Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo says the just recently held 2023 presidential, governorship and legislative election was a show of shame.
According to him, the election which the opposition say was characterised with widespread violence, voter intimidation, and tribal aggression, has made the country more divided than ever before.
He made the comment on Thursday in Abuja while speaking at the presentation of a book authored by Tunji Olaopa.
Obasanjo said he is too old to keep quiet on national issues and went on to describe the election outcome as a “sickening show of shame” and urged the incoming administration to put measures in place that would foster national reconciliation.
He said; “Given what we saw during the election, Nigeria is now even more divided and more corroded than we thought. This places a deep onus on any administration following the current one, to urgently facilitate the process of national moral rearmament and national reconciliation for the aggrieved and will lead us across Nigeria and to assuage the youth.
“This must be done in sync with the imperative of national value orientation that Nigeria requires to build a collective sense of enduring and local values and national belonging.
“Let me conclude by stating clearly that I am now too old to keep quiet and watch Nigeria’s seemingly clueless launch into dystopia. All efforts are now required from all committed patriots to rescue the nation from the precipice. And when I look at the audience I have a feeling that among the people who can do it and who must do it are some of you here.
“It has become my own personal obligation, continuing in my relentless service as a letterman, dedicated in my twilight years to say the truth, as I see it, so as to push Nigeria in the direction of our collective aspirations. What is our collective aspiration? A better society where all Nigerians can become what the Almighty God destined [them] to be.
“At times like this, some of us have to adopt the attitude of being known to be blind and not being afraid of the dark. But we must continue to work for the light of all.
“Governance in Nigeria now calls for thinking outside the box in terms of development financing, this has become inevitable in the face of Nigeria’s dwindling fortune, in oil revenue, Nigeria’s huge foreign indebtedness and the urgency of diversifying Nigeria’s neocultural economy”.