Why Obasanjo is Nigeria’s best president since 1999 – Moghalu

 A FORMER Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeri, Prof Kingsley Moghalu, has explained why Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is the best president Nigeria has had since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999 after years of military interregnum.

Moghalu said the former president was successful because “he was focused on Nigeria as his constituency, not his ethnic group.”

Moghalu, also a presidential candidate in the 2019 polls, in a statement on social media just days after Obasanjo marked his 84th birthday, said: “OBJ, faults and all, is our best President since 1999. One key reason for his success is that he was focused on Nigeria as his constituency not his ethnic group. All his career was federal/international – nation-building, national security, economy, foreign affairs.

“So he thought like a president of Nigeria, not a provincial politician. Nigeria is a unique place. In advanced democracies, it is often the case that politicians start local and move upward. Because they have a real nation with a unity of purpose and destiny.

“Here, the presidency requires transcendence of mind and action in order to provide the kind of leadership we need. Strong experience in federal and international institutions provides that necessary perspective for effective leadership of a country like ours.”

Obasanjo, a former military Head of State, was sworn in as president in 1999 and went on to serve two terms in office.

Retrospectively, some Nigerians have been eulogising the ex-president for  putting national interest above narrow ethnic sentiment in the way he clamped down on the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) during his tenure, despite the fact that group is predominantly constituted by Nigerians of Yoruba extraction, his ethnic group.

The reactions came on the heels of the growing insecurity in the land and the suspect disposition of President Buhari to the supposedly divisive utterances of members of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria among other nothern groups.