the former nigerian president, olusegun obasanjo, has recommended peter obi, the presidential candidate of the labour celebration, as his preferred choice for president in next month’s election.

mr obasanjo gave his endorsement in an open letter to younger nigerians on sunday.

“none of the contestants is a saint however while one compares their man or woman, antecedent, their know-how, information, subject and energy that they may be capable of convey to bear and the splendid efforts required to stay centered on the task particularly looking at wherein the u . s . a . is nowadays and with the experience on the method that i in my opinion had, peter obi as a mentee has an facet. others like absolutely everyone have what they are able to make a contribution to the ultra-modern dispensation to liberation, recuperation and salvaging of nigeria together.

“a further important point to make approximately peter is that he is a needle with thread related to it from north and south and he won't get lost,” he wrote.

mr obi is one of the presidential candidates who had sought the help of the preceding president.

others who have sought mr obasanjo’s guide encompass bola tinubu of the all progressives congress and atiku abubakar of the peoples democratic party (pdp), mr obasanjo’s former birthday party.

is obasanjo’s useful resource applicable

mr obasanjo’s assist does no longer assure any candidate victory in a presidential election however he's considered one of the maximum influential nigerians alive.

in 2019, he supported his former deputy, atiku abubakar of the pdp, towards incumbent president muhammadu buhari. mr buhari received that election.

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however, in advance than then, the candidates mr obasanjo (president from 1999 to 2007) supported within the presidential elections in 2007, 2011 and 2015 all emerged successful.

take a look at mr obasanjo’s whole statement below.

luxurious compatriots and pals,

my attraction to all nigerians in particular

more youthful nigerians

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satisfied new 12 months! may additionally all our national calamities disappear this one year.

i am limited to jot down this letter to all nigerians specifically young nigerians, pals of nigeria globally in addition to our improvement partners due to the gravity, duty and implications of the collective choice nigerians, each young and old, may be making inside the next months.

the very last seven and a half of of years haven't any doubt been eventful and demanding years for plenty nigerians. we have were given moved from frying pan to fire and from mountain top to the valley. our leaders have completed their fine, but their great had grew to become out to be no longer the wonderful for nigeria and nigerians at home and abroad. for most nigerians, it became hell in the world.

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those folks that are alive have to thank god for his mercies, brace ourselves for the final few months of this management and pray and work very tough for a right away better future – future of liberation, recuperation and top notch want and expectation.

we've were given had campaigners going up and down america feeding us with what they mean and what they do no longer suggest, what they understand and what they do now not absolutely understand, what's possible and what isn't viable, what's sensible and what is unrealistic, what's proper and what is unfaithful. i consider that we need not be pressured nor be gullible. allow us to be cautious, no longer to be fooled again.

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i have interacted with the most vital contestants and i discover it thrilling that, in a unmarried shape or the alternative, every of them claims to need to do what i did in the course of my presidency and to take nigeria again to in which it changed into at the peak of my presidency and straight away after. i used to be pained that maximum of them do now not remember the fact that the nigeria of nowadays were dragged down nicely below nigeria of the start of my presidency in june 1999. although at that factor, nigeria have become in very awful form and modified into tottering on the verge of fall apart and smash-up. even then, nigeria changed into now not confronted with the level of pervasive and mind-numbing lack of self belief, rudderless management, buoyed by way of mismanagement of variety and pervasive corruption, horrible financial pointers ensuing in extremes of poverty and big unemployment and galloping inflation.

for these reasons, i stored declaring to them that the units applied in 1999 to 2007 and method used will grossly be insufficient for the perilous state of affairs we now locate ourselves.

without prejudice but with satisfactory respect to every person with utmost regard for the splendid for nigeria and all nigerians and from my private experience, all of the primary contestants declare to be my mentees. i cannot deny such positions considering that i've worked with they all at once and in a roundabout way in government.

i have come to comprehend an expansion of of things in man or woman, attributes and thoughts-set which might be essential in the job of directing the affairs of nigeria effectively and at a time like this. those traits or attributes are many but let us be privy to a few key ones collectively.

from interaction and revel in, and as mentees as most of them claim, i can, without prejudice, fear or ill-will, make ambitious to say that there are 4 predominant elements to look at out for in a pacesetter you will keep in thoughts to hoist on yourself and at the rest of nigerians in the coming election and they're what i call tvcp: music document of potential and overall performance; vision that is proper, sincere and sensible; man or woman and attributes of a woman and a gentleman who are children of god and obedient to god; and bodily and highbrow capability with soundness of mind as it is a very taxing and tasking venture at the excellent of times and more so it's far at the most hard time that we're.

permit me say right now that ‘emi lokan’ (my turn) and ‘i've paid my dues’ are one and the same element and are wrong mindset and mentality for the management of nigeria now. they can not shape the new pedestal to reinvent and to spend money on a brand new nigeria based totally on an all-nigeria authorities for the liberation and recuperation of nigeria. the sort of government want to have illustration from all sectors of our national lifestyles – public, private, civil society, expert, labour, employers, and the diaspora. the answer have to be in ‘we’ and ‘us’ and now not in ‘me’ and ‘i’.

mind you, i reiterate that no person is an angel now not to say a messiah, however there are elements of those attributes and on comparative foundation and via using measure of what we recognize of, and what a number of us have skilled from the the front-runners, we have to determine judiciously and choose wisely. if anyone claims he or she has whatever to the contrary, it will likely be up to him or her to show to us.

i pray no longer to be proved right once more in the awful feel however as an alternative to be proved right in the great and remarkable experience of nigeria turning into what god had created it to be – a land of masses and prosperity united for not unusual motive of inclusive society, common protection, shared prosperity, fairness, egalitarianism, justice, and identical stake inside the assignment nigeria with management function of nigeria for the black race and truthful percentage of global division of labour.

one ridiculous aspect that has been touted to justify unjustifiable appointments and alternatives is ‘competence’. in truth and in reality, genuine competence may be found in any area or phase of nigeria thru track document and typical overall performance if fine humans will sincerely and simply appearance difficult for people with such attainment and characteristic. most parents in pinnacle moral sense can testify to competence at the same time as we see any everywhere. what's masqueraded as ‘competence’ is self-hobby and nepotism.

we've got were given a totally precise possibility to accurate ourselves thru ourselves for the best of ourselves. folks that are preaching branch, segregation, separation, and want to use variety for their non-public self and egocentric hobby are enemies of the us of a, regardless of what else they may disguisedly profess or proclaim.

the mission is for nigerian kids:

if we fall prey again, we can have ourselves in price and nobody can say what number of more knocks nigeria can take earlier than it pointers over. to be forewarned is to be fore-armed. future isn't emotion. i project the younger humans to get up. allow nobody pull wool over your eyes to divide you and/or segregate you to make you underlings. nigerian teens, everywhere they come from, north or south, east or west want training this is now denied to over 20 million children; nigerian teenagers additionally want skills, empowerment, employment, reasonably outstanding residing situations, welfare and nicely-being.

my steeply-priced younger ladies and men, you should come together and result in a truly significant trade on your lives. if you fail, you haven't any one else accountable. your present and destiny are for your arms to make or to mar. the destiny of nigeria is within the identical manner on your palms and actually so. if for any reason you fail to redeem your self and your u . s ., you can have misplaced the possibility for terrific and you may haven't any one guilty but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you. arise, get together, get going and get us to wherein we ought to be. and also you, the young human beings, it's miles a while and your flip. ‘eyin lokan’ (your flip).

the power to change is to your arms. your destiny, my destiny, the destiny of grandchildren and first-rate grandchildren is on your palms. politics and elections are numbers recreation. you've got the numbers, arise, stand up and make your numbers keep in mind.

permit me say it once more, loud and clean, nigeria has no agency with insecurity, poverty, insurgency, banditry, unemployment, hunger, debt, department and disunity. we're in these situations because of the truth advertently or inadvertently, our leaders have made the options. they've got finished the nice they'll do. let them take their relaxation deservedly or not and permit them to experience their retirement as septuagenarians or older.

i've turn out to be head of kingdom at 39 and at 42, i had retired into the farm. while it changed into needful, i used to be drafted decrease back into lively political existence after two decades of interregnum. i got here lower back at 62 and by way of 70, i was on my manner out. others like fashionable gowon and enahoro have become national leaders at 33 and 27 respectively and popular gowon at the helms of management of nigeria at the highest level. the power, electricity, agility, dynamism and outreach that the process of control of nigeria calls for on the very pinnacle might not be supplied as a septuagenarian or older. i recognize that from private experience. and it's miles obtrusive out of our present day-day studies. otherwise, we are able to be fed with, “the president says” and we will neither see nor pay attention him immediately as we must. sure, for a few, age and bodily and intellectual disposition aren't in tandem. but in which and when they are with apparent evidence, they want to be taken into consideration for purpose of truth. and but it's miles a job in our gift scenario where the group leader or captain of the group ought to be away from mattress, outgoing outside and inside and speaking to the kingdom on nearly day by day foundation visibly and as lots as viable interactively and meeting his colleagues all over the global on behalf of nigeria. teenagers of nigeria, a while has come, and it's miles now and please draw near it. if no longer now, it will possibly be in no way. i appeal to you to expose the tide on its head and march ahead chanting ‘awa lokan’ (our flip) not with a sense of entitlement, however with a demonstrable ideological dedication to cohesion and transformation of nigeria.

leave the beyond, face the future:

can we allow the past move? i attraction to the young nigerians to save you inheriting distinct people’s prejudices and enemies. make your very very own pals and forestall inheriting your father’s enemies.

permit’s save you criminalizing and demonizing one another on the idea of the civil warfare on which we're all wrong. and permit’s reward and thank god for maintaining the oneness of nigeria. the scripture says that if god may take account of all our wrongdoings, nobody could be capable of stand in advance than him. at the same time as no longer affected by amnesia, let us stop still fighting and reacting to the civil war in our hearts, minds, heads and our mind-set acrimoniously. permit’s prevent living on our brilliant wrongs or errors of the beyond: treasonable felony, tiv rebellion and its handling, first military coup and its aftermath, 2d military coup, araba, pogrom and the civil struggle, all within the Nineteen Sixties. and more these days opc, egbesu, massob, ipob, boko haram and banditry. no location can declare to be harmless or to be saintly. and no justification will suffice. in our respective person or close by positions, we've got were given carried out right and we have were given accomplished wrong. it's far therefore now not right for any human beings to be sanctimonious to peer ourselves as saints and the relaxation as devils incarnate.

absolutely allow us to agree to move forward collectively in mutual forgiveness, one accord, inclusive society, equality and equity. together and without bias and discrimination, fear or favour, we are capable of have nigeria of 1 country in variety, in fact and in exercise. allow us to honour, cherish, appreciate or even rejoice our variety it's the idea of our capacity greatness and strength. if we will excellent hold to harp on wrongs finished thru each of us personally or collectively, we are able to by no means be able to stand together. if we can keep with vast brush to coloration a countrywide or sub-national employer as lousy and never to be relied on with control because of past errors or errors that some of them were liable for and deal with their offspring as inheritors, it'll quantity to top notch injustice so one can clearly cause no peace, no security and no stability for improvement and development.

first, no enterprise is good; 2nd, for the greatness of the complete, we need each other as components of the complete; 1/3, we can't be talking and working for africa’s integration and for nigeria’s disintegration on the identical time. why for instance ought to i be stigmatized or despised because of my location of starting, place of start or wherein i come from? wherein i was born, with the aid of whom i was born and at the same time as i was born had been not choices made through me. they were alternatives and prerogatives of god. any antagonism in opposition to me on that basis is arbitrary and is tantamount to fighting in opposition to god, the writer. such derogatory mind-set and thoughts-set do now not construct any human institution let alone a rustic. while no longer forgetting the past, allow us to located the beyond in the back of us for it not to maintain to mar our present and our future and that of the approaching technology. we need to rise above primordial animalistic instincts and conduct. sure, we are human and higher than animals within the wild. allow us to expand countrywide ethos and national traits that can take us collectively to the promised.

my high-priced younger men and women, allow me guarantee you that there are only two tribes of human beings in nigeria a tribe of accurate humans and a tribe of terrible humans. you're both a first rate nigerian of igbo extraction, kanuri extraction, and many others, or a awful nigerian of yoruba extraction, ijaw extraction and plenty of others.

i am capable of at this juncture need to commend the politicians as they've normally been fairly civil in their campaigns without making politics as a call to conflict in opposition to warring parties. proper and truthful competition conveys more legitimacy in any political competition or opposition. a state of affairs in which human beings in authority and power anticipate such positions through foul and despicable method and keep to espouse and act in methods that only engender struggle or war thru subverting legitimacy of electricity and authority does no longer augur nicely for the polity and as such, the ethical foundation of the authorities and the society may be terribly weakened.

might also god assist, store, protect and sustain nigeria for all nigerians, for africa and for the human race. we're able to best preserve to play politics of ethnicity, faith, place and money bags at the peril of our united states of america and to self-destruction. we want selfless, courageous, honest, patriotic, in quick, amazing management with character and fear of god beyond what we've had in ultra-modern past.