By Dansu Peter
The Coalition also alleged that the former President was working in alliance with agents of destabilisation whom it said some of their leaders have held meetings with those used for staging the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa to perfect their plans of dividing the country.
Addressing a press conference at Top Ranks Hotel in Abuja on Thursday, National President of the Coalition for Nigeria, Patriot Sabo Odeh said it was regrettable that a former President of the country was working tirelessly to infringe pain on the nation for his failure to elongate his tenure.
"The Coalition for Nigeria has learnt with amusement the call by former President Olusegun Obasanjo for a coalition of the concerned and the willing" which he has rushed to christen "Coalition for Nigeria" without making efforts at due diligence to realize that such coalition already exists. Our press briefing here today is not to wrangle over who has the right to use the name "Coalition for Nigeria". Our goal is to alert Nigeria to the re-emergence of a force that had always mitigated against the wellbeing of the country even while masquerading as good intentions. The name of that threat is Olusegun Obasanjo, who has history of regarding Nigeria as his fiefdom from which he and his offspring are entitled to pillage at every turn.
"The failure of his tenure elongation bid left Obasanjo a bitter old man, who has since that time harbored animosity towards all Nigerians – he sees in all of us enemies that must be punished hence his constant interjections once he sees the country slipping out of the traps and pitfalls he had craftily orchestrated before he grudgingly left office in 2007".
Though the group agreed with former President Obasanjo that the journey for a greater Nigeria starts now, it however, said the trip that the country would lead to the promised land can only be achieved without him.
"We, the Coalition for Nigeria, agree that there is need to move from our current state of affairs in Nigeria but those that will lead us do not belong to Obasanjo's circle and certainly not Obasanjo himself.
"We see President Buhari as having fulfilled his place and mission in history, which is to disrupt and overturn the status quo such that his successors, when the time comes, will build on his works to give us the Nigeria of our vision.
"If the Obasanjo government was half as sincere as the present administration, the troubles of today would have not cropped up in the first place. It is most insulting that the same man is today bragging about assembling teams of experts when his terms in office were spent in partitioning the country and allocating huge chunks to his cronies including initiating privatization programmes that simply gifted the country to a mafia".
The group further explained that had Obasanjo nursed good intentions for the country, in the eight years he spent as a democratically elected President, he would have focused on building strong institutions and enduring systems as opposed to the strong individuals created by his regime adding that, Obasanjo wants to fraudulently recover at a roundabout what he carelessly lost at an intersection.
"Ordinarily we would have disregarded Obasanjo's latest outburst but for a series of other happenstances that suggest that his letter is part of a larger plot to mislead and destabilize the country. In this regard, the former President appears to be the elder statesmen's wing of a malcontent rabble that is determined to return Nigeria back to the days of kleptocracy founded by him. Just a few hours before he sent out his cantankerous statement, the street gang called Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group had sullied the streets with its Red Card campaign. We have wondered if it a mere coincidence that a convener of BBOG, Oby Ezekwesili, was a minister in Obasanjo's cabinet. This is a group that is known to be on the payroll of neocon entities that are committed to destroying Nigeria.
"We realize that some of those peddling Obasanjo's statement as the holy grail are trying to desensitize people to its impropriety by claiming that Nigerians should consider the message and not the messenger. But to us, a people who do not see in Obasanjo a messenger that should be disregarded are set for doom because nothing honourable has ever come out this vessel. Even worse than the messenger is the toxic message that was crafted only to satisfy his own agenda of continuing to hold Nigeria in servitude.
"By his own admission, Obasanjo has been undertaking many foreign trips, which we understand are covers for scheming with foreign interests that are closet enemies of our country. It is not farfetched it turns out that he is the conduit that ships in funds for BBOG and other anti-Nigeria groups. We continue to wonder how lower Obasanjo can sink in exacting vengeance against those he thought denied him of a third term in office, which he loosely interprets as all Nigerians. We do not in any way deserve the crisis he is preparing to launch".
The group also called on the Federal Government to be proactive in addressing issues that could give room for the likes of the former President to exploit to the detriment of the country.
"On the clashes between farmers and herdsmen, our position is that the federal government immediately investigate the roles of all stakeholders in the crisis including governors that have been accused of arming ethnic militias and associations that have held press briefings to justify reprisal attacks. We however submit that the government looks beyond ethnic, religious and political undertone of the crisis to address issues like cultural attachment, climate change, and the possible connection with international terrorism if any.
"Our demand for immediate action on this crisis is premised on the risk of politicians further using the farmers/herders' crisis to commit mischief ahead of the 2019 General Elections.
"Coalition for Nigeria further tasks the government to broaden its search for solutions to Nigeria's myriad problem given the ignoble roles being played by saboteurs who pretend to be activists".
"We therefore wish to alert law enforcement agencies to the plots by criminal elements to unleash violence on the streets of our cities using violent protests as the catalysts to provoke security personnel into clashing with them. May we point out that the first phase of the protests failed to gain traction as Nigerians refused to be used by the commercial activists paid to staged such event. Obasanjo's statement was mean to be a morale booster for these groups and now that the statement too has spectacularly failed to provoke the kind of unrest they have in mind they are likely to move into another facet that involves causing confusion during one of their outing, shoot at their own members and blame security agencies for injuring or killing them. Some of the leaders of this protest movement have held meetings with those used for staging the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa with a view to replicating the strategy of provoking security operatives to clamp down on violent protesters and then invite the intervention of the international community",the Coalition alleged.
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