BMO to Obasanjo: Stop your hate campaign

By Usman Shuaibu

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has again shown his propensity for mischief with his recent letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, designed to further his claim of a Fulanisation agenda, the Buhari Media Organization (BMO) has said.
According to BMO, Obasanjo’s attempt to present this mischief as a solution to the security challenge in the country is not only pretentious but also hypocritical.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke ,BMO said the letter was meant to present the Fulani as an ethnic group harbouring some grievances against the Nigerian state which only a national dialogue would help resolve.
“We have seen through Chief Obasanjo latest deceit to present the Fulani as the ‘agent provocateur’ by putting it in the dock of public accusation with claims of some grievances which he insinuated as the cause of banditry, kidnapping and killings in the country.
“What he did with his preamble for a call for a National Dialogue is to place the neck of an entire ethnic group on the slab on the basis of what he, as an octogenarian, perfectly knows to be a long-standing farmers-herders crisis. Yet he sought to place the matter at the doorstep of a President that he has fallen out with, by claiming that the government had been treating it with levity.
“So It was not entirely surprising that the former President found a way of dragging President Muhammadu Buhari into the fray by suggesting ‘vicarious responsibility’ and even went to the extent of saying that ‘perception may be as potent as reality at times’.
“In essence, it is an extension of a previous letter in which he accused the President of harbouring and pursuing a Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda which he couched as one with a solution to the myriad of national problems.
The group also accused the former President of stoking tension in the aftermath of the tragic murder of Mrs Funke Olakunri, daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, the national leader of the Yoruba socio-cultural group Afenifere.
BMO added that Obasanjo’s penchant for mischief also showed in the manner he suggested a way out as well as the individuals he wants the President to invite for a national conference.