allegedly being contemplated to cow, cage and embarrass
him.

“The content of the alleged beastly designs, it was learnt are
two-fold for now. One, to seize his International Passport and clamp him
into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further
expressing angst on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of
governance, economic management and in the protection of lives and
property by the Government.

“But, since that could expose the Government to a swath of
international condemnation, embarrassment and outrage, it is said that
another plot being hatched is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) to re-open investigation into the activities of Chief
Obasanjo’s administration using false witnesses and documents. This
will be a re-enactment of the Abacha era in which Chief Obasanjo was one
of the principal victims’.

‘The same EFCC that had conducted a clinical investigation on
the activities of Obasanjo in and out of Government, it was said, would
now be made to stand down the existing report that gave Chief Obasanjo a
clean bill of health on the probes are now to get him indicted, fair or
foul for possible prosecution and persecution like it is being done to
real and perceived opponents, enemies and critics of this Government’.

 

‘Dissent is a fundamental principle on which liberal democracy
is predicated. A true democrat must be ready to live with and
accommodate dissent and opposition. While it is regrettable how the
Government has sunk in its shameless desperation to cow opposition, a
resort to blackmail, despotism and Gestapo-tactics being employed by the
goons of this Government would not hold water. And no government ever
remains in power forever.

‘For the record, Chief Obasanjo reiterates his readiness to
face probe again after that of the House of Representatives, the Senate,
the ICPC, and the EFCC, but before an independent, objective and
credible panel of enquiry to account for his stewardship in Government
and beyond’.

‘Chief Obasanjo reiterates that he has taken a principled
position to ensure that the ship of the Nigerian State does not capsize
and he remains steadfast in his resolve to turn the tide of
maladministration, poor economic management and rudderless governance
model that has tore Nigerians apart on account of religion and ethnicity
which is a great threat to our democracy’.

‘We would like the Government and its supporters to understand
that no amount of campaign of calumny, no matter how well contrived,
orchestrated or marketed would deter Chief Obasanjo from calling a spade
by its name. Chief Obasanjo is a patriot whose sole agenda is to ensure
that the country’s unity, progress and democracy are not negotiated on
the altar of incompetence and provincialism and mediocrity.

‘It is important to point out that Chief Obasanjo is one former
President and Head of State who has engaged the current administration
privately and in a bilateral manner on several issues of direct interest
to the government and other matters of national concern. That channel
of private engagement remains open and continues. However, should there
be the need for public engagement, the right to free speech will always
be exercised and jealously guarded, again in the best interest of
Nigeria and the government.”