Obasanjo returns a damning verdict on 2023 polls, says exercise was a painful show of shame

Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has described the 2023 elections in Nigeria as a painful show of shame.

Obasanjo spoke at a public lecture series, tagged: “From Elections to Governance and Performance,” on Thursday in Abuja.

The former two-term president said efforts should be made by patriotic Nigerians to correct it and not to allow it to repeat itself.

Obasanjo also said he was too old to keep quiet and watch the country slide into dystopia, adding that efforts were required from well-meaning and committed patriots to rescue the nation from the precipice.

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At the event, put together by Nextier SPD, which also witnessed the public presentation of a book: “The Unending Quest for Reform: An Intellectual Memoir,” authored by Prof. Tunji Olaopa, the ex-president, criticised the growing debt profile and spending spree of government at all tiers, especially those at the helm of affairs currently, likening the situation to “spending like a drunken sailor”.

On the issues of reforms, he said governance in Nigeria now called for thinking outside the box in terms of development financing.

According to him, this trend of thinking has become inevitable in the face of Nigeria’s dwindling fortune in oil revenue, Nigeria’s huge foreign indebtedness, and the urgency of diversifying the Nigeria’s neo-cultural economy.

He said: “Let me suggest three ideas that I think can enrich the direction of the conversation here today.

“One, given what we saw during the election, Nigeria is now even more divided and more corroded than we thought.

“This places a deep onus on any administration, following the current one, to urgently facilitate the process of national moral rearmament and national reconciliation that the potential will enhance skilled for the aggrieved and lead us across Nigeria and to assuage the youth.

“This must be done in sync with the imperative of national value orientation that Nigeria requires to build a collective sense of enduring and local values and national belonging.

“Two, governance in Nigeria now calls for thinking outside the box in terms of development financing.

“This has become inevitable in the face of Nigeria’s dwindling fortune, in oil revenue, Nigeria’s huge foreign indebtedness, and the urgency of diversifying the Nigeria’s neo-cultural economy.

“Three, political will, political action, and administrative efforts must be invested on reforming the public service into a capability ready institution that could enable Nigeria’s development agenda beyond 2023.

“All of these and more are necessary to correct and not to repeat the sickening and painful show of shame which the elections of 2023 degenerated into.”