Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Alani Akinrinade, has described former President Olusegun Obasanjo as irritable and belonging in the dustbin of history.
The 79-year-old retired military chief passed the damning judgement in an advertorial published in The PUNCH on Thursday.
Calling on the media to ignore the former president, Akinrinade said “They (the press) owe Nigeria the responsibility of keeping this irritable man where he belongs- the waste bin of history.”
Referring to statements made in a letter by Obasanjo’s daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, Akinrinade said “Nigeria does not belong to him (Obasanjo). He should allow Nigerians choose who they want and stop goading the citizenry for his own selfish interests.”
Dismissing Obasanjo’s support for the election of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Akinrinade said the 81-year-old has a history of supporting a new candidate at almost every election cycle only to turn against the person once he is elected.
“Olusegun Obasanjo asking Nigerians to vote for Atiku Abubakar is an insult to our collective intelligence. With the benefit of hindsight, can anyone truly say Obasanjo’s sense of judgment in choosing leaders can be trusted?
“Take a good look at history. Through the clandestine manoeuvres in 1979, he foisted on Nigeria a reluctant Shehu Shagari at the expense of the cerebral Obafemi Awolowo or Nnamdi Azikiwe. After his second coming, he so manipulated the electoral system that he fraudulently installed an unhealthy Umaru Yar’Adua as President alongside another reluctant character in the person of Goodluck Jonathan as the deputy.
“He denied every interested member of his party while employing all sorts of machination including threat and blackmail. Then came 2015; he told Nigerians Muhammadu Buhari is the best man for the job. As he has done to every Presidential candidate he installed or supported, a few years down the line, he says Buhari is unfit for the job again,” he said.
Akinrinade was a member of the Supreme Military Council during the military regime of Olusegun Obasanjo from 1976 to 1979.
He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1979 and appointed chief of army staff and then became chief of defence staff in 1980 under the civilian regime of late former President Shagari.
