Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday wrote an open letter to the President Muhammadu Buhari on the army killing of protesters at Lekki, Lagos urging him to act fast before it was too late.
Obasanjo accused Buhari and the military of not exhausting all options before they used force against the protesters.
He said, “Great harm has been done, but it can be stopped before it completely spirals out of control.”
The former president, in the letter, titled ‘statement on violence against protesters in Nigeria: An appeal for calm,’ he personally, signed, urged Buhari to withdraw soldiers from streets and engage protesters in dialogues.
While blaming the President for the murder of the protesters at Lekki and other parts of the country, Obasanjo said the shooting of unarmed protesters had never been effective in suppressing public anger.
He also said, “Most of the demands of the protesting youth, which Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State swiftly took to the President, are not unreasonable and can be met without anyone’s political interest or ambition being threatened.”
Obasanjo also advised the youth to eschew violence , advising them to give peace a chance and stop destruction of public property and targeting individuals.
