Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday said Nigeria would win the current war
against the Boko Haram sect.
He said
the nation did not have to wait until all insurgents had been killed before it
could claim victory over the terrorists.
Obasanjo
spoke with State House correspondents shortly after leading a group of
Columbians and others to visit President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential
Villa, Abuja.
He said
he and members of his delegation had earlier taken it upon themselves to visit
Columbia to study how the country had been handling insurgency, which he noted,
had been with them for 50 years.
The
former President said he decided to intimate Buhari with his findings which he
believed could assist the current anti-terror war in the country and also
report back to him on the progress being made in his intervention in the crisis
in Guinea Bissau.
When
asked specifically if the war could be won, Obasanjo said the country could
emerge victorious since the civil war was won.
The
former President added, "Oh yes. If we won the civil war, we can win this
one. But like the Columbian said, we are not waiting until we kill off every
insurgent to say we have won.
"I
believe that once the military has the upper hand, other measures that have to
be taken will be put in place.
"There
will be measures of socio-economic development, education, employment.
"All
that has to go into the process of eventually winning the war and saying 'Uhuru’.”
When further asked if the
war could be won within the three months deadline given the military by the
President, Obasanjo said Buhari's deadline was not cast in stone.
He said
it was normal for the President to set a target for the military.
Obasanjo
said, "The President must give a target. When you give somebody a target,
you give him something to aspire to, giving him an objective. Target is not
cast in stone.
"I
believe that if you are talking of getting the upper hand, gradually, we are
getting the upper hand.
"We
are not there yet but we are getting close. And once we are getting the upper
hand, we move on and do other things."
When
asked what specific lessons to be learnt from the insurgency in Colombia,
Obasanjo replied, "The specific thing is that they have been fighting
insurgency for 50 years. They celebrated their 50 years of existence in May
last year; in fact, we went there in June.
"So,
we want to see what has kept them going, what has kept insurgency going? What
has made the government of Columbia to make three attempts to seek peace, to
end the war and insurgency and they failed? What is the new efforts that they
are making? How likely are those new efforts going to succeed?"
He said
Buhari showed interest in their presentation on the Columbia experience.
"He
was interested. You know that one thing you can say about the President is that
he is anxious to learn and he has listening ears. Of course, nobody knows it
all. A good leader must seek every opportunity to learn and to put what he
learns into practice," he added.
On the
Guinea Bissau crisis, Obasanjo expressed the hope that a government would be
put in place latest by Tuesday (today).
This, he
said, was the fallout of his visit to the country over the weekend.
"The
second aspect of my visit was the work that both the President and the ECOWAS
gave me in Guinea Bissau.
"The
last time, we were able to resolve all the issues of getting a new Prime
Minister. This time, we had also been able to resolve the issue of now forming
a government.
"If
nothing intervenes, I believe between today and tomorrow, a new government will
be in place in Guinea Bissau. They have been without government for almost two
months.
"When
I was there, I praised the restraint of the general public and particularly the
military because the military leaders hold me that for two months, they have
not gotten salary. They could not even buy fuel into military vehicles and yet
they continue to maintain restraints.
"That
cannot go on forever. So, I hope that the actions that we have taken over the
weekend (I was there on Friday morning and I left early morning of Sunday), we
might be in the process of putting that behind us," he added.
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