Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo says it is worrying that banditry is taking place in the north-west region of the country where the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), hails from.
Obasanjo, as a result, calls for the president to wake up and fight banditry and other sundry crimes particularly in the northern part of the country.
The ex-president, who spoke on Sunday in a virtual interview with academic and historian, Toyin Falola, said Buhari should start thinking of leaving an enduring legacy as president.
He said, “I thought I knew President Buhari because he worked with me. But I used to ask people that is it that I have not read him well or read him adequately or is it that he has changed from the Buhari that I used to know? I am not subscribing to the people who say we have a new Buhari from Sudan and all that nonsense.
“I know what I believed was his limitations and I have written about it –he wasn’t strong in economics, not all of us are strong in anything but you need to have sufficient knowledge of it for you to direct the affairs. He wasn’t particularly too strong in foreign affairs but I thought he was strong enough in the military.
“From his performance in his first outing as head of state, I thought he would also do well in fighting corruption. I did not know the nepotistic tendencies of President Buhari maybe because he was not exposed to that sort of situation when he worked with me.
“But with what I have seen now, I believe that maybe he will be thinking of a legacy. Maybe he will also learn from what has happened in recent times. If you are the commander-in-chief and banditry is taking place in your backyard, then you have to wake up.”
The ex-president also said some governors are now in a state of hopelessness because of the president’s way of handling the insecurity in the country.
