…only those in support will criticise OBJ, says Fani-Kayode
Former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, has urged former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to allow his disappointment with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration turn him into a bigot.
He was reacting to Obasanjo’s scathing remarks on the security challenge in the country, during the second session of the Synod, Cathedral Church of St.Paul’s Anglican Church, Oleh, Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, at the weekend.
Obasanjo had stressed that every insecurity challenge in the country must be taken seriously and addressed squarely, without “favouritism or cuddling.
“Boko Haram and herdsmen’s acts of violence were not treated as they should at the beginning. They have both incubated and developed beyond what Nigeria can handle alone. They are now combined and internationalised with ISIS in control.
“It is no longer an issue of lack of education and lack of employment for our youths in Nigeria which it began as, it is now West African ‘fulanisation’, African Islamisation and global organised crimes of human trafficking, money laundering, drug trafficking, gun trafficking, illegal mining and regime change.”
But, Lamido, in a statement signed by his aide on New Media, Mansur Ahmed, yesterday, noted that such remarks, coming from Obasanjo, was “very much unlike you sir!”
Lamido further said if the remarks by Obasanjo were made at a non-religious gathering, to a non- religious audience, it would have been tolerable.
Lamido, who also served as Obasanjo’s minister of Foreign Affairs, from 1999 to 2003, said: ‘‘I, therefore, call on our boss, Obasanjo, not to let his disappointment with the sitting president turn him into a bigot. He must not abandon the national stage.”
Reacting to Lamido, former Aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, pointed out that only those supporting Islamisation and Fulanisation would criticise Obasanjo’s statement.
He said Obasanjo has done more for the core North, “including Lamido’s Fulani tribe,” than any other president.
He added that Obasanjo remains the only politically active southern or Middle Belt leader who understands what is really going on and the grave danger that Nigerians are in and what lies ahead.
“I hear one or two people, like Sule Lamido, are not too happy with what Obasanjo said and have called him out for saying it.”
“Obasanjo also fought in a civil war to keep the country together. For anybody from the core North to call him names for speaking the truth and baring his mind over what is unfolding in Nigeria today, it tells you how blinded by power, insensitive and callous some of these people are.
“It is only those that subscribe to the Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda that will criticise or oppose Obasanjo’s observation and describe him as a ‘bigot’ for making them.”
