Liberian Poll: Fayose rejects Obasanjo as UN choice of mediator
By TUNDE BADMUS
Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has congratulated the newly
elected President of Liberia, George Opong Weah, describing him as
someone destined by God to be president.
He said “I salute George Weah’s courage and resilience in spite of the
activities and machinations of oppressors and interlopers who blocked
his victory 12 years ago. Because the likes of former President
Olusegun Obasanjo are not God, George Weah has been able to achieve
his destiny through the grace and power of God and I wish him a
successful tenure.”
The governor, who also described the United Nation’s (UN) choice of
Obasanjo as a mediator in Liberia as misplaced, pointed out that
“Someone like Obasanjo, who was at the centre of the manipulation of
George Weah’s electoral victory 12 years ago should not be the one to
mediate now that he (Weah) has secured the victory that he was denied
then.”
Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and
New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose urged the All Progressives
Congress (APC) led federal government and particularly the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) to learn from what happened in
Liberia and allow the will of the people to prevail in 2018 and 2019
elections.
He said “the emergence of George Weah as Liberia President 12 years
after he was short-changed by those who wielded power at that time is
a further confirmation that that there is no God in man.”
Governor Fayose called on the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres
to withdraw the nomination of Obassanjo as a mediator in Liberia,
noting that; “Obasanjo, who was a major actor in the Liberia’s 2005
election crisis lacked moral rights to be a mediator in the affairs of
that country now that it had the first peaceful transfer of power from
one democratically-elected leader to another in more than 70 years. He
will rather compound the problems in Liberia because I don’t see him
being trusted by the President-Elect, whom he (Obasanjo) openly worked
against in 2005 to impose the outgoing President, Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf for reasons best known to him.
“The UN should be mindful of the fact that someone like Obasanjo that
may be seen as celebrity and champion of democracy internationally is
actually a bad and decayed element, lacking democratic credential here
in Nigeria, considering his failed third term agenda.”
The governor told leaders of Africa, especially the democrats among
them to always avoid leaders like Obasanjo with questionable
antecedents, saying “he is the actual confusion in the continent.”
