Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, says former President Olusegun Obasanjo is unfit to be Nigeria’s moral guardian.

Soyinka is always critical of the various atrocities Obasanjo committed during his reign as the number one citizen of the nation.

“Right from 1979, when Olusegun Obasanjo first quit office as a military dictator, he assumed the role of a moral compass to the nation, coming out occasionally to attack his successors. He attacked Shehu Shagari, the civilian who succeeded him. He also attacked the Buhari-Idiagbon and Babangida regimes which came after.

“He wanted General Sani Abacha to hand over to a unity government, calculating that he will be most likely invited to lead. But Abacha roped him into a coup and sent him to jail.

Obasanjo was the beneficiary of the democratic struggles during the Abacha regime, but after he took over power in 1999, he forgot all the heroes who paid the ultimate price, including the winner of the 1993 election, Moshood Abiola and all those who went to jail with him.

“He never considered it necessary to pardon them , after all he was pardoned by the short regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

“In office between 1999 and 2007, his democratic credentials and leadership was very poor. He even tried to elongate his tenure, but his plan was defeated by the National Assembly.

“But after leaving office, he went back to his past time, being the nation’s moral and political compass and the chief critic, as he attacked all his successors—Umar Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and now Muhammadu Buhari.

“Obasanjo’s townsman, Professor Wole Soyinka who has deeply studied the Obasanjo persona and often tackled him over his holier-than-thou posturing, went public last year with a documentation, in which he declared Obasanjo unfit to lead a mission to rescue Nigeria and restore the nation to sanity. (NAN/PMNEWS)