Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has denied an online report quoting him as saying that he had warned President Muhammadu Buhari not to seek re-election in 2019. The report, which was credited to him through his former Chief Press Secretary, Alex Nwokedi, in an on-line publication, Post Nigeria, dated September 3, 2016, claiming that Obasanjo had warned President Muhammadu Buhari against seeking re-election in 2019.
But Obasanjo has described the report as “completely false and destructive by those behind it.” The former President, in a statement issued by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, in Abeokuta on Sunday, said there has been no communication between him and Nwokedi in the last three years, and wondered why any news would be attributed to him, as published by the on-line publication. The statement read in part:
“My belief is that democracy allows for anybody including President Buhari for that matter to contest any election and it is the prerogative rights of Nigerians to vote or not to vote for them.”
“I have not communicated with Alex in the last three years, so how could a story be credited to me when I did not authorise such or communicated with him in the last three years?”
Obasanjo said he could not even stop any of his children not to seek elective post, because that was part of the freedom of democracy. It read further:
“I condemn in the highest manner the story and those behind it. And for those behind it, they are simply enemies of democracy and freedom of expression.”
Obasanjo said that he was still committed to the peace and progress of the country’s democratic development. He assured Nigerians that with patience, the current democratic experience would bring relief to the masses.