ACF blasts Obasanjo on doomsday prophecy

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has berated Nigeria’s former President, Olusegun Obasanjo for always proclaiming doomsday, predicting upheaval and bloodbath in the country.
Rising from a news conference in Kaduna, the northern umbrella body said such prediction by Obasanjo had diminished his acclaimed status as a patriot and nationalist.
The body was reacting to a letter written by Obasanjo to President Muhammadu Buhari, in which he drew his attention to wanton insecurity in the country, saying that the nation was heading towards the precipice if urgent actions were not taken to remedy the situation.
National Publicity Secretary, ACF, Alhaji Muhammad Ibrahim accused Obasanjo of deliberately attempting to cause division and acrimony along religious, ethnic and regional lines in the country.
“ACF appreciates the freedom of expression and the right to hold opinion on all issues as guaranteed by our constitution by individuals or groups as long as it’s within the confines of the law. The Forum therefore believed that Chief Obasanjo used this privilege to raise the issues which mostly borders on insecurity in his latest letter.
“It must, however, be noted that the issues are not new to Nigerians as he had raised them in his previous open letters to the President, so also other Nigerians in different fora.
“All the same, in exercising our right to comment on the letter, it is our candid opinion that Chief Obasanjo, being a former President and an elder statesman who has unfettered access to the President, should use a better and most civilized way of communicating his views to a sitting president rather than going public to create unnecessary scene and try to bring down the roof,” he said.