Obasanjo says the rising insecurity in Nigeria may lead to the dismemberment of the country if not immediately addressed by President Buhari.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says the rising insecurity challenge in Nigeria may lead to the dismemberment of the country if not addressed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
In a letter to Buhari on Monday, July 15, 2019, Obasanjo called on the President to take decisive action to prevent the situation from escalating into a full-blown crisis.
“I am very much worried and afraid that we are on the precipice and dangerously reaching a tipping point where it may no longer be possible to hold danger at bay. Without being immodest, as a Nigerian who still bears the scar of the Nigerian civil war on my body and with a son who bears the scar of fighting Boko Haram on his body, you can understand, I hope, why I am so concerned,” he wrote.
“When people are desperate and feel that they cannot have confidence in the ability of government to provide security for their lives and properties, they will take recourse to anything and everything that can guarantee their security individually and collectively.
“To be explicit and without equivocation, Mr. President and General, I am deeply worried about four avoidable calamities: abandoning Nigeria into the hands of criminals who are all being suspected, rightly or wrongly, as Fulanis and terrorists of Boko Haram type.
“Spontaneous or planned reprisal attacks against Fulanis which may inadvertently or advertently mushroom into pogrom or Rwanda-type genocide that we did not believe could happen and yet it happened. Similar attacks against any other tribe or ethnic group anywhere in the country initiated by rumours, fears, intimidation and revenge capable of leading to pogrom; Violent uprising beginning from one section of the country and spreading quickly to other areas and leading to dismemberment of the country".
Obasanjo had advised President Buhari not to seek re-election in a letter months before the 2019 polls.
Former information minister, Lai Mohammed, had described the letter as a distraction.