A former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has raised the alarm that the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has put his name on its security watchlist.
Obasanjo claimed security agencies are plotting to arrest and put him in detention.
The former president made these allegations in a statement signed by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, on Friday in Abeokuta.
Obasanjo noted that the present administration wanted to blackmail him into abandoning his divine mandate to protect the rights of Nigerians to a better life.
The statement read in part: “Since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo declared in his State-of-the-Nation special statement on January 23, 2018, the desperation to frustrate, intimidate and blackmail him into abandoning his divine mandate to protect the rights of the people to better life and living continued unabated and has even taken a bizarre dimension.
“Impeccable security sources have alleged Chief Obasanjo’s name is on their Watch List and that the security of his life cannot be guaranteed.
“According to these informants, many of who are in the top echelon of the nation’s security management and close to the corridors of power, the operatives are daily perfecting how to curtail the personal liberties of the former President and hang a crime on him.
“Ordinarily, we would not have dignified these reports with a response but for the fact that many of these informants are not known for flippant and frivolous talks.
“This government has demonstrably exhibited apathy, and in some cases, encouraged by its conduct, daily loss of lives and property in many states of the country, the office cannot be indifferent.
“We are currently in a nation where the Number Three citizen is being harangued and the Number Four citizen is facing similar threat within the same Government they serve.
“There is a groundswell of our nationals that live in fear that they could be hounded, harassed, maimed or even killed as the battle for 2019 takes this worrisome dimension.
“…The content of the alleged beastly designs, it was learnt are two-fold for now. One, to seize his International Passport and clamp him into detention indefinitely, in order to prevent him from further expressing angst on the pervasive mediocrity in the quality of governance, economic management and in the protection of lives and property by the government.
“But, since that could expose the government to a swath of international condemnation, embarrassment and outrage, it is said that another plot being hatched is to cause the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to re-open investigation into the activities of Chief Obasanjo’s administration using false witnesses and documents.”
. Punch