The Buhari administration on Sunday stepped up its attacks against former President Olusegun Obasanjo, accusing him of masterminding illegal ouster of at least five governors in the 2000s reports Premium Time NG.
Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesperson, said in a Sunday evening essay to Premium Times NG that Mr Obasanjo’s tenure, 1999-2007, represented the dark days of Nigeria’s democracy due to a slew of assaults on the constitution.
He argued that President Muhammadu Buhari has painstakingly followed the Nigerian constitution since he assumed office in 2015.
Mr Shehu accused the former president of deploying federal machinery to remove ex-governors Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja, Peter Obi, Chris Ngige and Ayo Fayose from office. The politicians were governors of Plateau, Oyo, Anambra, Anambra and Ekiti, respectively.
“When they ran the government at the centre, the opposition PDP showed aptitude in only one thing: the toppling of elected state governments using the police and secret service under their control,” Mr Shehu said.
He gave account of how Mr Obasanjo allegedly perpetrated the alleged constitutional infractions.
“A five-man legislature met at 6:00 am and “impeached” Governor Dariye in Plateau; 18 members out of 32 removed Governor Ladoja of Oyo from office; in Anambra, APGA’s Governor Obi was equally impeached at 5:00 a.m. by members who did not meet the two-thirds required by the constitution.
The PDP President at that time had reportedly told Obi to forget re-election in 2007 if he did not join the PDP because he (the President) would not support a non-PDP member.
“In Ekiti, Governor Fayose in his first term faced allegations of financial corruption and murder. Following the failure to heed the instruction of the presidency to impeach only Fayose and spare the deputy, Madam Olujimi, now a senator, the PDP President declared that there was a breakdown of law and order in the state and declared a state of emergency.
“He appointed Brig-Gen. Adetunji Olurin (rtd) as the sole administrator of the state on October 19, 2006. In an earlier incident in Anambra, it took an insider collaboration to thwart the unseating of Governor Ngige by a powerful thug sponsored by the PDP administration.
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