Lagos, Feb. 28, 2023 – Chief Olusegun Osoba, a former Governor of Ogun State, has described former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement on Saturday’s elections as provocative and a call to violence.
Osoba said he was ashamed and disappointed by the contents, particularly coming from a former president and in the heat of an electoral process.
President Obasanjo, had issued a press statement on Monday, alleging that INEC was not fair and transparent in the conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on Saturday, Feb. 25.
He alleged that the whole electoral process was marred by corruption.
Osoba, who spoke on TVC programme, “Decision 2023” on Tuesday, described Obasanjo’s statement as an incitement and condemnable.
“The statement is total incitement. An elder should learn how not to be pugilistic at old age,” he said.
Osoba said he was sure that Obasanjo did not get his facts right and did not do any research to find out the veracity of his information.
Osoba said Obasajo had always acted unstatesmanlike, while condemning his letter of Jan, 1, 2023 endorsing Peter Obi, a candidate in a forthcoming presidential election.
“I am worried by that statement, but I am happy that Nigerians have made up their minds to uphold democracy.
“The statement is a provocation to violence, but Nigerians have made up their minds to stay with democracy,” he said.
Osoba said that all the political parties had the authenticated results of the elections through their party agents, so the insistence by some that INEC should display the results on its portal was an attempt to scuttle the election and sell the idea of an interim government.
He said what INEC was doing at the collation centre was mere “collation of results”.
Osoba said that Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, the INEC Chairman, could not, at that stage, tamper with election results which came from the polling unit to the ward level to the local government level and to the state level before coming to Abuja.
He said Obasanjo had never been democratic, stressing that all the elections he conducted while in government fell short of international standard.
Osoba described the 2007 Presidential Election conducted by Obasanjo as the worst in the history of Nigeria when even the President-elect, Musa Yar’ Adua, had to probe the conduct of the election on assumption of office. (GBN)
