Obasanjo is confused, not worthy of attention ― Presidency

The presidency on Wednesday blasted former President Olusegun Obasanjo for his opposition to President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019, saying that his recent utterances are an indication that he is “confused and not worthy of attention.”

In a statement made available to State House correspondents in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media & Publicity), Garba Shehu, the Presidency maintained that whoever the former president decides to support in 2019 is irrelevant as the former president had publicly changed his mind on the matter so many times over the past few months alone.

The statement added: “Former president Obasanjo denounces one person today and supports that same person the next day.

“When it pleases him, he brings God into the matter and uses that as his excuse for whatever position he has chosen,” he said.

Shehu added that he was not surprised that newspapers reported Obasanjo expressing neutrality at a weekend forum, only for the former president to express a completely different stance after a day or two.

“We have learnt not to take his utterances seriously anymore.

“We know that the slightest wind can make him change his mind again. After all, this is the same man who publicly tore his party registration card barely four years ago, and he now claims to be backing the same party,” Shehu said.

Obasanjo, who supported President Buhari in the 2015 election but is now backing his former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, for the 2019 election, had recently refuted a report that he would maintain a neutral position in the forthcoming election, describing it as malicious.

A statement issued by his media aide, Mr  Kehinde Akinyemi, had said:  “It is disingenuous, if not malicious, for anyone to suggest that Chief Obasanjo was being neutral when he chose not to use the Owu Convention as a platform for political campaign but instead adopt a communal and familial approach in talking to members of his Owu family.

“For the records, and as accurately reported by some media organisations, what the former president said at the convention in Iwo was that while he would not impose any candidates on them, Nigerians should vote for credible candidates who will drive growth and development and make their lives better than it is now.”

The statement maintained that what the former president said did not suggest that he would be neutral, saying that, “only a fool will sit on the fence or be neutral when his or her country is being destroyed with incompetence, corruption, lack of focus, insecurity, nepotism, brazen impunity and denial of the obvious.

“Chief Obasanjo is no such fool nor is he so unwise.”