Speaking to Politico the former army general said the situation in Sierra Leone since the civil war days had considerably improved. He said former president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah “laid some foundations and President Koroma has built a worthwhile edifice on that foundation”.
Obasanjo said that “for a nation there must be continuous building. If you regard that as endorsement [of President Ernest Koroma] well, I have no apology for that. But I still believe that whoever comes, whoever; he must not be a remover of the stone that has been put on the edifice.”
Obasanjo went on: “Now you look at what you have achieved in 10 years of post civil war. You are now the seventh most peaceful country in Africa, the fifty-second most peaceful country in the world. Now if that does not make you feel proud, it makes me feel proud”.
He hoped the elections would pass off peacefully, saying he was concerned about the tranquillity of Sierra Leone.
Photographs released by State House officials in Freetown show that Obasanjo joined President Koroma at a campaign rally in Kabala, northern Sierra Leone where he took to the platform and called for him to be re-elected.
Civil society activists in Sierra Leone have reacted angrily to Obasanjo's action calling it “interference into Sierra Leonean politics by a foreigner”.
The Executive Director of the Centre for Accountability and the Rule of Law (CARL), Ibrahim Tommy struggled to “condemn in the strongest of terms” the action. He told Politico that the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC) had to look into the issue alongside that of campaign financing by a foreigner which is an offence under PPRC Act.
“If Obasanjo paid for himself to come here and campaign that is tantamount to campaign financing” Tommy said, adding that whether or not it would affect the outcome of the elections did not matter but “the act itself by an African statesman is not decent”.
“This is not the kind of contribution we expect of an African statesman” Tommy went on, adding “we would have expected Obasanjo to come here to preach peace with all sides and meet with the presidential candidates and talk to them on the need to calm down the nerves of their supporters. That is how an African statesman should behave,” he said.
The spokesman of the All People's Congress, Alpha Kanu has expressed happiness and excitement that “an eminent person such as Obasanjo can endorse President Koroma”.
He said the former Nigerian president travelled at his own expense and as a private citizen.
Asked what he thought of those who believed it constituted interference into the country's internal politics, Kanu dismissed it, adding: “let them go and look for their own friends”.
