Source: Nigeria Tribune
FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Thursday, in Abuja, broke his silence on the health condition of his successor, President Umaru Yar’Adua, urging him to choose the path of honour and morality and resign, if he can no longer serve the Nigerian people.
Chief Obasanjo was responding to a question as chairman of the 7th Annual Trust Lecture in Abuja, tagged: “The African Woman and Politics.”
A member of the audience, Mr. Danladi Bello Jega, of the Progressive Movement for Better Society, had accused Obasanjo of being responsible for the present constitutional crisis by choosing a sick man to succeed him as president.
“If you take up an assignment, a job-elected, appointed whatever it is, and then your health starts to fail and you will not be able to deliever to satisfy yourself and to satisfy the people you are supposed to serve, then there is a path of honour and the path of morality and if you don’t do that, then you don’t know anything,” Obasanjo told the audience about Yar’Adua.
But Obasanjo, in response to the question, denied the accusation and swore that what he did was in the interest of the nation.
He even cursed himself to convince Nigerians that he had not chosen Yar’Adua, a sick man to succeed him as president in order to cause constitutional crisis, adding that, “If I did that, God will punish me. There is no reason why I should do that. What I need to say is that nobody picked Yar’Adua so that he will not perform.”
He admitted that he was aware that Yar’Adua had kidney problem but that he had been going abroad for dialysis even as governor of Katsina State.
According to him, when he was shopping for a replacement, three qualities informed his choice: “A man with high intellectual capacity, a man with sufficient personal integrity and a man who was sufficiently broad-minded enough both politically, religiously and socially to rule Nigeria.
Below is the unedited response Obasanjo made to the question.
“When in year 2006, the idea came up as to succession, I was convinced in my mind that a Southerner succeeding me will not augur well for Nigeria. You may agree with that, you may not agree. I was convinced in my mind. Now, I was looking for who will succeed me who had three important qualities. One, he has enough intellectual capacity to run the affairs of Nigeria. Two, he has sufficient personal integrity to run the affairs of Nigeria. Three, he is sufficiently broad-minded enough-politically, religiously, socially, whatever, to manage the affairs of Nigeria. These three were the important things. Then Umoru Yar’Adua who is now the president, I know he has kidney problem and was under dialysis. Sometime earlier, he had gone abroad when he was still the governor of Katsina State.
“When the idea was for him to contest, I asked him and he gave me a medical report. The medical report shows that he had come off dialysis. I asked experts who then told me that if you were under dialysis or you were on dialysis and you are no longer under dialysis, it means you have had a successful kidney transplant and that you can live for as long as God may give you favour. Now, who am I and who are you not to accept that? That was the situation. Now, Mallam Musa Yar’Adua went campaigning and we campaigned together. I remember at one day of the campaign, he was run down. Chairman of our party then, Ahmadu Ali, was also run down. Ahmadu Ali didn’t go abroad to check up, but he went abroad to check up and the rumour was that he was dead. And I called him and I put the telephone on speaker and I said, Are you dead? And we continued with the campaign.
“To the best of my knowledge, he wasn’t on dialysis after that. When the issue of dialysis came, he was well into his first term (as president), which must, maybe, the kidney transplant is failing, if it hasn’t failed. That you cannot blame on me. You cannot even blame it on him. So, to say that I, Olusegun Obasanjo, deliberately see somebody who is an invalid and..is highly, highly ungrateful... how can I put so much into this country, both in peace and in war and I will begin to run it down. If you have fear of God, you will not make that statement. On the way out of the constitutional crisis, what I needed to say on that, I have said as the Chairman of my Board of Trustees last week. I won’t say anything more. What I need to say is that nobody picked Yar’Adua so that he will not perform. If I did that, God will punish me. There is no reason why I should do that. Again, if you take up an assignment, a job-elected, appointed whatever it is, and then your health starts to fail and you will not be able to deliver to satisfy yourself and to satisfy the people you are supposed to serve, then there is a path of honour and the path of morality. There is path of honour and the path of morality and if you don’t do that, then you don’t know anything.”
2 Feedback:
OBJ have now decided to disowned Yaradua. I do not know why African leaders have problem with apology and asking for forgiveness.
Obasanjo is just too proud to admit his mistakes and short sightness decisions.
He did not disown him, he cleared his own path. Every man for himself. LMAO.....
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