Former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, has expressed disappointment in the recent speech by former president Olusegun Obasanjo condemning the conduct of the 2023 presidential election.
Osoba made this known in an interview with TVC while responding to Obasanjo who said the INEC result does not correspond with the wishes of the Nigerian people.
The former governor noted that Obasanjo shouldn’t have been in the frame in the first instance when he should have taken the position of a statesman.
Osoba’s response: Osoba accused the former President of being guilty of the same offence he had been accused of in the past. According to reports, he noted that all elections conducted by Obasanjo as president were always condemned. He said:
- “I am shocked and disappointed because a former president making comments should first of all research his information and make concrete evidence of what he is talking about.”
According to Osoba, the Department of International Development, DFID, UK, observed that during the last election under Obasanjo’s administration, an election was stolen and that in that election, scores of people died.
He went on to say that most observers judged Nigeria’s elections in April 2007 to fall far short of standards for credible, free, and fair elections and that they were the worst in Nigeria’s electoral history since independence.
Daring the former president to challenge him in the international election, Osoba noted that widespread malpractice occur throughout all stages of the election with failures in the late delivery of voting material, late commencement in most of the state, ballot box turfing, and falsification of votes amongst other malpractices as spelt the unanimous decision of the international observer.
- “I am not happy with him, he is not being objective. All elections under Obasanjo after he became president in 1999 have been judged as terrible. His making a statement now is like going back to the days of the military when retired generals were usually asked to issue statements attacking the sitting government as a way to give muscle to the young thugs in the military to overthrow the government,” he added.
Back story: Reacting to the result of the presidential election, Obasanjo earlier condemned the election process. He claimed the process has been corrupted and most of the results that are brought outside BVAS and Server are not true reflections of the will of Nigerians who have made their individual choice.
He appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari that all elections that do not pass the credibility and transparency test be cancelled and be brought back in areas where elections were disrupted for next Saturday, March 4, 2023, while BVAS and Server are officially changed.
He’s disappointed in Obasanjo Just because a UK organisation condemned an election he conducted or because Obasanjo’s allegations are false??? I am VERY disappointed in Osoba
Joseph Adeniyi, I am also disappointed in you too. Obasanjo is actually inciting people to violent and want to make Nigeria ungovernable, for the fact that he has a candidate in this election, he is not worthy of this statement he made, he is no longet a stateman, he is partision and should keep quite.
How is Obasanjo “inciting people to violent (sic)” by asking INEC to cancel those elections where there were issues? Obasanjo did not call for the cancellation of the entire elections, and the law actually empowers INEC to cancel elections as appropriate. We should be a nation of laws, not of emotions (or tribalism).
Agreed that OBJ may lack the moral basis for condemning the electoral process, but his accusations are true, especially with regard to failure by many INEC officials to upload results immediately after counting. Any result that is not uploaded as such should be null and void. It’s very ridiculous really, how some members of the ruling party in their arrogant and skewed reasoning don’t think that such gross and brazen election irregularities in itself are not capable of infuriating the poor voters, rather, they choose to label those complaining as the enemy of “democracy” and the state.
Sadly, Osoba’s drivel illustrates the functional illiteracy that routinely governs the Nigerian public space.
First, presidents do not conduct elections. That’s why there is an INDEPENDENT electoral body provided in the Constitution. Accordingly, it’s functionally illiterate when folks commend or condemn sitting presidents for elections.
Furthermore, being a statesman does not equate to burying one’s head in the sand when something as crucial to democracy as the CREDIBILITY of the electoral process is being undermined. Leaders led, not hide!