We are all victims of incompetent government - Obasanjo

Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has taken a swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari saying Nigerians are all victims of incompetent government.

The former president had earlier written an open letter to President Buhari asking him not to seek re-election in 2019.

Obasanjo spoke on Monday, April 2 at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun state, while hosting the New Nigeria Group.

He said: “The first lesson I learnt in my military training is to never reinforce failure. What we have now is a failure.

“Never you reinforce failure. Let failure be failure. And if you do not see what you should see, you will then be a victim of what you don’t like because it’s only when you see what you should see and you do what you should do that you put away what you do not like.

“Those of you who are into business know that by now you could have been better if we have an effective government. The truth is this – when you have an ineffective and incompetent government, we are all victims and don’t let anybody deceive you.”

Obasanjo also cautioned Nigeria not to be carried away by the Peoples Democratic Party’s recent apologies.

He also said they should not be swayed by the All Progressives Congress’s new reform.

The former president asked the ruling party to stop giving excuses to Nigeria.

He said: “Stop giving excuses; we met challenges. If there were no challenges, then we wouldn’t need you to come. You came in because you know there were challenges… stop giving us excuse that you have many challenges, that is why you haven’t achieved results,” he said.

“I have publicly said and I mean it, that as a party, neither PDP nor APC can get us there as they have been. Never mind about reforms and apology and all that.”

The All Progressives Congress (APC) said it has not seen any reason to fret over unsubstantiated claims by the opposition that there is a growing coalition against the ruling partyahead of the 2019 election.

The party said its major preoccupation now was to build and strengthen itself ahead of the polls.

National publicity secretary of the APC, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, said this in a telephone interview in Abuja, on Friday, March 23.