• Also condemns election postponement

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo appears to have finally shown his hand ahead of Nigeria’s general elections when he publicly expressed support for the electioneering campaign of Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking at the launch of My Watch in Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday, Obasanjo, who served his two terms as president under the same Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform that President Goodluck Jonathan is now running on, also condemned the postponement of the election from its originally scheduled dates in February to March/April.

“The circumstances [Buhari] will be working under if he wins the election are different from the one he worked under before, where he was both the executive and the legislature — he knows that,” he said.

“He’s smart enough. He’s educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?” he was quoted as saying by online news portal, TheCable.

It is the first time that the ex-president has publicly spoken of his support for Buhari. He recently said that he would only speak out on his leaning after the election has been conducted telling reporters that his ‘body language’ was enough.

On the postponement of the election he said: “The signs are not auspicious. I don’t know whether a script is being played.”

He criticised the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, accusing him of wasting the country’s resources. “You need to ask [Jonathan] how has he let [the army] go to this extent,” he said “Many things went wrong: recruitment went wrong; training went wrong; morale went down; motivation not there; corruption was deeply ingrained; welfare was bad.”

credit:  newtelegraphonline