Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has raised an alarm over alleged plan by the Buhari government to arrest and detain former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He also said the government has marked vocal critics as well as opposition leaders for similar treatment.
This was contained in a statement he personally signed, yesterday.
It reads: “I have read the disturbing reports about the Buhari administration’s plan to frame up, arrest and detain former President Olusegun Obasanjo on trumped up and politically-motivated charges.
It has also been brought to my attention that they have threatened his life.
Though I am not surprised because this is nothing new for this government. That is their stock in trade and they have been doing it for the last three years to anyone and everyone that opposes or criticises them.
What bothers me now is that President Buhari has become so jittery that he is prepared to do anything to stay in power. I have done my research and I have discovered that the plan is real.
The government are also planning to target other key opposition figures and elder statesmem as we get closer to 2019 such as General T.Y. Danjuma, General Ibrahim Babangida, President Goodluck Jonathan and a handful of others.
It appears that Buhari will stop at nothing in order to ensure that all his critics are silenced.
The plan to implicate and silence all these leaders together with key figures in the PDP like Ayo Fayose, Emmanuel Udom, Ibrahim Dankwambo, Nyesom Wike, Darius Ishaku, Godswill Akpabio, David Mark, Ike Ekweremadu, Liyel Imoke, Uche Secondus, Sule Lamido, Ibrahim Shekarau, Abubakar Suleiman, Kabiru Turaki, David Jang, Atiku Abubakar, Dele Belgore, Jumoke Akinjide, Nenadi Usman and others is condemnable.
They also plan to give some of us the Nnamdi Kanu treatment and make us dissapear or give us the Sambo Dasuki and El Zak Zaky treatment and lock us up indefinately but they will fail.
Such is Buhari’s desperation that he is even attempting to discredit and destroy key members of his own party like Bukola Saraki, Yakubu Dogara, Dino Melaye, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abubakar Baraje, Aminu Tambuwal, Abdul Fatah Ahmed, Timi Frank and others.
Nobody is safe anymore, not even legislators, media houses, journalists, bloggers, religious organisations or NGO’s that oppose or criticise the Federal Government.
Nigeria is fast becoming a fascist police state where dissent is seen as a crime and where those that oppose the President are perceived as enemies of the state and prisoners of war.
They forget that we have a divine obligation and patriotic duty to oppose evil and tyranny in the land and nothing will make us shirk that responsibility.
Let it be clearly understood that we will not sit by idly and allow Buhari to continue to threaten, harrass and intimdate all those who oppose him. We are not intimidated and we have no fear. Governments come and go and no matter what he does Buhari will not be there forever.
Taking this matter to a level of threatening the lives and liberty of people like Obasanjo, Danjuma, Babangida, Jonathan and other elder statemen and seeking to destroy key opposition figures for no just cause is dangerous and unacceptable and it will have consequences.
We do not want war in Nigeria: we want peace and the Buhari government should desist from provoking a situation and a series of events that may end up spiralling out of control.
It is almost as if they are begging for war and that is tragic. They may have the full machinery and power of the Federal Government but we have the Living God. Nothing can stop us in our divine mission to stop him and rescue Nigeria.
The truth is that any untoward or irrational course of action will be met with a corresponding and appropriate reaction which may have dire implications for the peace and unity of our nation.
This game must be played within the rules of engagement or else all hell will eventually break lose. Buhari must be warned.
Peace, fair play and justice must be allowed to reign in our nation and those that oppose the President must be treated with the respect, decency and decorum that they deserve.
They are not enemies of the state and prisoners of war but law-abiding and patriotic Nigerians that have no faith in him and that wish to rescue Nigeria from his tyranny. There is no crime in that and they do not deserve to be killed or to be locked up for it.”
Meanwhile, mixed reactions have contuined to trailed the alarm raised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo over an alleged plot by President Muhammadu Buhari to frame him up and thereafter detain him.
The allegation has split leaders along two lines, with many, who spoke with our correspondent berating President Buhari for his penchant for clamping down on perceived critics, while others tongue-lashed Obasanjo over the allegation.
Founder of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Dr Frederick Fasheun, while reacting to the threat, dared anybody to, “on cooked-up allegations,” lift a finger against Obasanjo whom he described as a towering figure and be prepared for a backlash from the Yoruba people.
Speaking with newsmen, Fasehun, who warned that “Let anybody try anything funny with Obasanjo and see the consequence,” said it would not be possible to jail Obasanjo on unsubstantiated allegation and then jail him on that basis.
“How can you jail somebody like Obasanjo without adequate charges? Obasanjo is like an elephant tied to a narrow string and is being put inside a room. It is not easy.
“What do people think Obasanjo is?,” he queried, adding, “If anybody tries to jail Obasanjo, the Yoruba people will make such a noise, the whole world would go deaf. So, I don’t think it’s possible.
“Well, I would just advise Obasanjo to stay cool and I tell you he is beyond imprisonment: he is far, far beyond imprisonment,” Fasehun added.
A former deputy national chariman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, on his part, implored both President Buhari and Obasanjo to sheath their swords and resolve their differences behind the curtain in the interest of the military profession they both belonged, declaring that Nigeria is greater than anybody.
George made the appeal in a statement entitled, Buhari and Obasanjo: Let’s Sheath the sword, a copy of which he made available to newsmen, saying he was, however, making the appeal in a “non-partisan arbitration,” even though he belongs to an opposition party.
This was just as he said that he remained committed to his party, PDP’s insistence on restructuring of the Nigerian union to ensure democratic balance, equity, and the ingredients of fairness.
“I have read Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement about the threat to his life with conscionable, natural concern. I have also read the presidency’s rejoinder which implied that there is nothing sinister in their motives,” the PDP chieftain, who is also a retired military officer, said.
“Chief Obasanjo is a man of towering distinction and excellence who ruled this country both as a military Head of State and as a Civilian President. He is an international figure who is motivated by patriotic fixity”.
Ekiti State governor, Chief Ayodele Fayose, however, urged Obasanjo to submit himself for probe by the Buhari administration, saying the former president should also take his current travails in his strides.
The governor said Obasanjo should not make his predicament a Yoruba issue, adding that it was good that Obasanjo was now being served the goodies he saw in Buhari that made him Buhari’s promoter during the 2015 general election.
In a statement by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, the governor also advised Buhari that what goes around, comes around.
“To me, former President Obasanjo should submit himself for probe and trial. He gave us the impression that he is a brave man who is not afraid of anything. He is a former General in the army who has seen a lot and should not be raising the alarm now. Obasanjo said Buhari was the best for Nigeria while promoting him for the 2015 general election.
“Obasanjo even used those bodies to hound and lock up many people including state governors. Why is he now afraid of being probed? Let him tell Nigerians how he made his money. People can recollect the level he was before he became president and how he left office. If Buhari is now telling the whole world that Obasanjo stole money, it is incumbent on Obasanjo to prove his innocence.
The Association of the Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities (ASOMBEN) warned that any attempt to carry out the plan will not only attract international condemnations but could be an invitation to chaos.
The national chairman of ASOMBEN, Mr SuleKwasau, said the moves by the All Progressives Congress-led government to gag the opposition and critics would further soil the image of the government and expose its anti-democratic tendencies.
“Our advice is that those behind the moves to frame up the former president and other critics of the administration should consider the consequences of their plots and refrain from such before it is too late.
“This is exactly what we experienced during the military era and the present government wants to re-enact the same scenario to gag the opposition and critics of the administration.