Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan was close to collapsing Nigeria until providence intervened to stop his re-election on March 28. Speaking in Washington DC, USA on Thursday, Former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo described Jonathan as a moving train who was providentially stopped from collapsing the country. He stated Nigeria was close to disintegration in the build-up to this year's elections and was only saved after the polls. As stated by OBJ, the President's defeat was good news in many African countries. “I have visited six countries since the election; they are as happy about the results as we are in Nigeria. It is good not only for Nigeria, it is good for Africa and I believe it is good for the world,” Obasanjo was quoted by Premium Times, as saying. But he expressed hope that Nigeria “will not fall over one of these days” against the backdrop of always playing “a dangerous game of moving close to the precipice”. Describing his role in the election as that of a person standing on the track of a moving train, OBJ stated during the countdown to the elections, he faced the option of “jumping off” the tracks or “be crushed” if the train did not providentially get “derailed and stopped.” He stated he did not jump and was not crushed, adding that “at every stage, there must be leaders imbued with sufficient courage and will to stand firm when you have to." The event was a lecture on “What is Right with Africa: Reframing Africa’s Leadership Challenges” organised by the United States Institute for Peace (USIP). Obasanjo who was responding to a question by Mr. Princeton Lyman, a former US ambassador to Nigeria, recalled how the country's flirtation with risks almost cost it political independence from Britain. He cited the example of the North on the edge of pulling out of the rest of the country after advocates of self-rule from the Eastern and Western Regions decided to “let the North go” when Northern leaders were reluctant to accept regional autonomy back then. “But reason prevailed,” he said, “East and West got internal autonomy in 1957, North got same in 1959 and the whole country got independence in 1960.”
