“I’m Not a Fool, No Nigerian Can Prove It” – Obasanjo Denies Third-Term Ambitions

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has dismissed long-standing claims that he sought a third term in office, asserting that no Nigerian can provide evidence to support such allegations.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Democracy Dialogue of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Obasanjo said, “I think I’m not a fool. If I wanted it, some thought I wanted it, I know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian, dead or alive, that will say I called him and told him I wanted the third term. None.”

He emphasized that achieving debt relief for Nigeria during his presidency, which he described as more challenging than securing a third term, proved his capability to accomplish such feats if he had genuinely pursued them. “I keep telling them that, look, if I wanted to get debt relief, which is more difficult than getting a third term and I got it, if I wanted a third time, I would have got it too,” he stated.

Obasanjo also cautioned against leaders who see themselves as irreplaceable, calling the mindset a “sin against God.” He argued that effective leadership comes from youthfulness, energy, and dynamism rather than from clinging to power. “I know that the best is done when you are young, ideal and vibrant and dynamic. When you are ‘kuje kuje’ you don’t have the best,” he said.

He added that no individual should assume they are indispensable. “Some people believe that unless they are there nobody else. They will even tell you that they haven’t got anybody else. I believe that is a sin against God, because if God takes you away, which God can do anytime, then somebody else will come, and that somebody else may do better or may do worse,” Obasanjo said, emphasizing the need for leaders to allow others the opportunity to lead.