The former president had on New Year Day publicly endorsed Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party for next month’s general elections.
A former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, on Friday, said Peter Obi’s endorsement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo was “a big mistake” for the statesman.
The former president had on New Year Day publicly endorsed Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party for next month’s general elections.
His decision has since drawn criticisms from his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party, upon which platform he served between 1999 and 2007.
Lamido, who served as a foreign affairs minister under Obasanjo’s administration, made the remarks while answering questions from reporters at Bamaina, his country home, near Birnin kudu Local Government Area of Jigawa.
“Obasanjo is my boss, I believe in him, but he is also a human being, he can make mistakes. So he made a mistake.
“It’s a big mistake for him to endorse a candidate outside his own party which gave him the relevance, the importance, the image globally to become what he is.
“You don’t do that because of the younger generation.
“Whatever he said, whether power rotation or power shift, whatever it is, people are being a little bit dishonest,” Lamido said.
The former governor said that people failed to understand that when a party honoured them, dignified and made them who they were, they were expected to respect that party.
“So to me, Obasanjo or anybody else, he (Obasanjo), was talking because he was former Nigeria’s President, if he wasn’t, would he talk like this? Whatever he is saying now is because he is a Nigerian former President from PDP.
“So PDP invented and dignified him. So a leader is supposed to be inspiring, motivating and should be able to charter a new course for Nigeria so that his disciples will be able to carry on with that,” he said.