Obasanjo Warns Against Coup, Declares Support for Buhari

Baba has finally taken his stand after refusing to join the campaign of Goodluck Jonathan for deceiving in 2010 that he would spend only six years in office if Baba Olusegun Obasanjo can support him to get the PDP ticket to complete the tenure of late President Umaru Yar'Adua.

Obasanjo has thus declared his support for the presidential candidate of the APC, Muhammadu Buhari.

Obasanjo, who is a member of the PDP, declared his support for Buhari during an interview with the Financial Times at the launch of his autobiography titled, ‘My Watch’, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Obasanjo said: “The circumstances he (Buhari) will be working under if he wins the elections are different from the one he worked under before, where he was both the executive and the legislature – he knows that. He is smart enough. He is educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?”

He said Buhari, who ruled Nigeria between December 1983 and August 1985, was aware of the urgency of the moment to salvage Nigeria and he is confident that Buhari will make Nigerians proud.

Obasanjo said he is sure that Buhari would be able to effectively tackle corruption and insecurity.

The former President said Buhari would restore the morale of the military which, he said, was needed in the fight against terrorism.

He said President Goodluck Jonathan betrayed the armed forces by allowing corruption to undermine their operations.

He said, “It is a question of leadership – political and military. I think you need to ask Jonathan how he let the army go to this extent. Many things went wrong: recruitment went wrong; training went wrong; morale went down; motivation was not there; corruption was deeply ingrained; and welfare was bad.”

Reacting to the postponement of the elections, Obasanjo said, “I sincerely hope that the President is not going for broke and saying ‘look dammit, it’s either I have it or nobody has it’. I hope that we will not have a coup. I hope we can avoid it.”