The Presidency, on Monday, hit back at former President Olusegun Obasanjo for criticizing President Muuhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Obasanjo, in a letter to Nigerians on the New Year celebration, said the current administration has disappointed the citizens in all areas of national life, in the last seven-and-half years.
He added that the Buhari administration had taken the country from “frying pan to fire” with its underwhelming performance in the last 92 months.
However, Mallam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, through a statement on Monday, berated the ex-president for destabilizing internal democracy by orchestrating the impeachment of governors who were opposed to his “imperial administration.”
Obasanjo’s administration, according to Shehu, represented the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to frequent assaults on the constitution.
He also accused the former military ruler of deceiving the people of South-East to get their votes in the 1999 and 2003 presidential elections.
The statement read: “Obasanjo laid the sod for the Second Niger Bridge in his first term as elected President and work never started. When he sought re-election for his second term in office, he returned to the site to turn the sod for the bridge the second time. When the Obi of Onitsha, forthright and scholarly, reminded him that he had done this in the past, Obasanjo told the foremost South-East traditional ruler that he was a liar, in the full presence of the Chiefs and Oracles in his palace.
“Obasanjo lied to the South-East to get their votes. President Buhari didn’t get their votes but built the bridge because he believed it is the right thing to do.
“As President, Obasanjo destabilized internal democracy by orchestrating impeachment after impeachment of governors who were not compliant with his highly imperial administration.
“As we said sometime back, Mr. Obasanjo’s tenure, 1999-2007, represented the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to a slew of assaults on the constitution.
“The former president deployed federal machinery to remove governors Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja, Peter Obi, Chris Ngige, and Ayo Fayose from office. They were the then governors of Plateau, Oyo, Anambra, Anambra, and Ekiti, respectively, unjustly removed using the police and secret service under his control.
“Under him, a five-man legislature met at 6:00 a.m. and ‘impeached’ Governor Dariye in Plateau; 18 members out of 32 removed Governor Ladoja of Oyo from office; in Anambra, APGA’s Governor Obi was equally impeached at 5:00 a.m. by members who did not meet the two-thirds required by the constitution.
“Lawmaking powers of the Rivers State legislature were transferred to the federal parliament to punish Governor Amaechi for shifting his political alliance.
“Moreover, he damned the Supreme Court and unlawfully held back Lagos State revenues due from federal sources on account of his pettiness against Governor Bola Tinubu.”