Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has opened up on controversial claims that he wanted a third term at the tail end of his administration in 2007.
He challenged Nigerians to provide evidence that he made such an attempt.
There has been the belief that Obasanjo deliberately pursued a third term agenda but that it was truncated by the National Assembly.
However, Obasanjo, who spoke on Wednesday at the Democracy Dialogue of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana, said no such ambition existed.
“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.
"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 said.
The former president argued that obtaining debt relief for Nigeria during his tenure was far more difficult than securing a third term, stressing that if he had truly pursued it, he would have achieved it.
He also warned against leaders who believe they are irreplaceable, describing such a mentality as a “sin against God.”
According to him, the best of leadership comes from those who are young, vibrant, and dynamic, not from individuals who refuse to leave the stage.
"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.
“But 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 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.
“I don't say he will do the work better. He may do better, he may do worse, but somebody else will come," Obasanjo stated.
