Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has been berated for his recent letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, where he advised him against seeking re-election in 2019.

At a forum which held in Abuja, National Coordinator of Forum of Non-Governmental Organisations in Nigeria (FONGON) Wole Badmus said 50 per cent of the mess the country finds itself could be attributed to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

“The question needs to be asked, why is Obasanjo distracting Buhari when he has not declared in actual fact? Why are people telling Buhari not to contest when he has not declared that he is running? This is mark of double standards. You are castigating somebody and arm-twisting him. You are saying he should not run because you don’t believe in him but we believe in him, so, we are saying he should run. The simple answer is to subject everything to democratic scrutiny.

“As for the letter, yes, he raised some valid points which are not as a result of the ineptness of the present administration but Obasanjo will equally realise that it is as a result of inherited baggage, liquidation and liabilities Buhari’s administration inherited from the past government. Everybody knows that the country was at the brink of collapse as at May 2015. So, you cannot put the entire blame on Buhari…in writing his latest letter, did he make a single attempt to see the president? No.

“Somebody just came telling Nigerians yearly that they must take his own dosage to our democratic ailment, it is never done. Democracy is game of numbers, not gain of an individual. With due respect, former president Olusegun Obasanjo cannot be imposing his whims and caprices upon the nation all the time. We see the letter as distractive because, as somebody said, Buhari has not declared for 2019, why are we campaigning for him?” he queried.