Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has yesterday, said that a lot of African countries are joyous that President Jonathan was defeated in the just concluded presidential election in Nigeria.
President Jonathan and Obasanjo.
Premium Times reports that Obasanjo said his checks in a number of African countries suggested they were as happy over the result of the election as majority of Nigerians are. He referred to President Goodluck Jonathan as a moving train who was providentially stopped from collapsing Nigeria.
“I have visited six countries since the election, they are as happy about the results as we are in Nigeria. It is good not only for Nigeria, it is good for Africa and I believe it is good for the world.”
Obasanjo, who led the African Union Observation Mission to the April 2015 General Election in Sudan, spoke on Thursday at a Washington DC event. He described Nigeria as a country that obsessively plays “a dangerous game of moving close to the precipice”. He further said that the country came close to disintegration in the run-up to the 2015 elections but switched swiftly to the path of redemption after the polls.
“I hope we will not fall over one of these days,” he said. He expressed the fact that one month to the election, no one ever believed “we will have a peaceful election that is reasonably free and fair.”
Obasanjo however described his role in the election as that of a person standing on the track of a moving train, the former president said during the countdown to the elections, he faced the option of “jumping off” the tracks or “be crushed” if the train did not providentially get “derailed and stop.” He however said he did not jump and was not crushed adding that “at every stage, there must be leaders imbued with sufficient courage and will to stand firm when you have to stand firm.”
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