While talking to an audience at the United States Institute of Peace
in Washington DC, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said African
leaders were happy over the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan in the
2015 presidential election.
Union Observation Mission to the April 2015 General Election in Sudan,
spoke on Thursday at a Washington DC event.
suggested they were happy over the result of the election. 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.”
PremiumTimes reports that the former president described Nigeria as a
country that obsessively plays “a dangerous game of moving close to the
precipice”. He said 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 said one month to the election, no one believed “we will have a peaceful election that is reasonably free and fair.”
Describing 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 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.”
He described the results of the elections as what Nigerians “deserve” though some Nigerians “did not want it”.