It’s not just Nigerians, even African leaders are happy over Jonathan’s defeat – Obasanjo

While talking to an audience at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said African leaders were happy over the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election.

Mr. Obasanjo, who led the African Union Observation Mission to the April 2015 General Election in Sudan, spoke on Thursday at a Washington DC event.

 

According to him, his checks in a number of African countries suggested they were happy over the result of the election. He referred to President Goodluck Jonathan as a moving train who was providentially stopped from collapsing Nigeria.

“I have visited six countries since the election, they are as happy about the results as we are in Nigeria. It is good not only for Nigeria, it is good for Africa and I believe it is good for the world.”

PremiumTimes reports that the former president described Nigeria as a country that obsessively plays “a dangerous game of moving close to the precipice”. He said the country came close to disintegration in the run-up to the 2015 elections but switched swiftly to the path of redemption after the polls.

“I hope we will not fall over one of these days,” he said.

He said one month to the election, no one believed “we will have a peaceful election that is reasonably free and fair.”

Describing his role in the election as that of a person standing on the track of a moving train, the former president said during the countdown to the elections, he faced the option of “jumping off” the tracks or “be crushed” if the train did not providentially get “derailed and stop.”
He said he did not jump and was not crushed adding that “at every stage, there must be leaders imbued with sufficient courage and will to stand firm when you have to stand firm.”
He described the results of the elections as what Nigerians “deserve” though some Nigerians “did not want it”.