Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has described the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar as possessing requisite qualities needed for moving Nigeria forward.
Obasanjo who spoke on Wednesday in Lagos at the Lagos Island Club quarterly business lecture said his former vice president presided over the affairs of the nation in his stead effectively whenever he was out of the country during their eight-year stint as the president and vice president respectively.
The former president reacted to insinuations that he did not trust his former vice president with power whenever he was not available.
He said, “that is not true because he had occasion to preside a few times that I was out of the country on duty. On those occasions, he was in charge of the FEC meetings and no Nigerian chief executive has devolved to his deputy as much as I did to Atiku.
“I did not need to designate him ‘acting president’ because the constitution is clear; once the president is not available, the vice president automatically acts with full powers, and he consults when and if he considers it necessary
“But since I was not absent from home for 104 days at a time, people may not know that Atiku actually stood in for me whenever I was out (of the country).
“You have a man who has what it takes in experience, exposure, lessons that he has learnt and he has learnt his lessons. I tried to teach him a few of them. You have a man who has what it takes at this time for us to have a change and we need a change for the better.”