Obasanjo vouch for Atiku to reposition Nigeria

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday restated his confidence in his erstwhile deputy Atiku Abubakar to reposition the country.

He spoke at the 2019 Island Club Quarterly Business Lecture, where the former vice president delivered a lecture titled: “My vision to get Nigeria Working again”.

In his remark, Obasanjo believed that Atiku had the experience, the capacity and passion to move the country forward.

According to him, his support for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate should no longer look strange to Nigerians, despite what he said and wrote about him in the past.

He said that he stood firmly by whatever he said in the past about Atiku and indeed President Buhari.

He, however, said the PDP candidate had demonstrated what was expected of a committed and sincere leader by owing up to his past mistakes and showing remorse. Obasanjo added that Atiku had not only apologised to his political party and the nation, but also apologised to him for the past disagreements he made as his deputy.

He said that Atiku was not infallible like every other human being and that he, (Obasanjo) would be playing God by not forgiving the former vice president.

Obasanjo: “I have been called names because of my position on Atiku Abubakar, the Waziri Adamawa. “Everything I have said as far as I have knowledge of Atiku, I have not retracted and I stand firmly by them because they are to the best of my knowledge true.

“And neither has what I have said and written about Buhari been controverted, if anything, they have been confirmed and proved beyond any shadow of doubt. “But Atiku has done things which are absolutely imperative for a leader to be followed and believed. “First, know who you are and present yourself as you are – a human being in blood and flesh and susceptible to human mistakes and human frailties.

“Don’t cover up with sanctimonious veneer of bogus integrity, incorruptibility, uprightness, goodness and false figures and statistics, all of which are contrived to deceive, to cheat, to plunder and to destroy.

“Atiku never claimed to be a saint and I never described him as such. I will never so describe any human being alive let alone calling him a Messiah.

“On an occasion in the past when I said that someone was not a Messiah, some Nigerians out of bad “belle” were up in arms.

“For me, as a Christian, the only Messiah I know and have is Jesus Christ and even then, the man aspect of Him was imperfect while the divine aspect of Him was perfectly messianic.”