The Arewa Awareness and Solidarity Movement (AASM) has advised northern politicians not to allow themselves to be fooled by reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has fallen out with President Goodluck Jonathan because of Obasanjo’s insistence that power return to the north in 2015.
A statement by the spokesman of the Movement, Alhaji Garba Bafashi, said the latest media report of the purported rift between Obasanjo and Jonathan over the transfer of power in 2015 was a smokescreen by the former president to confuse, disorganise and throw the north off the scene politically, with a view to weakening it even further.
The statement explained that political treachery is in Obasanjo’s nature and therefore warned the north against falling prey to his latest antics.
It recalled that Obasanjo aided and abetted the disruption of the zoning arrangement in 2010 shortly after the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
According to the statement, in 2007 Obasanjo imposed power shift to the north on his own terms with a hidden agenda, which manifested itself even before President Yar’Adua died.
Having been humiliated in 2007 and 2010, it said, the north no longer has any basis to trust the former president.
It maintained that the purported split between Jonathan and Obasanjo was a make-believe script his former aides were acting out to mislead the north once again.
The statement further warned northern leaders against leaving the political future of the region in the treacherous hands of Obasanjo, who, it alleged, was once again seeking the opportunity to punish the zone because of the grudges he had against its leaders.
Alhaji Bafashi, in the statement ,advised the north to be wiser rather than take the risk of repeating the same mistakes of trusting a man to whom honour means nothing.
