Obasanjo advises Jonathan on appointments

Cape Town (South Africa) – Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has advised President Goodluck Jonathan  to be cautious in choosing people that will work with him during his four-year tenure.

“I have no advice to anybody on making a government but all I will say is that  a leader will be judged on the type of people he builds around himself.

“Therefore any leader building a team that will work with him must be extremely careful because there are so many things to balance,”  Obasanjo told the News Agency of Nigeria in Cape Town, South Africa, on Thursday.
Obasanjo said it was, however, important that the President should put together a crack team that could deliver.

“He must be able to say this is the team, the crack team that will do the work. It  does not matter whether they are politicians  or technocrats but it must be a team that when you see, you know that it is a team that will deliver.

“ All I can do is to wish the president and governors well as they make their cabinet,” he said.

He said that having had an election which was regarded as credible and which reflected the will of the people, it was time to decide on how to move forward as a nation.

Obasanjo said that it was time to put the violence which came in the wake of the Presidential elections behind  advising  elected leaders to start  preparation to set up their governments.

He said that putting the violence behind should however not mean putting the impunity from it behind us.
“I am not saying we should put impunity behind us, we should not allow any impunity,” he explained.

The former President tasked Jonathan to ensure that corruption was not  a way of life in the country and exemplify this by making himself a paragon of non corruption and also making those around him to do likewise.

“When examples are made, people will know it is a serious matter and not a matter of joke,” he said.