Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is running for reelection via proxy, according to Daniel Bwala, a spokesman for the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Council.
This was said by Bwala in an interview on Politics Today on Channels TV.
Prior to the February presidential election, Obasanjo officially backed the Labour Party's Peter Obi in a letter headed "My appeal to all Nigerians particularly Young Nigerians" as part of his new year's greeting to Nigerians.
No presidential candidate, according to the former president, is a saint, but Obi has the advantage when it comes to knowledge, discipline, and what they can provide.
However, commenting on the development, Bwala said, “There are a number of things in Obasanjo’s letter that cannot be argued like his assertions on the APC that the last seven years was a perilous time or it was a period that no Nigerian will wish a repeat of.
“This is one of the reasons I believe that Nigerians will not vote for APC in this election. He is right about that.
“But the part that he is wrong can be summarized in the fourth to the last paragraph in that letter, where he referred to Peter Obi as a needle that has a string, where he said that he can easily be controlled when goes wrong. That is the crux of his letter.
“Obasanjo is in search of a third term by proxy. In other words, what he is saying is that Peter Obi is a puppet and he should be voted for, guaranteeing Nigerians that he will control him.”
But responding to Bwala, a spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Kenneth Okonkwo, said that Obasanjo endorsed Obi because he is a man that can embark on legal and institutional reform if elected president.
He said, “Obasanjo endorsed Peter Obi because he is a man that can embark on legal and institutional reform to aggressively fight corruption and entrench rule of law, reduce the cost of governance and ensure the establishment of honest and efficient civil service. And Obasanjo knows that a man with such qualities cannot be a puppet.”