Presidency fumes, slams ex-President Obasanjo over democracy not working comment
The Presidency has tackled former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the recent democracy comments he made.
It will be recalled that the former president, while speaking at a recent forum in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, said that certain ‘Nigerian factor’ has corrupted the face of democracy in the country.
The former president stressed that he once became a victim of the so-called Nigerian factor as his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost a local government election because he refused to bribe electoral officials.
But while reacting, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Obasanjo cannot be exonerated of the ills that have plagued the Nigerian democracy since 1999.
Onanuga told The PUNCH that the democracy the country currently practises dates back to direct inputs by Obasanjo when he led the country’s first as military Head of State from 1976 – 1979 and as civilian President from 1999 – 2007.
“Obasanjo ought to know that he brought this thing into Nigeria. He was the one who made us adopt it in 1979. He must have seen it as expensive and unsuitable when he governed us for eight years and even wanted an extension for another four years.
“So, the way he is sounding, it is like the man is getting wiser after leaving office,” Onanuga said, reacting to Obasanjo’s post-presidential stance.
Onanuga further blamed the former leader for a poorly copied model during his tenure as Head of State and, later, President.
He criticised Obasanjo for not advocating a better system despite his current views saying, “If he believes in what he is saying now, he ought to be an advocate of the need to go back to the parliamentary system.”
Onanuga added, “We were practicing the parliamentary democracy the British left for us. Then, the military struck in 1966. And when we were going to return to democracy, instead of going back to what we were practicing before, parliamentary democracy, which was not expensive, it was this same Obasanjo who accepted the recommendation of the constitutional assembly at that time that recommended this American-style democracy.”
The Presidency criticised Obasanjo’s implementation of the presidential system, saying, “Obasanjo also knew that he copied this presidential system very wrongly. He copied the form and structure. But he didn’t copy the spirit of it.”
“Something that should have been under him in 1999 to 2007, he even made attempts to modify the constitution,” Onanuga remarked.
