Former Jigawa State governor Alhaji Sule Lamido has called on former President Olusegun Obasanjo not to allow his disappointment with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration turned him to a bigot.
He was reacting to Obasanjo’ s scathing remarks on the security challenge in the country, wherein the former president stressed that every insecurity challege in the country must be taken seriously and addressed squarely without “favouritism or cuddling. ”
Obasanjo, who spoke at the 2nd session of the Synod held at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Oleh, in Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, further said “Boko Haram and herdsmen’s acts of violence were not treated as they should at the beginning. They have both incubated and developed beyond what Nigeria can handle alone. They are now combined and internationalised with ISIS in control.
“It is no longer an issue of lack of education and lack of employment for our youths in Nigeria which it began as; it is now West African fulanisation, African Islamization and global-organized crimes of human trafficking, money laundering, drug trafficking, gun trafficking, illegal mining and regime change.”
But Lamido, in a statement signed by his aide on new media, Mansur Ahmed, noted that such remarks coming from the former president was “very much unlike you sir!”
Lamido further said if the remarks by Obasanjo were made at a non-religious gathering to a non-religious audience, it would have been tolerable.
He said the various diversities that hitherto held the country together which in turn helped national cohesion were already turning into huge “gorges” and pleaded with the former president to remain a statesman that he has always been.
The former Jigawa governor, who also served as Obasanjo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, from 1999 to 2003, further said “as leaders, like I have been saying, we should never act in anger because if we do, it can hurt. I therefore call on our boss, Obasanjo, not to let his disappointment with the sitting president turn him into a bigot. He must not abandon the national stage.”