Nigerian Government Respond To Obasanjo’s Threat Claim, Says Those Without Skeletons In Wardrobes Shouldn’t Fear

Lai Mohammed

Nigerian Government has responded to accusations of threat to life claim by the Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, against the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration, saying that it is frivolous
meant to distract the governance.

Obasanjo had among other things claimed that he had been placed under security watch list, just as the incumbent government is plotting to hang a crime on him in an attempt to arrest and detain him indefinitely.

Obasanjo claimed that these had been the plot since January when in a letter, he had asked President Buhari not to contest in 2019 due to his abysmal performance.

But the Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, in a statement in Lagos Friday, said the administration remains committed and would not be distracted by frivolous allegations.

He said the administration will never engage in any form of frame up as alleged by Obasanjo.

He said the administration will not be distracted by “frivolous allegations from any quarter, especially those cleverly choreographed to divert attention from a widely-acclaimed presidential proclamation and to shore up support for a waning and egotistical cause”.

He maintained that the administration is “too busy trying to clear the mess of 16 years and build on its unprecedented achievements over the past three years to waste its energy and time on framing up anyone or dwelling on issues that are not grounded in fact”.

However, he said “those who have skeletons in their wardrobes should be afraid, even of their own shadows, innocent persons need not worry about any investigation, whether real or imagined”

”This administration will never engage in a frame-up of innocent citizens. That is neither in the character of President Muhammadu Buhari nor in that of his administration. Only the guilty should be worried. To paraphrase an African proverb, a man who has no wife cannot lose an inlaw to the cold hands of death.

”The administration is also strongly committed to the tenets of democracy, including freedom of speech and the right to dissent. But we understand that those who, in their time, were untethered to those principles would find it hard to believe”.

The information minister further made reference to the presidential proclamation made by Buhari on June 12, 1993, saying ”Apparently, the impact of this proclamation was too much to bear by those who, through acts of omission or commission, helped to deepen the wounds inflicted by the blow of injustice that followed an election that was widely acclaimed to be free, fair and credible, hence they felt the need for a red herring that will distract the nation.

“Added to that is the frustration brought about by the fact that the contraption they have so much hyped as a freeway to power has failed to gain traction. Faced with this double tragedy, even the strongest of men may begin to succumb to a figment of their imagination. They may start crying wolf where there is none”.