PETER OBI MAKES THE INTELLECTUAL CASE AGAINST MUHAMMADU BUHARI IN 8 POINTS By Sir Godwin C. Godwin Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra state, has always been a key Goodluck Jonathan ally even when he served as the APGA governor of the state. Since the conclusion of his tenure and his entry into the PDP, Obi has emerged as an even stronger intellectual voice in support of the reelection bid of the president. In Lagos on Wednesday, Obi spoke with journalists and made a case against the candidacy of Muhammadu Buhari and a defense of the current administration. Here is what he said in eight points: 1. BUHARI IS TOO OLD TO BE PRESIDENT Sidestepping other world powers like the UK and Italy which have had older prime ministers, Obi emphasised that the United States of America has never elected a president above 70 years of age since the inception of democracy. He emphasised that the oldest person ever elected as the US president was Ronald Reagan at the age of 68. According to Obi, the APC does not wish Nigeria well or else why would the party be agitating for the election of a 73-year-old “in a world, where a life-changing protest for democratic change, the demand for free and fair democracy without Chinese interference was led by a 17-year-old boy in Hong Kong.” 2. YOUNG PEOPLE ARE DOING BIG THINGS ALL OVER THE WORLD To further make the point about Buhari’s age, Obi pointed out that “the major search engines and social networks of the world, like Google (1998), Yahoo (1994), Ebay (1995), Facebook (2004) and Alibaba were all founded by young people under 40 years of age.” Also, “most of the captains of industry in Nigeria today are led by men and women who were not yet in primary school 31 years ago when Buhari’s was head of state.” 3. THE PRESIDENT HAS DONE WELL BUT MISCHIEF MAKERS ARE TRYING TO RUN HIM DOWN In making the case for Pres. Jonathan’s reelection, Obi said that the president has done well and has set the right processes in motion. In his opinion, the main problem was that Jonathan’s performance has been under- reported and distorted by mischief makers. 4. THE PRESIDENT IS NOT TO BLAME FOR THE ECONOMIC SITUATION. He absolved Pres. Jonathan of blame in some of the economic challenges the nation is facing. He said that if Nigerians understood the macro- economic realities, they would not hold Jonathan responsible for the decline of the naira. “The depreciation in the exchange rate is a worldwide phenomenon fuelled by the fall in oil prices and other elements of the increasing global economic and security challenges. Hardest hit are countries that export petroleum products. “Talking about the fall in the value of the naira, look at what is happening in Russia and other places. In just a year, the Russian rubbles lost 40 per cent of its value. The Venezuelan currency even lost more than that. The interesting thing about these countries is that they are not calling for the crucifixion of their leaders, rather, they are supporting them with an understanding that the gale will pass away.” 5. BECAUSE BUHARI SOLVED THE MAITATSINE INSURGENCY DOES NOT MEAN HE CAN SOLVE BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY. Obi said that the Maitatsine insurgency which Buhari solved was different from the current terror struggles Nigeria is contending with. “The stable global environment of the 80s cannot be compared with the volatile and terror- enveloped global environment of today. The socio-religious realities that threw up the Maitatsine group are different from the realities that threw up Boko Haram insurgency.” 6. BUHARI EVEN STAGED A COUP. He ‘commended’ Buhari for disrupting democracy 31 years ago when he staged a coup d’état and removed the democratically elected government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari and tried visibly to instil discipline and order in our society. He, however, said that the coup was Buhari’s greatest achievement, but the “economic policies and actions of that government were disastrous, as Nigeria nearly turned into a pariah nation that no one wanted to deal with globally. At the time, under the Buhari’s government, confirmed Letters of Credit were rejected, because no one wanted to deal with Nigeria.” 7. EVEN IF BUHARI DID WELL, DOES IT MEAN HE MUST RETURN? Obi criticised the APC for wanting to return Buhari to power, arguing that even if the APC believes that he was the best in history, it does not indicate that he should be asked to come back. “The Singaporeans are not asking Lee Kwuan Yu to come back. Malaysians are not asking Mahathir Mohamad to come back. The Americans are also not asking Bill Clinton, who came to office 10 years after Buhari’s first outing and who had the best economic performance in the 21st century, to come back. Are we saying that Nigeria has not produced anyone who can do the job today?” 8. ON CORRUPTION, THE APC IS HYPOCRITICAL. Everyone in Nigeria claims to be a saint and accuses others of being corrupt. We all read and also heard from those who were there what transpired at the APC primaries in Lagos. That is not corruption, right? While I agree that there is the need to strengthen institutions like the ICPC and EFCC, to fight the physical and more tangible forms of administrative corruption, there is also the far more fundamental need to fight corruption from its very roots,” he said.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:26:54 +0000
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